Lord Evermore
Diamond Member
I'm in a lull at work and I need to do something to distract myself so I don't start to cry. So I'll make a rare post.
I just changed jobs a bit over 3 weeks ago, thinking that I was making a good decision for myself where I could be going into something that could become a "career" instead of just a job. I also was very much in need of higher pay. Pay is 60% higher, though some of that is eaten away by gas that I didn't have to pay for before, and state taxes I didn't have to pay. It still comes out to where I'm making more money without having to work any overtime (and when overtime does come into play, the higher pay rate makes it stunningly nice). 12 hour shifts, third shift weekends aren't such a great shift, but it's not a bad thing for me personally and means a shift differential in pay.
But now I'm seriously thinking this isn't the job for me. The previous job was a field tech, driving to retail sites and offices, repairing computer equipment and related stuff. Pretty much my dream job other than having to deal with the people at times. This job is sitting at a service desk, alerting clients about equipment or service issues (we monitor all sorts of stuff for them), and doing troubleshooting for issues and working with vendors for some clients.
The work itself is easy. Make some phone calls, send emails. The problem is it's almost exactly the same job I was doing before the field tech job; I was very much tired of doing it when they decided to close down that office, so it was convenient in that I didn't have to quit. This new job fell into my lap as a reference from one of the people I used to work with at the other office, who works at this one now. I took it thinking I know how to do the work, I need to start making more money, and it couldn't possibly be so bad on me mentally. It seems I may have been wrong.
There's just SOOOOO much to it that's non-standardized, even though in theory it's all conveniently packaged, everything should be easy to work with and everybody's roughly the same. It's not actually as simple as all that, even given the assumption that reality is often different from what was planned.
I've gotten all the basic stuff down, all the standard items. But every time I look up, something new has appeared where I have no idea what to do. Right now I'm still working on a shift with someone else so that I can ask questions and learn it, but there doesn't seem to be any end in sight to the random things. There's stuff that's just not written down anywhere, or it's hidden away so I have to know where to look and that I need to look there.
There's all sorts of stuff that's taken for granted by the people who have been here since the company started, or at least several years. And a lot of it is things they learned by doing in the first place, so it's not arranged so it can be taught. Every customer and every event is supposed to have a set of things that need to be done, but there's plenty of odd items that couldn't be planned for, or that just have changed since the documentation was done. Escalation paths are in place for most stuff, but not everything, and it's not always clear where escalations need to go.
The rule is "do what the documentation says, and if it's wrong, you aren't to blame". But there's all those items that aren't documented, when it's taken for granted that everybody knows the right way to do things. And no matter what, it never feels good to call someone in the middle of the night only to find out they aren't the right person to be calling.
I'm just stressing out about the whole thing now. I'm convinced that this job isn't the right place for me now, though I still hold out hope that it will get better. The coworker from the previous job isn't nearly as bright as me (no sense being modest about that) but he gets along fine here. On the other hand, there's such a thing as too smart -- I can't just let go and play dumb, following instructions blindly. Plus that guy works on a different shift; it's entirely different how things are handled on a weekend night shift from how they're done on the weekday shift, and there's always people around during the day so that questions can be asked.
My old manager would be really glad to get me back. The ONLY reason I left was the money, because he just couldn't match the pay; the company pay policy is horrific, speaking objectively. The parent company has also mentioned that they'd like to get hold of me if I was looking to go back, but I'm not sure I want to go to them. It would mean having to go through another round of training, on different equipment, and based on conversations with the guys working for the parent company it isn't all that great a place to work. It'd be a field tech job again, but acting as the "second line" repair, taking care of the crap that isn't simple to repair or replace. They could probably come close to matching the pay I make now, and with tax and gas figured in it might even exceed it. But job security fears are somewhat high around there, and there's a lot of stuff the company makes the techs handle that really is unrelated to the job.
If I wasn't so messed up in the head, and had any confidence and wasn't so prone to anxiety issues, I'd just go out and find myself a new job. I know I'm competent, I just can't push myself into showing it to other people.
Summary: life sucks. I need an inheritance.
I just changed jobs a bit over 3 weeks ago, thinking that I was making a good decision for myself where I could be going into something that could become a "career" instead of just a job. I also was very much in need of higher pay. Pay is 60% higher, though some of that is eaten away by gas that I didn't have to pay for before, and state taxes I didn't have to pay. It still comes out to where I'm making more money without having to work any overtime (and when overtime does come into play, the higher pay rate makes it stunningly nice). 12 hour shifts, third shift weekends aren't such a great shift, but it's not a bad thing for me personally and means a shift differential in pay.
But now I'm seriously thinking this isn't the job for me. The previous job was a field tech, driving to retail sites and offices, repairing computer equipment and related stuff. Pretty much my dream job other than having to deal with the people at times. This job is sitting at a service desk, alerting clients about equipment or service issues (we monitor all sorts of stuff for them), and doing troubleshooting for issues and working with vendors for some clients.
The work itself is easy. Make some phone calls, send emails. The problem is it's almost exactly the same job I was doing before the field tech job; I was very much tired of doing it when they decided to close down that office, so it was convenient in that I didn't have to quit. This new job fell into my lap as a reference from one of the people I used to work with at the other office, who works at this one now. I took it thinking I know how to do the work, I need to start making more money, and it couldn't possibly be so bad on me mentally. It seems I may have been wrong.
There's just SOOOOO much to it that's non-standardized, even though in theory it's all conveniently packaged, everything should be easy to work with and everybody's roughly the same. It's not actually as simple as all that, even given the assumption that reality is often different from what was planned.
I've gotten all the basic stuff down, all the standard items. But every time I look up, something new has appeared where I have no idea what to do. Right now I'm still working on a shift with someone else so that I can ask questions and learn it, but there doesn't seem to be any end in sight to the random things. There's stuff that's just not written down anywhere, or it's hidden away so I have to know where to look and that I need to look there.
There's all sorts of stuff that's taken for granted by the people who have been here since the company started, or at least several years. And a lot of it is things they learned by doing in the first place, so it's not arranged so it can be taught. Every customer and every event is supposed to have a set of things that need to be done, but there's plenty of odd items that couldn't be planned for, or that just have changed since the documentation was done. Escalation paths are in place for most stuff, but not everything, and it's not always clear where escalations need to go.
The rule is "do what the documentation says, and if it's wrong, you aren't to blame". But there's all those items that aren't documented, when it's taken for granted that everybody knows the right way to do things. And no matter what, it never feels good to call someone in the middle of the night only to find out they aren't the right person to be calling.
I'm just stressing out about the whole thing now. I'm convinced that this job isn't the right place for me now, though I still hold out hope that it will get better. The coworker from the previous job isn't nearly as bright as me (no sense being modest about that) but he gets along fine here. On the other hand, there's such a thing as too smart -- I can't just let go and play dumb, following instructions blindly. Plus that guy works on a different shift; it's entirely different how things are handled on a weekend night shift from how they're done on the weekday shift, and there's always people around during the day so that questions can be asked.
My old manager would be really glad to get me back. The ONLY reason I left was the money, because he just couldn't match the pay; the company pay policy is horrific, speaking objectively. The parent company has also mentioned that they'd like to get hold of me if I was looking to go back, but I'm not sure I want to go to them. It would mean having to go through another round of training, on different equipment, and based on conversations with the guys working for the parent company it isn't all that great a place to work. It'd be a field tech job again, but acting as the "second line" repair, taking care of the crap that isn't simple to repair or replace. They could probably come close to matching the pay I make now, and with tax and gas figured in it might even exceed it. But job security fears are somewhat high around there, and there's a lot of stuff the company makes the techs handle that really is unrelated to the job.
If I wasn't so messed up in the head, and had any confidence and wasn't so prone to anxiety issues, I'd just go out and find myself a new job. I know I'm competent, I just can't push myself into showing it to other people.
Summary: life sucks. I need an inheritance.
