Changing Jobs (Again) And Trying To Fit In

FYI: Post was written last week, during my last week at my previous job.

I cannot believe that I am going to write another entry in my "Changing Jobs" series of blog posts. So, as of writing this post, I am changing jobs yet again. I will be joining a new company that is offering even more money, with better benefits and increased vacation time. All of that is fantastic, but I want to talk about my time at this current job (at the time of writing) and how I ended up leaving this company after around 20 months of employment.

When I started this position in September of 2020, I admit that the biggest reason I joined this company was because I needed to leave my previous job. I could not afford to be too patient due to time constraints at my previous job outside of my control, and because I was physically becoming ill directly due to the stresses of my previous job. I saw what I considered to be a good opportunity and I jumped ship at the right time. I had challenges at my current job, but I also learned a lot, and worked hard to become a valued member of the company.

I was able to further my skills on things that I enjoyed doing in my career, such as reporting and data migration. One of the problems I was having in this company was that I felt like I was not doing enough of what I enjoyed. I expected my career path at this company to go a certain way, but I felt like management had different plans for me. I believe that management wanted me to be more of a customer service representative than a support technician that solves and fixes issues. This was not the best use of my skills, especially with how introverted I generally am and general aversion to talking to customers. I just like putting my head down and completing requests assigned to me, and if I need to speak with the customer regarding a specific issue, then I can do that. Instead, I felt like most of my time at this company consisted of answering phones and distributing tickets to my co-workers. The person who normally handles this is incredibly strict, and any deviation from her meticulous and neurotic processes results in an angry message or phone call. Because of this, I could not see myself working long term at this company.

Another thing I discovered while working at this company is that I really do not like working for small companies. I went from working at a somewhat large company with hundreds of employees to working at a company with only about thirty employees. I find that when you work for a small company, you are more likely to perform duties outside and above your written job description. In addition to being a support technician, I must also be a salesperson for the company and push various company directives. This made me uncomfortable, as I do not consider myself a salesperson by any stretch.

My boss is a nice guy and he is competent as a manager, but I find some parts of his management style to be rather off-putting. He expects you to know certain things, even if you never done a certain function before, and when you ask him how to do something, he acts dismissively and avoids answering my question all together. I tend to go to my co-workers for these questions rather than my manager. I feel like he expected to hire a computer science major and should know every which way around a computer, but I am a business and information systems major, not a computer science major, and there are some computer tricks and shortcuts that even I do not know.

I think the biggest issue with working in my current company is that there are extreme issues with communication among departments and especially with customers. I also feel that there is a lack of communication to employees when it comes to establishing and updating proper procedures, though there has been some improvement. I find that much of the communication issues stem from scheduling items (such as meetings, etc.) with customers. I sometimes find items on my schedule that I do not know anything about. I ask my manager and he does not know anything. I ask the scheduler and the trainer and they do not know anything or will not provide the proper information, so I am not able to act on the item. Inevitably, the customer will complain and I will end up getting the blame because this was on my schedule and no one will seem to help me or even think to understand what is going on. This was a specific instance at my time at this position, and this was the tipping point where I told myself that I will not work for this company long-term.

I want to point out that things at my current job was nowhere near as bad as what I was going through at my previous job. However, this time around I was able to quickly recognize that I may be experiencing burnout soon and that I needed to step up my efforts to look for a new company to work for. In the later stages of my time working for this company, I was beginning to develop headaches, and I found myself telling myself that I hated this job, which was something that I did not remember saying at the company before this one. I felt okay enough at this job that I can be patient and find the job that is right for me, and thankfully I was able to find this job before my issues developed further.

I am finding that my career is all about trying to fit in somewhere, like a hermit crab trying to find the perfect shell for its body. Maybe frequently changing jobs is the best way to get ahead until I find the company and the position that is right for me, and there is a mutual respect between employer and employee.