For those of us fortunate enough to have some sort of employment, though it not be up to our education, there is new basement to which employers have dropped.
It is called saving money via passing the costs on to employees.
If you need a handbook to trouble shoot some glitches with the tech (i.e. dummies for....) you get to buy the book. No longer will your employer petty cash or provide it for you.
Xeroxing. Fugghedaboutit. That's your expense too. As are toner cartridges.
PPE required may be on you. But this was always the case. As a child psychologist--I had to buy office Kleenex, toys, and little reinforcers from the dollar store on my own dime. Not to mention cookies--you cannot work with children and assume an analytic austerity).
Job involves travel--that would be on your metro-card.
What I especially love--e-ness now involves blindness. (Before, live involved deafness).
Try to call anyone at work--their voice mail is full
Try to e-mail anyone at work--go ahead, once, twice, thrice---no one responds.
As Fats Waller said--"Don't nobody go and bring me no bad news." It's as easy as pressing the delete button. Or send to junk mail button.
You need a smart phone to access content? Your expense.
If you do have "Zoom" contact with supervisors--you will be bullied. Well, I am being bullied by a supervisor.
I have a bad attitude--there is nothing wrong with my observations. There is nothing wrong with my training. I know how to design, conduct, and train individuals in research protocols. Their protocol is unworkeable with the current limitations of the human body (one needs three hands--one for the flip phone, one for the Ipad, and one to tap the inputs). I guess they forgot to put in the job description that being a human contortionist was a bona-fide occupational requirement. And that's assuming the person will answer the questions, standing up, through the crack in the door, with the other person in the hallway. Or--if privacy is a concern, the questioner will exit the building and go to a park or a quiet place, a few minutes away.
What park is quiet What park doesn't have homeless people sprawled over the benches, dozing or blissed out, while other people just ululate? Or urinate. Try finding an open urgent care nearby so you can access a bathroom or sit quiet and make the phone call. Go to a cafe--you have to order something. At your expense. And they also are noisy. Not to mention--what if you need to charge your electronica? Or if it is raining? Or wild winds? And what makes them think that the passing of a few minutes will mean the person will pick up their phone when you call. Many of these people are in the moment. When the moment passes.....
Not to mention the company that handles our electronic records site has the worst reputation among anyone who had to deal with these, bar none. For years. How did they get this contract?
Our sole training for this involved how to gain access to the site to input data.
I bring up these questions. And the supervisor sneers at me. "It is not up to me" to question the protocol. Or the company whose site from which the records are accessed. She told me I could quit if I want to. Jeez--of course I can quit, if I want to Captain Oblivious. Also, I know that every person is on probation for the first six months. And can be fired for any reason or no reason at all. And, in fact I was. But she has had it in for me from the moment we encountered each other on electronica. I don't know why.
I am the only person she reacts this way. Every time someone else opines something, she responds, "Good question," in an overly cheering way, like the supervisor in Where in the World is Carmen SanDiego, who, after every case is successfully solved, says, "Good work gumshoe." Me--sneer, her response--"That's not recommended by HR."
This supervisor immediately put a letter of complaint in my official file (sort of like your school's permanent record). I am not a good team player because on two occasions I gave less than two weeks notice (This place took six weeks to give us our requested schedules). She became my supervisor four days prior to the events in question--so I told her the first time). Prior to that, I told every person what was going on. Since our schedules have gone into place, I make every shift with flourishes. But that letter gives her a bad odor--to me. And two months later she fired me. It is my fault. I let her get to me and yelled at her on the phone the other day. My bad. I let her get to me because she doesn't listen. She pontificates. One way to remain oblivious. She accuses me of not doing things that I actually did. If I say I do, she says I didn't. She accuses me of not knowing things I know, etc. And she keeps going on and on and on and on. She didn't let up. Just throwing all sorts of irrelevant things at me. She didn't pause for breathe or let me get a word in edgewise. Was this a deliberate performance or manic decompensation? Or perhaps a little of both. She had an audience and she couldn't control herself. And I was the one who got the axe.
Why does she act the bully? To tell you the truth, if we were peers or colleagues--I would say she's jealous. Jealous? Of me? What is there to be jealous of? She has a more prestigious education, a higher position, youth, and children. I am old and alone, a public school graduate.
Or that she is being bullied at home. She always looks so unhappy in Zoom meetings. In the beginning, I asked her if anything was wrong. She denied--allergies was what she claimed accounted for her look. She must have the most uncontrollable allergies, that's all I can say. And she's been promoted.
When I worked live as a psychologist, I used to observe more than competent colleagues bullied by their supervisor. They would smile, say yes, and leave. I wonder they didn't stand up for themselves. They survived to retirement, because they treated their supervisor like a patient. A lesson to us all. Shall I do that? Why? I will not survive to retirement. At my age, most of my relatives had died twice over. And I cannot do that. I cannot be quiet while interacting with incompetents. I was right. If they included me, they would have kept the contract. Ultimately, they lost this contract. But I have seen this happen before at this place. Qualified employees who tried to bring to the supervisor's attention all sorts of problems with the protocols got fired. And then, months later, the venue lost the contract or grant. And the supervisor gets promoted. Is this the PETER Principle or what?
For instance, at the other venue, which I quit rather than deal with the implausible interaction of psychotherapy and ultra-capitalism, the man who triple booked patients was loved. What a great census rate he had.
The man who cruelly mocked patients in team meetings--got promotion after promotion.
One has to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to survive to retirement in this system. I was't interested then. Nor now.
I am still employed. I still have my adjunct jobs and my assessments. There will be new contracts.
In the meantime, I remember what one person said when I was a child psychologist--people come and go here. They still do.