I figured that I'd just put this out into the universe instead of writing it down in my physical journal...
Back on the date of my last blog entry I quit my job at the hotel/spa. No, I didn't have anything lined up to replace it, but my mental health wasn't the greatest and I had hit the proverbial wall. I knew from past experience that if I attempted to push through and work at the hotel that I would have completely broke down and that would have been bad.
I also knew that my final pay would be enough to float me until the end of October if necessary, with a bit of help from my daughter if I needed groceries. So that was some load off of my back.
Even before I quit my job I had been sending out resumes and filling out job applications in the hopes of being able to get something lined up before I finally pulled the plug on the hotel. I knew that things were not going to get better, that my boss was never going to fire the predator, and that regardless of what she said that she never had any concern for how the rest of us felt.
If it weren't for her, I would have stayed. I *liked* the job, for the most part, and I could do it well. In the past two weeks since I quit I've had several people reach out to me because it's gotten harder to work there. Hell, I reached out to the missus who was working the front desk for the hotel by herself for the first time to give her a head's up on what to focus on as I knew that while she worked M-F at the desk she was focused primarily on the clinic side of things and had little to no idea what was needed on the hotel side during day shift. Clearly, I didn't quit because I didn't like the job or most of the people! I'm still willing to help if those folks reach out to me!
I quit because my former boss made it clear that she didn't like me, that she only mouthing words of concern but really didn't give a fuck, and that none of my concerns with employees or the upkeep of the place would be taken seriously. I may have had the title of co-AGM but none of the actual power to deal with employees or anything else...unless it was something that my boss didn't feel up to dealing with. And whenever she felt that I over-stepped in some way, instead of calmly coaching me the way my former boss had, she would scream and yell at me...and then she'd have the gall to gaslight me, but she never realized that I'd been gaslighted by the best - my mother.
What got me the most, I think, is that she'd be telling me that the place couldn't run without me blah blah blah, and then behind my back she'd be undermining me in anyway she could. And then when she found out that my mental health was tanking she started blaming everything wrong I was allegedly doing on that...without finding out WHY after so long of working there that my mental health had started affecting my work. Mind you, she may have wanted to avoid me telling her that she and her actions were the reason why I was no longer able to maintain the façade that I was okay-ish.
It all goes back to her and how she handled, or didn't handle, things. I probably wouldn't have hit the point where I was actively suicidal if she had any sort of understanding that yelling at an employee to get your way was not the way to deal with disagreement. Or if she realized that by her protecting a predator that it would have a negative impact on pretty much all of the staff - a situation that never had to happen if she had taken any of the complaints against him prior to him sexually harassing another co-worker. And then she fucking protected him, lied about contacting the Labour Board and the Human Rights Commission, and excused his behaviour. "He made a mistake!"
Yeah, fuck you, but no. It's no mistake to text "looking at your ass makes my dick hard" to a co-worker while still at the hotel guest services desk. And then she tried to gaslight me, forgetting that *I* was the one who reported it in the first place after the victim came to me. Yet, how dare I ask questions? The only questions I asked were for clarification purposes, and to find out what was going to be done in terms of the predator. Yeah, I got screamed at - during my vacation - for having an opinion and posting it on my FB after I found out that my boss opted to not fire the predator. I was rightfully pissed about the situation and I felt like I had let the victim down by the boss' lack of action. And then when she lied about what she'd done? Yeah, that was pretty much the end and I had started putting more effort into looking for a new job somewhere. As it was, I was having some other issues that was not helping my mental health and I told her as much...only for her to start poking at me for my mental health. My last text conversation with her made it quite clear that my mental health issues somehow made me an unfit employee. Which is pretty normal here in Newfoundland, honestly. But it's still bullshit.
I've had a few interviews over the past few weeks, even before I quit, and I got a feeling that the reason I hadn't been hearing back despite how positive the interviews were had a lot to do with the possibility that they had been reaching out to my former boss for a reference...and she's such a malignant narcissist that she wouldn't give a shit about the illegality of bad-mouthing me. So, I've changed my resume to include the folks who would be able to provide at least a neutral reference, and if I get asked if they can contact my former boss I have found a way to make it clear that she is why I left my most recent job - personality conflict, and that it all started back in January of this year when she became my direct report instead of there being another manager between us. That manager is why I lasted as long as I did and she had encouraged me to continue my upward rise with the company.
In the end, after discussions with folks who know about the situation with my former boss, the general conclusion is that her biggest issue with me is that she felt threatened by the idea that I could run the place better than her and she was scared for her job if she didn't find a way to push me out. It didn't matter that I didn't actually WANT her job - if she had treated me the way my previous boss always had that I would have happily become her right-hand, assisting her the same way I had Wendy.
Wendy was my boss before the last one managed to drive us both out in the end. N, the first initial of my former boss, absolutely hated not having complete control over everything and Wendy had managed to figure out a way to circumvent N to actually get stuff done - N would block pretty much anything that cost money, regardless of how much these things needed to be done. Under Wendy I had been given the role of being her back-up, especially as at the time the spa manager was off on leave with no known date to expect her to return. With me learning and taking on so many management duties I freed up Wendy to focus on other things that needed her attention, and she made it clear to the spa staff that when she wasn't there that I was in charge and that she trusted my decision-making abilities. And then the spa manager decided to come back and it threw everything into turmoil...which I'm sure I've blogged about before.
I moved back down to the hotel after the business reopened in January of this year - the spa manager didn't like the fact that I had been guaranteed a minimum of thirty hours a week in order to keep me actually working there, and it was bad. She also didn't like that with Wendy running the show that I actually had more power than she did. Of course, that all changed in the end, but such is life sometimes.
I still kept most of my responsibilities and had been told that I was still part of the management team for the hotel and spa. And if Wendy had come back I would probably have kept the level of responsibility that she'd given me, and happily so. And I would never had discovered how morally and ethically bankrupt N is, and that she is scared shitless of her bullshit being discovered by the owner.
I'm still working on an email to be sent to the owner to explain why I left the way I did. I will be putting the blame where it belongs and also explaining why I waited for so long before reaching out to him. But for now, I need to get my mind off of the bullshit and the trauma N caused.
I am so damn glad that I got the china cabinet out of there the week prior to quitting.
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