The End of an Era

End of an Era

Well this is the first week of being unemployed. Let me tell you my story of the last 18 months that lead up to this point.

As most stories start out, well you see what had happened was, we lost our manager in my office. He apparently went out with back trouble (or so we were told) and consequently after a couple weeks he was let go for non-compliance of being out on medical reasons.

So an agent was forcibly promoted to manager even though he didn’t want it. He told me he would quit if they forced him to be manger. Well he was forced into it and after taking a lot of BS from the upper management for over a year, he did finally quit. I found his method of quitting rather humorous. He went on vacation to get married in Hawaii and never came back.

I knew this was going to happen. I even warned the upper management that they would lose this individual altogether if they forced him into management. Upper management told me, that he would be happy to take the position after the deal he would be offered and they promised all the bells and whistles and help he would possibly need.

Yeah right, that never happened. Management came down exactly twice. Once to congratulate him on accepting his new promotion, the second was to tell him that if he did not tighten up and make his staff succeed he would be fired. We lost quite a few good agents during the reign of this particular upper manager.

Just as I figured though I had hopes they would prove me wrong for a change but alas, upper management failed to prove me wrong yet again. Not only did we lose a wonderful member of our office but we lost the last two. Eventually our last Mohican left as well. She tried to stay. She wanted to be successful but upper management failed her by never coming to help or manage her.

I advised her to find another opportunity and jump off this failing ship. She reluctantly did eventually, not that I wanted her gone of course but, I wanted to see her happy again. She had lost her spark. She went from a bubbly young woman full of hope and wanting to help to being a teary-eyed mess who had lost her self-esteem, at least where work was concerned. 

Finally, after much coaxing and reassurance from me she did seek other options and left. She is much happier now. Back to herself, I’d wager. Some of us still keep in touch even if it is just a random text message or face book like.

By the end of that year, which was exactly Christmas time 2012, I got a phone call that my office would be cutting down hours temporarily and I would be working only 30 hours a week. Well of course, this upset me. I squawked over this for a week or so and kept being reassured that this was only temporary till the upper management got off his butt and hired a manager and agent for this office.

Well after three months of that not happening, I get another call. They took another 10 hours a week away from me and I had to work every other day so Monday Wednesday and Friday I had to make the trek across the bridge to sit in this little grey office all alone. For the next 18 months I did just that.

Once a week for the first while I asked if the upper management had anyone coming to interview and was always given an excuse. I finally changed the question to, when were they closing my office, and got the expected lie. This is only temporary. Though I have been looking for jobs all those 18 months, I haven’t had the good fortune to find one yet. I keep trying.

I am glad that all of those who I now miss are happy and I wish each and every one of them well. I, however, managed to stay till the very end. Like a Capitan who sinks with his ship. What did upper management do? He came to procure his purchase of a mini fridge and scavenge the sinking ship and leave, no good bye lunch nothing. Just a feeble apology. “I feel like I failed you.” He said trying to look sheepish.

I just looked at him deadpan and said “it is what it is.” and nothing else.

My boss came for the last day, though I had already done everything and taken all the donations to the donating place and the money to the bank. There was literally nothing left to do. She at least brought me a parting gift of an Ivanna Trump handbag in the prettiest ivory faux leather and a copy of Someone has to set a bad example by Anne Taintor, and she took me to Olive Garden, my favorite restaurant.  Well one of them anyway. We had a wonderful day of conversation. She is really a wonderful person. I will miss working for her. I hope she gets better treatment in the end than I did.