Trip

I am quitting my job! In fact I told my workplace already a number of weeks ago that I do not plan to stay on until the very end of my contract, which is end of July. I just do not see any need to, and to be honest my work organising the competition has been done, and done very successfully. And so I can leave this job, and be glad I did a great job that people are going to remember. Whatever happens after me, or how my employer deals with finding a replacement is no longer my concern.

To be honest, I am quite disappointed and bitter about my workplace. Not the work that I do, not because I have to put in so many extra hours and even weekends to make sure that the event last week was a huge success. It is just that the workplace is stuffy with people who care more about image and money than really what you are doing... and the recognition I get is close to minimal. I had an appointment with the personnel secretary to discuss the days I had saved up for leave. Since I started last August, I did not take a single holiday... instead I was working overtime, more than double the laughable 22.6hours that I am officially employed for. I asked whether the overtime that I worked every single day could be turned into my leave days... and the reply was no. At least, not that simple. To qualify for overtime-turned-days-off, I must first 'apply' for it every time I work extra. Which means, every single day since I started working I must go tell my superior after 5pm that I will be working extra. And only then can they calculate my overtime, and turn that into days off.

I explained to the lady that my job is impossible to accomplish with just 22.6hours a week. How can a function that used to employ two people working close to 40hours a week in total be accomplished in just a little more than half the amount of time? And how do you expect people to work motivatedly by slashing people's salary? Outrageous. Then the lady said I should talk to my superiors and arrange something. But she was the one in charge of personnel...

Anyways, this is just the kind of rubbish I have to face at work, and the more I see it, the more I scoff at the kind of disorganisation and bureaucracy that is my workplace. How can a university that loves to pride itself on its (self-trumpeted) reputation and (false) high quality of education be so rotten and exploitative of its employees?

So I will in three weeks time leave this workplace and be glad I am able to get away. Others are not so lucky.