Aaagh, my new boss is a hopeless control freak.
Basically, they now have me working two jobs at the same agency. Two days a week I have a micro-caseload of six people, a reduced version of the job I was doing before. The other two days I'm now at the agency's drop-in center. For the most part I really like it - it's carefully crafted to be a laid-back environment for people to hang out. We offer some basic life-skills classes and fun stuff like yoga and poetry.
But there are two huge problems. The first is that my two job descriptions are polar opposites. With the first I craft my own schedule, and I have to leave open spaces every day for the inevitable crises that come up when serving this kind of community. As such, I can and must take things as they come. The other job runs on a rigid schedule. There are some good reasons for this, and I accept it.
The problem is Job 2 boss at the drop-in center. When real life intrudes at Job 1 she takes it very personally. One day one of my clients went to the ER the night before and I had to call her at home to check in with her. Big ordeal. She wouldn't let me step away to hand my time card over to the HR person. Finally yesterday it escalated to her giving me a verbal warning because I stole away for half a protein bar when I had "only" been on the clock for 40 minutes, and it was
another hour until my lunch break!! :dramaqueen: (And yes, I've told her several times that I'm hypoglycemic, and what that means in terms of when and how I have to eat. Boss 1 has known this for several months.)
Worse yet, she's released me early involuntarily a few times, and both supervisors have told me I'm not
allowed to catch up on Job 1 when that happens. I'm also forbidden to work any overtime.
Yesterday I very nearly quit on the spot. I explained the situation (hypoglycemia, more staffers in the center than clients at that particular moment, I told my coworkers where I was going,) and she basically came back with a
nuh-uh!! regardless of what I said. She then scolded me for actually doing some things she had asked me to do, but assumed I hadn't because she was out of the room herself and didn't physically catch me in the act of doing them when she came back. I very nearly quit on the spot. The main thing that stopped me was that I've only been here six months and I don't want my resume to look like I'm a job-hopper. That, and my remaining caseload of clients depend on me and I care about them.
I'd like to find an amicable solution, but she's pushing me to the wall psychologically. I'm not floating any resumes yet but I'm dusting off the ol' network. The national healthcare revamp is a godsend for my field because my job description is highly cost-effective. Every agency in the state will scramble to recruit us over the next year or so, and I've put myself in a position to rub elbows with lots of CEOs on committees. But job hunting and starting over is a royal pain.
Thankfully I have a routine meeting with Boss 1 next week and she always asks me to craft the agenda. No question this time!
