Articles

Graduating from the Insane Asylum & Other Controversies
by Dr. Lynne Curry

Question:
I just graduated from the insane asylum, meaning I finally got the courage to leave a job working for a boss who didn’t want to be a boss and with co-workers who didn’t want to work. I liked the work I did and had a hard time leaving it and an even harder time leaving the salary – I took a pay cut to get away. I was just so fed up with listening to complaints from co-workers with whom I didn’t share anything other than that we all didn’t like what was going on.

I started my new job last week and am having a hard time getting into the swing of things. I miss the work I used to do. I keep wondering if I’ll be any good at this new job. And when co-workers say things to me I keep listening for what they don’t say. I’m not a suspicious person but at my old job, everyone had an agenda and anyone naïve got burned. How do I know if I made a mistake taking this job? I’ve been told my old job is open if I want it. Do I need to "give this job a chance" or is it better if I leave right away if I’ve made the wrong choice?

Answer:
You won’t know if you made a mistake until you take an honest look at your new job, and you won’t be able to take that look until you pull your eyes away from the rear view mirror. Like many who leave a bad job situation, you bring the shadow of your past job with you. This includes the methods you adopted to cope with working alongside individuals who burned naïve co-workers and spent time complaining about rather than fixing problems. By staying in that situation too long you became someone who looks for what’s wrong or hidden.

Like many who leave one job and quickly start another, you seem to be reacting with job changer’s remorse. Right now, your old work looks good because you knew how to do it. In two months, you may find you love your new work as much or more as you loved your former duties.

Also, although you enjoyed your former job’s work and salary, you didn’t want the boss and co-workers included in the total job package. Unfortunately, few of us get to choose our co-workers or boss. Ultimately, we have to decide whether we like the work enough to put up with our boss and co-workers’ qualities, whether we can work to fix what we don’t appreciate, or whether we need to leave.

When you second-guess a decision made after months of anguish, you travel forward with the parking brake on, giving neither your new job nor yourself a fair shake. Although you now find yourself tempted to jump backwards to "safety," how will you feel one month from now trapped again with those with endless complaints? If you choose to go back, only do so if you think you can make a positive difference in your former work environment and not if you plan to keep your eye on the exit door.

Alternatively, you can give your new job a chance. You may like it once you get the hang of your new responsibilities. If you decide in two months you made a mistake, you haven’t lost anything other than the chance to retreat to a situation you left for good cause. You can still look for the right job.

Question:
I work in personnel and screen resumes and job applicants for the managers in our company. We just got a batch of resumes for an accounting supervisor and an otherwise well-qualified applicant sent her resume in a postage-metered envelop bearing her current employer’s return address. Am I too old-fashioned and or can I toss her resume, despite her qualifications, reasoning that if she steals postage and envelopes from her current employer she might be a problem in a position that involves cash handling? And what about applicants who send in resumes with typographical errors?

Answer:
Applicants who use their current employers’ envelopes and postage meters to send their resumes to future employers telegraph their lack of ethics and class. Keep the postage-metered envelop with the resume as documentation for your decision to drop this applicant from consideration.

As long as you don’t discriminate against applicants because of a category protected from discrimination, such as age, sex, race or disability, you can use any information an applicant gives you when making your decision about who to hire. No federal law protects those who use their employer’s postage meter for personal use or don’t proofread their work.