Sara and Melissa Talk About...Bad Jobs

We've been running a column series to get more personal with our readers. We are now into our sixth year!

This month, we are talking about bad jobs we've had in the past. A bunch of books we've featured have been about characters who have bad job experiences. The Devil Wears Prada definitely comes to mind, as who could imagine working for Miranda Priestly? (We talked about horrible bosses a while ago, but this time we're talking about the job experiences.)

We're always open to topic suggestions, so please don't hesitate to share those in the comments. We'd also love to know if you can relate to anything we've said or hear your own thoughts on the topic. So don't be shy. :) We look forward to getting to know you as much as we're letting you get to know us. You can find our previous columns here, in case you missed them. 

Melissa Amster:

When I was in college, I was looking to make extra money over the summer. I worked at a day camp, but that didn't really pay too well. I interviewed at a bunch of restaurants I liked and was hoping to work at Ed Debevic's, as it was my favorite place and I could have fun being mean to everyone while getting away with it. However, that was not meant to be and the only restaurant that would hire me was...wait for it...IHOP. 

It probably could have been a decent job, if not for the obnoxious coworkers who made lewd comments and the rude, entitled customers. Sunday breakfast was hellish, to say the least! There was also this mean, cranky old lady who would sit in the back corner and complain about everything and help everyone with their side work, except for me of course. She would take all the silverware and wouldn't share it when I needed to do my side work. I got snide about it after a while and made a point of saying that I share my silverware with others who need to do their side work. She would also follow me around the restaurant and mess up what I was doing for the tables. 

Back to the lewd comments...when I talked to a manager about it, he said he'd do something but then ended up making lewd comments too. While I had some decent customers, they were few and far between. (Fun side note: This cute guy customer told me I had the personality for Ed Debevic's and didn't mean it as an insult. He just thought I was funny.) And don't get me started on the uniform. Boys got to wear long sleeved white shirts and pants while girls had to wear these ugly blue dresses with short sleeves. We were carrying hot plates on our arms! Needless to say, I haven't set foot inside an IHOP in 29 years! I was also glad to learn that the specific IHOP I worked at has since been torn down.

Good riddance!

The other bad job I had was a few years out of college, where I was working for a facilities management company that handled plasma donation centers around the country. I wasn't told until after I started that I would need to be available by phone 24/7 to deal with plasma center emergencies. So yeah, I would have to take a call at 3:00 a.m. and then find companies that could handle that middle of the night emergency. Some of these plasma centers weren't anywhere near places that could get there at the drop of a hat. I also didn't like the managers I had to deal with after the first one left. So when our contract ended, I was actually thrilled. No more company cell phone!!! 

Since then, I've had some decent jobs and am currently enjoying what I do, even though I deal with some big egos sometimes. (All part of the business, right?!?)

Sara Steven:

A couple of decades ago, I fell into property management. A neighbor of mine had recommended I replace her recently vacated part-time leasing consultant position for the apartment community down the street from our neighborhood, but at the time, I had a full-time job and had no need to change professions. Several months later, I did. I didn’t know if the apartment community needed someone. I knew nothing about property management. But after a two-hour interview with the manager, I started out part-time and just a few short months later, went full-time, splitting my time between two properties.

I worked for that management company for over five years. After a brief stint at a 55+ community, I moved on to a different management company and held firm there for several years until I’d made the decision to become a stay-at-home parent. When I left the biz, it was a tough decision for me. I loved property management. I enjoyed helping someone find their perfect home. The job was fun, and I made lasting friendships. 

After stepping away for over a decade, I decided to get back into property management. A small management company took a chance on an old mom who’d been out of work for a very long time, and for that I was grateful. But I noticed pretty quickly that the line of work I’d fallen in love with, had some of my best memories of, was not the same business I remembered. 

For starters, I worked with five managers in the thirteen months I worked for the company. The first one had been promoted and moved on to another property. The person who replaced that manager was only my manager for two months before changing management companies. The third manager did the same thing, as did the fourth. And the fifth manager was the one that finally broke me, forcing me to turn in my two weeks notice. 

Out of all five managers, three of them decided to steal my commissions. The first manager did it stealthily–on the bonus sheet she’d turn into corporate monthly, instead of writing my name down, she’d write her name. I never even knew it, not until a whistleblower alerted us to that behavior. She still works for that management company, believe it or not. The regional knew it was happening–he confirmed that to me when I asked. The second manager who stole commissions was even stealthier; she was a minimalist and would only take a little cream from the top, so as not to alert anyone. Not that anyone seemed to care one way or the other. 

The third thief (the fifth manager I had the displeasure of working with) didn’t seem to care to hide it. She converted all of my leads into her name. When I called her out on it, she said it must have been some sort of software glitch. She refused to “fix” the supposed issue, and no one at corporate supported me, so I decided it was best to part ways. It wasn’t a huge loss. Aside from the commission nabbing, I dealt with a shooting at the community, a SWAT team who’d swooped in to arrest a resident who had been found guilty of murdering four people–one of the managers had let the convicted murderer move in without a background screening done beforehand–along with drug activity, cockroach and bed bug infestations, and consistent arguments with residents who refused to pay rent and didn’t feel it was their problem to do so.

You’d think I would have walked away completely from this line of work, but I didn’t. Just recently, I thought I’d found the perfect job for me. A leasing consultant position just five minutes from where I live. It was a really nice property, with Monday through Friday hours, unheard of in property management. My interviews went well, and it felt like my luck had changed and I’d get to see some glimmers of what I’d experienced all those years ago when I first got into the profession. But on day one, the manager informed me that their sister property–a property where she and the assistant manager would take turns working, would be sold soon, and when I asked what that would mean for me, she noncommittally said that she thought it would be fine. A sale was never mentioned to me when I interviewed. There was only room for two desks in the tiny office on site. 

It only got worse from there. I have a health condition due to a disc compression on my spinal cord in my neck, and I made that clear to the manager when I interviewed. The condition requires me to be more active. I can’t sit strapped to a desk for hours on end. She informed me that it would be so wonderful for me to do the legwork, delivering notices, walking units, helping maintenance to relieve some of their load. But it never happened. In fact, when I needed to take a break to use the restroom, I was asked to finish a task first before I was allowed to use the restroom. The two months I worked there, I was in constant pain daily. I went from minimal visits with medical care professionals, like yearly check ups, to needing to consult with four doctors, because I was in so much pain. It got to the point where I was told I needed to quit the job for my health. Immediately.

I am a glutton for punishment, because I recently accepted a full time position in leasing, but other than some quirks and annoyances, it’s going okay. I’m not in pain. I actually get to walk the tour path, inspect apartments before someone moves in, to ensure they are ready for the new resident, deliver notices, and I do the majority of the tours, so I have a nice balance between sitting at a desk, and moving my body. It’s not perfect. I know not many jobs are. But at least I can use the restroom at my discretion. And just the other day, someone I’d toured with (and who had later applied) let me know that I was the sole reason she decided to move there. She told me that nice properties can be a dime a dozen, but a good leasing staff is hard to come by. That made me feel valued and appreciated and makes what I went through to get to this point kind of worth it.  

Tell us about YOUR bad job experience(s).

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