But If You'd Have Just Told Me!

So, I'm job-hunting again. The primary client for whom I was updating Web pages decided to hire a person to handle all their IT and Web needs, so I returned from vacation to find I had, basically, no job.

Anyone who follows my Facebook posts knows I love this client. It's a bakery-café chain whose products I loved long before my son got the contract to manage their site. So to learn my association with them would be terminated filled me alternately with sadness (for losing that connection) and fear (for being able to pay my bills).

Now I spend hours of each day scouring company websites and jobs websites. I struggle to compose compelling cover letters and scurry to pull together needed documentation.

Searching for John's military employment information today to complete an application for 10-Point Veterans Preference for a city job I really want, I came across my performance appraisal from my last job. All the numbers were good except for one item. The real kicker was that I had no idea this behavior mattered to anyone or was causing problems.

One of the people who worked in the human resources department of that company had complained to my manager about this behavior, but neither of them could be bothered to discuss it with me. If either had said a word to me about this offensive or distractive behavior, I would have ceased immediately.

(You're dying to know, aren't you? Here it is: for over 30 years, way back to the days of my IBM employment, I've done the daily crossword puzzle while sitting in meetings. I am fully capable of thinking and writing letters in squares while listening to what's going on in a meeting. But rest assured I never did it again after receiving this appraisal.)

The corollary to "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is "if I don't know it's broke, I can't possibly fix it!"

Let the record show that, over two years later, this appraisal still ticks me off. So today, contrary to my normal pattern, I fed all three pages of the appraisal into the shredder. With relish. There! - I feel better now!

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The other kicker about the company's human resources patterns was the fact that employees were allotted, oh, a day of sick leave per pay period, or some other arbitrary number. But, if said employee used more than two to three days of sick leave in a year, it would show up as a negative on the appraisal. During the year in question, I caught the flu bug that was going around, and I caught it well! I don't abuse sick leave, but to drive 60 miles while running a fever and feeling, generally, horrible to work in a technology company that wouldn't allow programmers to telecommute but required all sales staff to work from home …. Well, you get where I'm going with this. (And besides, if your employees could do their jobs remotely, why would you insist they come into the office and expose all your other workers to their bug??? Yes, that is one of the great questions of the universe.) (By the way, once I left that employment, over 18 months passed before I caught another airborne illness. Just sayin'.)

And while I'm at it, the other interesting point about this company was the fact that on one's timesheet, the code existed to take leave without pay (LWOP). Because of my mother's age and sicknesses, I had used all my vacation for that year, but needed to visit her again. I asked my manager for three days LWOP and he approved. When I returned from the trip and filed my timesheet, he got in trouble with the human resources payroll lady, and then I got in trouble with him. Huh?

(Can you say "hostile work environment?")

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I guess the subtitle to this post should be "Stupid Employment Tricks." The bottom line is communication. If you see an employee doing something that you feel crosses the line, tell her! If you have a policy on your books, honor the policy or get it off the books!

These seem to me to be logical practices. Am I missing something here?