I’ve been contemplating the “Yelp thing,” as I call it. The one where the now-ex-employee posted the open letter to the CEO about being too broke to eat.
I did that with this very blog a hundred years ago. Anonymously (or so I thought) but I didn’t post any identifying information. Everyone had a nickname. Everyone has their story that I tried to spin humorously. The ridiculousness of the serious stuff, I thought, provided humor enough.
If I could go back in time, I would want to NOT have this blog just to have been able to not have it on my conscience.
I would also like to go back in time to another job that I quit in a hurry. Even though it was right for me. I could and should have handled it better.
You can burn all the bridges that you know you’ll never have to cross again. But you do end up having to swim under them. It would be nice to have the option to stay dry.
In any event, I sympathize with the Yelp-er because I remember not making enough to afford my half of the rent, food and student loans. I remember making insane commutes (plural, to myriad jobs) because living close by would have cost a fortune (although what I spent on gas …). I remember pitching my case that I worked hard and was good and deserved an investment in me.
It might not have come out that eloquently. And I learned not to ask even when I knew I earned it. I just bided my time till promotions and, eventually, more lucrative opportunities arose.
I hope the Yelp-er comes to my own realizations sooner rather than later. I don’t know how hard/much she worked. And at $8.15 an hour, she out-earned me for the bulk of my career.
But yeah if she was great and still starving, that hunger can go one of a few ways. Like not giving a shit. Or using the meager food allowance for booze. Or moving up/out.
I’m sorry that places fire people rather than saving them. Especially when what really needs to be fixed is what ends up deciding your fate not just for that patch of your career, but how deep the scars will run when it’s long since been left behind you.