Two-Week Notice

I was hired as a software development administrative assistant in August, 2008. Prior to that, I worked in technical support for eight years including five years as a web technician.

After Chipmunk's personal assistant quit last summer, I became the default go-to person for all of Chipmunk's random requests - a ride down the street, printing out his email, making hundreds of copies of his financial statements and be sure not to talk to anyone about them or read them, making deliveries to San Francisco, etc., etc. In the meantime, he was clearly not happy with my "performance." For my end of the year self evaluation, I listed all of my responsibilities, listed all 10 websites I was managing, included some "kudos" from customers and internal employees, pointed out that the position of Chipmunk's personal assistant was imposed on me whether I wanted it or not. I demanded for a pay adjustment. That was turned in before Thanksgiving. In early December, Chipmunk sent out an email and cced my manager, the HR Director, and the CFO:

"...this is not acceptable job performance on your part...Please do not let a mishap like this happen again or I will need to put a memo in your personnel file..."

My immediate reply was (also cced my manager, the HR Director, and the CFO):

"...In this case, I do not believe it was a mishap on my part. I did not forget about the delivery and it was on schedule according to the contract...the client just now told us that he needs it by December 17."

I was furious, and I was furious for days. If Chipmunk had been in the office, I would have to quit right there, so I didn't have to kill anybody.

Last year ended and new year rolled around. On Tuesday, Chipmunk was again unhappy with the fact that I didn't remind him of something he wanted to take care of on Monday. He emphasized about how I needed to have some kind of system to remind myself to remind him. The truth is, I didn't forget. I didn't remind him because I didn't want to spend time "working" with him on whatever it was. It turned out that he just wanted me to print out two copies of a contract and have him sign them. If he had said so, I would have printed them out and had them on his desk before he came in. Unfortunately, in his forwarded email, he only said to remind him about it so we could work on it.

I don't like naggers, and I don't work well with micro managers. For months, I contemplated on quitting the job since I know I would not get laid off any time soon if ever. I briefly searched for a new job and applied for a few. I received an invitation for an interview but decided that really wasn't what I wanted to do. Some of my friends tried to talk me out of quitting because the economy is still in the shit hole. When would be a good time to quit? I couldn't quit during dotcom years because the money was too easy. It was almost impossible to think of quitting when the pay was 3 times higher and the work seemed easy.

On Tuesday night, I got stuck in the office until almost 6 P.M. I was about ready to leave at 5 P.M. then Chipmunk came in. There was this outstanding issue that is still unresolved since last September. The IT people in Germany we corresponded with simply just stopped responding. They got tired of it, I am sure. Someone brought it up again to Chipmunk, and I got stuck with the task of "get it resolved."

That was the last push. Today I handed in my two-week notice. When I got home, I actually remembered that tomorrow is garbage day.

P.S. Chipmunk is the owner of the 10-people company I work for.
P.P.S. All graphics in this post were taken from Google Images.