The Value of Placement

    Many years ago, I was in a Goodwill, just killing some time. Upon entering the store, an item immediately caught my eye. Hanging on a coat rack was a bright yellow jacket with a nautical navy blue lining. It was in pristine condition. The many customers milling about didn't even look at the jacket, they all walked right past it in search of other bargains. I made my way to the coat rack concealing my excitement because I knew I stumbled upon something special. I took the jacket off of the rack and found out I was right. It was indeed a special find. In my hands was a brand new, seemingly never worn, Saks Fifth Avenue nautical jacket. At the time it would have retailed for about $250-$400. The Goodwill price was $12.99. Not a single person in that store knew what it was actually worth and therefore priced it at less than 5% of it's actual value and then left it on the rack to be ignored. Of course I bought it. I wondered to myself, "How long has this been just hanging there?" Where did it come from and how had it found its way to this little town whose only big news in months was when the opening of a Ruby Tuesday's made the front page of the local newspaper? I think about that jacket a lot. It reminds me of me. I am out of place and priced 95% below my actual value. And I'm just hanging on the rack. Passersby may think my colors are too bright or my fabric is all wrong. So I quietly hang here until it's my time to be plucked by an opportunity that sees that I simply don't belong here. More and more lately I ask myself how much longer am I supposed to wait? And unlike a jacket, Saks or not, I have legs and can move and I have a voice and can raise it. But where am I to go and who am I to call out to? This is the problem with being out of place. 

    I have been in conference rooms and while I struggle as a facilitator, I speak with conviction and can command a room when need be. While some may have been impressed with me, most were not. I was often met with glares and push back. More often than not, those that were at the top of the distribution food chain and my equal peers were the ones that liked working with me. But the glares came from the ones that I had to report to. Jokes at my expense and negative comments were made in mixed company and therefore always found their way to my ears. I know my peers meant well but it bothered me to know that I was still an outsider, even in my own career and with those that should have been considered a team to me. In moments of low esteem I would think of that treasure I found so many years ago and I would tell myself, "Natasha, you're simply in the wrong market. They don't know your value." 

     Almost any organic life form that is out of its element and proper environment will struggle, fail to thrive, and even die. Unlike a jacket they can't just hang around for too long. Have you ever seen a news story or video on social media about lakes with dangerously low water levels? They often show fish that are dying. They stopped flopping around and just lie in the muddy puddles struggling to take in any bits of water they landed in. They only have the energy to barely survive, that is until they simply cannot survive any longer. Humans are not much different in that regard. If we find ourselves in the wrong environment or even in a toxic one, we are either flopping around wildly or barely surviving. People are deemed unemployable or difficult to work with when in all actuality, they (we) may simply be in the wrong environments and therefore failing to thrive. Looking at the other side, in the right and healthy environment, we thrive and grow and truly live. 

    The trouble I am having at this very moment is that I know I am out of place. I have felt out of place for most of my life. That is why I hide much of the time. I am finding that failing to thrive for so long has me exhausted of just surviving. I know that I have come a long way. I also know that I have not come this far to only get this far. So where do I go from here? Furthermore, if I knew where to go, how would I even get there? I feel like there is a giant inside of me, a huge spirit just aching to be freed. In one of my many attempts to make some headway I made a list of my gifts, talents, and marketable skills. That list has remained untouched because I don't know where my market is. I know I have done myself a disservice in being dormant for too long. No more hiding. I think it's high time I took myself marketing.

    

Good is Never Good Enough and Great is Never Done

I have been searching for employment for about 4 months. I quit the job that was sucking the life out of me, had enough money to cover me for a few months, and started applying to what I was hoping would be new career paths. I applied to nearly 100 open positions through Indeed, employment agencies, and I applied directly on company sites and have only had 4 interviews, 2 rejections, and no job offers. I wanted to change my life. I wanted to be happy where I worked and spent most of my waking hours. My savings dried up, I had to start asking for money that I knew I couldn’t pay back, and so I decided to bite the bullet and return to the field I didn’t want to be in since that’s where most of my experience has been and I could earn more money based on that experience. This morning I received a phone call that I had been offered a position and was so excited to get back on the financial track of work, pay bills, and eventually die. About 20 minutes later I received another phone call from the agency which informed me she notified the wrong applicant. I was immediately deflated. I updated my family and they all had the same reaction I did. Total deflation. I thought to myself, what god, what universe, what omnipotent being could be so cruel. Silence I was used to, but false hope? That damn near annihilated me. I turned off my phone and slept off the depression. A former colleague and newfound friend had been trying to get a hold of me and when I finally answered I erupted in tears and blurted out everything. After she let me vent for a while she demanded I stop the pity party. She reminded me of who and what I am. 

Who and what I am is the reason why I’m in this mess and also the reason why I know conventional draining work is never going to work for me. You see, I happen to know my value, and that seems to be a problem for others. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think I know everything. But I do know that I can learn anything and fairly quickly to boot. I have been told many things about myself by managers that have found my strong personality exasperating. Mind you, my job performance was not the issue. My personality was.

 "Your problem is that you’ve been able to do what you want for too long." 

"You don’t handle feedback well." 

"We need to change the perception of you." 

 "You care too much." 

"You don’t always have to be the center of attention." 

"No one likes a know it all." 

 None of the aforementioned comments were actually related to my job performance. 

In the time at my most recent employer that I shall not name (rhymes with FISH) I had accomplished the following: 

• Reduced downtime on a semi-automated line 
• Reduced unnecessary overtime in the small parcel department 
• Developed 2 direct reports so they could move to higher levels 
• Interview Prep for a lead that was promoted to a supervisor role 
• Implemented cross training that was first criticized by my manager only to later be made regular practice 
• Trained in 2 company courses with no support from my manager - some days I had to work 15 hours because of scheduling and no coverage for my area - when another supervisor agreed to cover me, my manager denied it even though there was enough coverage for him to do so. The trainer for one of the courses communicated how it was obvious that I was not being given the same opportunity as my peers in the class. I still passed the course. 

Listed below is what I did compared to my peers in the same position:

 

 I was often challenged at a higher standard and then criticized when I would challenge back and set firm boundaries. I did most of what I was told up until my performance review. I have never, even as a young employee, had a bad review. I was blindsided by OKRs and expectations that I was not even made aware of. And even though one of my peers had the same experience with his PA with the same manager, I was the only one that was rated as improvement required and placed on a performance improvement plan. I repeatedly asked for a copy of my performance review but it was never given one. And my performance improvement plan included things that were not discussed with me and some of the areas didn’t make sense to me. 

When my new manager and I went over it, I asked for clarity, and he couldn’t give me any because it made no sense to him either. And when I say it made no sense, it included sentences like “communicate up on deliverables”. There was also a comment about my cell phone. Leadership is allowed to use cell phones in the workplace and of course we should adhere to the phone policies in order to set a good example. When I challenged that one, stating how I didn’t use my cell phone for personal use, the example that was given to me was when my daughter called. I reminded the manager that during that time my daughter had been in and out of the hospital and seeing a specialist. She had just been diagnosed with Grave’s Disease and it took a while for her to get better. When she called I thought maybe she wasn’t feeling well so I answered. She was talking to me about a book and I reminded her that I cannot talk because I’m at work and immediately hung up. That was the single infraction that made its way into my performance improvement plan. I could see he was just looking to fill in space. He couldn’t very well write “I don’t like you because you challenge me.” 

The newly hired manager that I was moved to within the same department was worse than the previous. Let’s just say he is an ego with skin. I could tell from the beginning that he was not trustworthy and incredibly self serving. He spent most of his onboarding time schmoozing with the associates, especially the ladies, especially the pretty ladies. He never crossed the line into sexual harassment. My theory is the men could see through his B.S. and the women were more receptive and if not receptive then they were merely tolerant. Being the unofficial work therapist, most of those associates and peers came to me to vent. I allowed it because quite frankly I couldn’t stand the man. And he knew it. He had lost his temper with hourly associates here and there and many complaints were made. These complaints went absolutely nowhere. As for that improvement plan I mentioned earlier, he forgot about it. Literally. He and I were having a discussion when an HR rep happened to message him about it as it was past the due date to either close it or terminate me. He didn’t want to close it nor terminate me. He failed to keep up with the plan but he didn’t want to close it. The plan was closed at the direction of a higher manager that he reported to. This was no favor to me. That guy was just tired of seeing my name I’m sure.

 An opportunity came up where I could possibly move to the first department I worked in with the one manager with whom I got along quite well. He saw my value and respected me fully. He respected my schedule and communicated clearly the expectations and worked with me on my development. When he went to discuss me moving back to that department he was told no, even though there was a need. I was never asked what I wanted. Here’s what I didn’t understand: if the department I was in had management I struggled with, and there’s an open position in a previous department where I thrived, why not remedy the issue and move me? Sometimes a person doesn’t fare well if they’re in the wrong place. Moving them to the right place seems logical, right? The issue wasn’t about moving me. The issue was me. 

After many complaints by me, I had an audience with a higher up manager and boy oh boy did I feel the sting. Remember the lead that moved from my department? Well that person had been moved right under the ego’s wing. He was so far up her rear end I couldn’t tell where he ended and she began. I wasn’t the only one that noticed it. At first she asked me why he was always bothering her. Those were her words, not mine. Then, there was a change and she hitched her cart to his ego. So, when I was brought into the big big boss’s office, there was a litany of woes waiting for me. All from that one person. He groomed her like a kennel club poodle. That one person demolished all of my legitimacy in the big man’s eyes. I was told that the common factor for both manager’s problems was me. I am full of drama and he is tired of talking about it. It, being me. I knew I was defeated. The ego had already started doing that thing that bad managers do where they make your job difficult and miserable hoping you’ll quit. So, I took a personal day and thought about all of it. I asked myself if my mental and emotional health was really worth it. And the answer was no. 

I turned in my resignation the following day and gave a week's notice. About a week before that another supervisor had left the company. He turned in his notice and worked until his last day and had a nice farewell. On the same day I turned in my notice I was “given the opportunity” to leave that day and be paid throughout the date on my resignation. I was escorted, by ego, to my workstation where I collected my things and was then escorted off of the property. No farewell as I was directed to not tell anyone I was leaving. Without saying so, it was clear that they wanted it to seem like I was fired. And they wanted the ego to do it. 

Here’s the big question: did I actually do a bad job? No. I did not. I improved every area I was in. I developed my direct reports. I supported my peers. But where I failed is I knew my worth and I said so. When Mr. Ego was pushing my buttons, I told him I would not be spoken to that way and I flat out told him that he was not good at his job. 

 So here I am now, fumbling over words to explain why I left the dreaded “rhymes with FISH” during the few interviews I’ve had. I hear too often “people don’t want to work!” and that’s not necessarily true. People don’t want to be undervalued and abused. People don’t want to be underpaid and under insured. People don’t want to dread going to the place where they spend most of their waking hours. People don’t want mandatory overtime. People are becoming more aware of their worth in the workplace. As for me, I’ve always known my worth, and that pisses some people off. And frankly, I don’t give a damn because even in my current state of survival, I have less stress than I did just 2 months ago. Think about it, I’m at risk of losing my apartment, I’ll have to scramble to survive, and that is less stressful than the nightmare that provided me with steady income. It’s not that I don’t want to work. I love working. It really comes down to 1 simple fact: my mental and emotional health are worth more than my salary.