I am a souless corporate zombie with an IQ of 60,
I do my work one task at a time and I do it slowly,
Go go zombie, go go me…s-l-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-w-l-y…
This is probably a common complaint the world round – being judged not by your actual work performance, but by your personal habits, such as how fast you work, what time you clock in and out, how long you spend sitting at your desk (it doesn’t matter if you’re actually being productive or if you’re just drooling at the monitor), etc, etc…
I draw the line, however, at people objecting to me working fast and multi-tasking to get it done – and what’s more, accusing me of doing something other than office work simply because I switch between programs in a hurry. Get this straight, dickheads: when I AM doing something other than office work, I DON’T SWITCH SCREENS.
Oh yes, that’s what happens regularly in my workplace. People walk past, see my screen changing between a Word document, a browser screen and the email inbox, and straight away think I’m doing non-company work. Do they ask me about it? No, they complain to my manager. Despite the fact that what I’m switching between is a combination of not only my own work, but a little extra this and that which THEY asked me to do.
So multi-tasking and finishing my work quickly is an office crime, and I get disgusted looks even as I hand over the extra set of marketing materials they requested and which happened to be one of those switching screens. I’m turning in a resignation letter at the end of this month, leaving the company at the end of July, and I DON’T CARE WHO KNOWS IT.
Oh, I’ve done my share of slacking, like coming in late, skipping events that are outright outside my job scope (out of actual memory lapses, not deliberately) and once or twice outright skiving off several hours of work. But my work performance has never once suffered, and not just my regular work, but all the extra little this and that which got dropped on my desk because there was no one else available who knew how to do it.
Yet I get landed with complaints that I switch screens. And while they’re being spread out in front of me like a hand of soiled cards, my manager tells me that I’m supposed to be part of a team. Therefore I must put up with emotional blackmail (everyone else has worked so hard and yet you get off so easily!) being the butt of office jokes (I jump when people walk past my desk! Shouldn’t I be the one who notices whether I jump or not?) a salary that the freshest of graduates are only accepting now that economic times are really bad and as if that’s not enough…
Here it comes. I can earn a third of my full-time salary in one single weekend of freelance work. How’s that? One of my weekends alone is worth more than one WEEK of my working days. So I keep quiet about it out of common courtesy, and the end result? My weekends are taken for granted and I get slapped with emotional blackmail whether I “volunteer” them or not.
The job I’m in is going nowhere, except down the route of more work for less pay, all of it completely unrelated to the job scope laid out in the contract I signed. The company I’m in is going nowhere, except maybe into the red. The industry I’m in is going nowhere, and my manager had the nerve to tell me that. I take it that she wants me out for being a bad influence.
Well, I’m out. I’ve even written the resignation letter and dated it ahead to 30 June. I’ve started applying to a slew of interesting-looking jobs. And I noticed, while filling in forms and updating resumes, that the full-time work experience I have in this company takes second place in every single instance to the freelance experience, references and qualifications which I acquired on my own time (recall: time which has over the last year become worth more than my office time, and which the company that underpays me is trying to claim more and more of for “teamwork” reasons – some team!)
I’m actually embarrassed to cite the nature of my full-time job for fear that it will devalue me in the eyes of potential employers. If I do, it always seems to come up paired with “Reason for leaving: lack of potential and opportunity”.
I repeat: I’m quitting my job. I don’t care who knows it. And between now and then, I shall be exactly what the little jingle on the top says: a soulless corporate zombie who clocks in and out punctually, does one thing at a time, does nothing more than exactly what I’m told to do, and above all is only part of a team insofar as one colorless corpse looks the same as the rest.
That should make them happy.
