Today - Monday, October 20th, 2008 - I learned a valuable life lesson about trust. As many of you know, trust is hard to gain and easily broken. Trust is terribly fragile and once betrayed, it's very hard to establish a relationship with the person that betrayed said trust. Some people are out for themselves, it's a fact of life. That's not necessarily a bad thing because, in the end, it's simply animal instinct to make sure you come out on top - survival of the fittest, if you will.
You might be wonder what I'm babbling about. It boils down to the fact that I had my 6 month review today at work. I thought it went fairly well. I didn't get the raise I wanted but I got a bonus and I was told the raise would most certainly happen at the 1 year mark, mainly because the company is slowly being drained of funds by unmentionable sources. I left the meeting with a good feeling. I was sure my faith in the company, and most importantly my boss, had been renewed (we had a bit of a blowout last week when he managed to come down on the whole department because he was having a bad week). I knew he had lied to me before but I figured I could get past it and continue a working relationship with him. After all, I'm still getting paid. I found out later in the day that although he presented me with two options during our meeting, one of those options had money attached which was not mentioned. In retrospect he led me to the choice he wanted me to make and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Mind you that I have yet to sign a contract with the terms we agreed to in that office and I most certainly won't sign anything until I explore all the possibilities open to me.
I'm very childlike in my mentality. To me, things tend to be black or white. I'm a developer, I guess you can say I see things as binary or boolean, 1 or 0, true or false. I tend to trust those around me. It's clearly not the best practice but at the same time I don't wish to be closed to the world and unapproachable. It seems I merely need to open my eyes instead of needing somebody to accidentally tell me something for it to hit me. Maybe I'm not ready for the real world. The real world is ugly, full of lies and betrayal. It's a place for the battle-hardened. I find it difficult to justify what happened in that office today. I can't comprehend what motivation he had to mislead me (or lead me, in this case). I have a lot of growing ahead of me and a big decision to make in the next few days.
I originally thought of quitting because I can't work for somebody who is going to constantly lie to me and I'm supposed to trust that this person is relaying my messages to upper management and back in the chain of command. I'm not sure I can deal with the pressures of work as well as having to worry about what he's lied to me about today. However I also thought of the fact that I'm not there to understand him. I'm there for me and to further my career. If I make as much money as possible at the company and put as many projects as possible on my resumé it can only benefit me and I'll have a huge stepping stone for my next job.
I'll have to see what I end up doing in the next few days.
4 comments:
That really sucks. I have been incredibly fortunate because my two bosses are both great people. They really seem to care about the employees and always "fight for them" when it comes to pay increases, etc. I would hate to be on a team where I couldn't trust the people I worked with. My last job was for a company that was "family run", and they were only there to screw the employees to make them work for as little as possible. I had to leave, because working for people that don't care about me, meant that I had no constructive career path and wouldn't be paid competitively. So I completely agree with you, I would seriously consider looking for another job. At least start looking- I don't know how you've been there, because you want to make sure that you have been there over a year or two so it doesn't look like "jump around" from job to job. What about your colleagues? Can you trust them or are they cut-throat too? Do you work for just a custom e-commerce shop where projects come and go quickly? I find that everyone I know that works for those types of companies (management-wise and employees) are under alot of pressure that makes the whole process unenjoyable. Plus since they don't have a steady income stream, they cut costs, etc. I work in a group that sells "traditionally" licensed software so we have a steady maintenance stream. That might make a little difference--Im sure my managers dont have the same pressure that yours do. Good Luck!
Some hard, possibly life changing decisions to be made. I don't envy you that!
I certainly agree that you write eloquently and I also think you give great advice. I've read your comments on other blogs and thought "Wow!! That sounds like me!!"
Just like you I am shy but opinionated...what's wrong with that?
Good luck with your decision,
Col
Thanks for your comments. Things have progressed and I'll post a new blog about it in a little bit. And thanks for your comment, col. My comments to others are straight from the heart and sometimes because of that they're a little tougher to take. I feel that it's our job as human beings to help those that come after us. I've been in the situations those boys are blogging about and if I can save them a few seconds it would be a few seconds that if otherwise wasted could never be gotten back.
Sucks to hear about your boss being like that. I prefer to believe that most people are good and trust-worthy, at least to a point.
Best of luck with everything!
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