My recent move into the realm of the unemployed has left me with a pile of stories a mile long, but a decided lack of ambition to tell them. Some part of me, deep down where I don’t like to talk about, would feel bad about bad mouthing my employer. Even though it is now my former employer. That being said, I still feel that it is pertinent to share the story of why I quit my job.

I worked in a small office, I did all of the programming, designing, etc. My boss’s wife did sales and marketing, and my boss just kind of did his thing. The new guy, Matt, did the same stuff as I did, just on a smaller scale. We were coming up to a tight deadline on a large project. The site needed to be done by Friday, but we had recieved most of the content the previous thursday. This had left me scrambling to complete the site on time.

Wednesday night I was working late in order to make sure that I would be on pace to finish the site for Thursday, when Gary knocked on the door. Gary owns the company which is housed in the office next to ours. The way the office building was set up is that there was a hallway door, then two offices down the hall, ours and Gary’s. Gary explained to me that he was having his office door refinished and that he was going to have to put a lock on the hallway door. He stopped by to give me a key so that I could get in the next morning.

I had planned to come in a little early the next morning so that no one would be left in the hallway, but first I had to drop my dogs off to be groomed. I showed up at the groomers at 7:15 hoping that they would open a little early so that I could be to work in order to let everyone in. At 7:40 the groomers showed up, 10 minutes late, and I had to race to work in order to be on time. I arrived at my office at 7:58, two minutes early for work.

Now my boss usually shows up for work at around 8:15, on that day he had arrived at 7:20 to find himself locked out. It is important to note that he had not been at the office that early in months. When I arrived and produced the key, this was seen as the most traitorous of offenses, and I was severly reprimanded for not calling him to tell him I had the key. I am not one to arbitrarily take crap, so I pointed out that 1) he is never at work that early so, 2) I had no reason to expect him to be there, so no reason to call him and, 3) I had planned to come in early, but I had to drop my dogs off at the groomer.

He responded that “your dogs are your problem, and it’s irresponsible to let your personal life get in the way of your work.” This is when I lost my temper. Need I point out that I showed up for work on time? Or that the only reason I had a key was because I was working late, on my personal time. Needless to say the fight escalated until my boss had to go to work (he has a job that has nothing to do with web development). I was pissed off. First and foremost, pretty much anything is more important that my job: my family, my friends, my house, and my dogs. So when asked to drop the dogs off to be groomed, as opposed to showing up for work early after working late, it was a no brainer. To take shit for that is fairly unforgivable.

The next day I went in to allow my boss the opportunity to apologize for being so irrational and get back on track. He continued to berate me, and talk to me like I was retarded for not understanding his flawed logic. Like why didn’t I just drive the key over to his house that evening. Hmm, could it be that I have a life outside of work, and occasionally I like to live it as opposed to driving to St. Albert to give someone a key when I’m always the first one in the office anyways?

As the storm raged on, I started to think to myself that this was retarded. For the past month my boss had been a complete dick, from the time he nearly crapped on me when I reminded him that it was pay day, to the time he lost his temper on Matt for doing exactly what he had asked him to do. This wasn’t worth it. I wasn’t going to just sit here a listen to one more word about my “lack of commitment” to the company when I was the one working late just to set off this powder keg. If anyone was lacking a commitment to the company, it was my boss. He hadn’t been to work early, or came in for an evening in weeks. He would show up after 8, call a meeting where he would toss around some football analogies and tell Matt and I that we needed to give 110% (which is impossible, in this office we obey the laws of thermodynamics!) then go off to work. He totally shrugged off all of his responsibilities, for instance, he was supposed to write some content for one of our clients so that we could finish the site, and 4 weeks later we were still waiting. He would give poor Matt things to do, but in the most overtly vaugue fashion imaginable. Matt would ask me “what the hell am I supposed to do?” and I would have to answer “I don’t know.” It was around this time that I decided I really should quit.

Finally Matt interjected and told my boss “this is over a key, you’re being an idiot” and my boss stormed out of the room, real mature like. I was done. I couldn’t take another day of it. I couldn’t hear “this is good, but it needs more wow” one more time. I could no longer be asked to give 110%. I would never again do 23 designs for any one thing only to settle on one, then completely start over again the next day. I would never build another page, then rebuild it because we had a “better” idea. I found the limit to the amount of shit I’m willing to put up with, and my boss had crossed it, so when he came back and tried to resume his bitching, I walked out.

NOTE: I went back after the weekend when I was no longer pissed off and offered my two weeks like a grown up, my boss said they would be fine like a child. They aren’t fine. Matt has given his notice now because he a) doesn’t know how to do everything that I would have shown him over time, and b) can no longer stand the work environment. The company is now in real trouble because Matt’s departure leaves no one there who knows how to do the work. I want to write my boss an email and offer up “maybe you should rethink the environment you’re creating if no one wants to work for you,” but that feels like a small thing for me to do. I honestly don’t wish them any ill will, but man am I glad that I no longer have to put up with that crap.