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has your ego ever got the better of you?
Dan.
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I've been a working in quite well paid jobs until recently when I returned to full time education. Consequently, I now have no money and have been looking for any part time job. I have found one which I am happy with but I don't have enough hours each week so I decided to join an agency that provides work on a flexible basis as a top up.
Tonight, I was offered some work at Old Trafford for the Champions League game against Celtic. I was under the impression that this would be bar work in the hospitality suites butb when I got there I was used as a "runner" meaning that all I did was take plates to tables all night. The organisation was shambolic and it felt as though I was there "just because".
The thing is, I found myself to be "above" this and consequently I walked out after an hour in - a dignified manner, I'll add - I told the manager that it wasn't for me. What I'm asking is does this sound like I'm too egotistical and has anybody else ever walked out of a job or, in my case "job", they felt they were too good for?
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Comments
Sounds like your pride got the better of you Dan. I am a great believer in giving things and people a chance. Also that you are there for a reason. Perhaps it is a time to be humbled. Perhaps it is a time for you to bring your better organisational skills to the table. <did you see what I did there?>
I could go on, but you see where I am going with this...
Edit: A bloke chucked me in a fountain once. He said I was stuck up and needed bringing back down to earth. It worked. I was furious at the time because I had quite an expensive dress on, but it worked. I've been different with people since (unless your name is Prefontain of course).
No, you did exactly the right thing Dan. There are some jobs I've done and will never return to again as they are not what I do any more. You were correct to leave if you thought the job wasn't right for you.
It's not about being 'stuck up'... it's about knowing your own mind and limits. Always bearing in mind that, if you're too choosy you'll get very skint, very quickly
BTW congrats at going back to full time education and good luck with your goals
Blondie, your fountain story disturbs me slightly... you were grateful for someone 'assaulting' you as in the long run it was for your own good???.... 'I'm genuinely shocked!
lol BRT.
Corinth, the chap was someone I knew. I was in USA working, he wasn't a yob or a stranger, he was a French jaw surgeon (not that I had any jaw surgery). He was a highly skilled man with a very high IQ. I was horrible to him because he wanted a relationship but unfortunately I didn't, but I couldn't avoid him because he was part of a group of people I would hang out with.
One evening he had just had enough of me ignoring him, spontaneously picked me up and threw me in a fountain we were passing. We were in a group. Always in this group. I was hopping mad as you can imagine, but then after a while everyone was laughing and eventually I saw the funny side too. I look back on it as a funny incident not a nasty one and one that did me a lot of good.
I later heard he had had a bad car crash and wrote his car off. His pride and joy, a kit car he had built himself.
Dan, you are obviously not desperate enough for money...yet...
Good luck with your studies.
Absolutely!!! I once signed up with a temp agency whilst doing my Masters. They looked briefly at my CV and saw sciencey-type things and decided in their wisdon that they'd send me to a place with "Healthcare" in the title. When I got there they wanted me to wash dirty hospital bedlinen
It involved sorting the dirty sheets and attaching the corners into a machine which washed and pressed them. Vile, vile things on the sheets - many unidentifiable stains and I think I last ed about half an hour before having a polite word with the manager, and excusing myself.
I've done loads of temp jobs over the years - customer services, admin jobs, bar work, but I do draw the line at dirty hospital sheets!
I've never walked out of a job, but then I've never washed sheets or waited on tables!
I think I'd have stuck out the shift on the plate-carrying, but not the sheet-washing!
The least pleasant job I've ever done was collecting x-ray packs from the filing system in a hospital, ready for clinics. They are very heavy, dusty and awkward. I did stick with it for a week, then asked the agency to find me something else.
The dossiest job I ever had was doing a PC audit in a large bank. Weekend work, but £45 per hour (and this was nearly 20 years ago!).
I've never walked out of a job either and there's been a few. I have however, never gone back to some as management have been tossers.
"They are very heavy, dusty and awkward. "
Wilkie, you haven't lived pet .................. why when I were a lad, heavy dusty and awkward were a pleasure, you 'ad to be the boss's pet to get heavy dusty an' awkward.
i'm with blue arrow catering in liverpool
i'm a performing arts student - does that count??!!
i was actually thinking last night that this could be good method acting experience then i thought "how, exactly??"
If someone had been filming you, you could have done a dramatic 'I quit' scene.
£45 an hour Wilkie? I'd happily do that now....
Blondiee, I'm still perturbed. So you wouldn't go out with this guy so he assaulted you in front of all of his friends...Nope, I'm still not seeing the funny side
Dan, I totally empathise with being sent to temp jobs and discovering that they're crap. I've done all sorts in my time, especially when studying.
However, I do think that walking out in the middle of a job is really unprofessional and should make an agency think twice about employing you. Phone them straight after and say you don't want that sort of work again, by any means. But if you walk out, you're letting someone down, when they need the staff (it's up to them to be the judge of that, not you).
If a freelance did that to me, I would not employ them again. Full stop.
ps. I'm sure there are legit reasons for walking out - your health and safety being put in danger, being verbally or physically abused for example. But not the example you gave!
I don't think my ego would get the better of me if I needed the money. I would have served tables all night rather than quit on a commitment.
I do get Blondiee's tale. A brave man though! I wouldn't have taken that from many people - it would have to be someone I was really fond of
I don't really have an ego if I really need the money. When I was a student I did all the usual waiting/bar/factory jobs. If I ever got a bit fed up all I did was look around and see the people for whom this was their real job and think that at least I was doing this in an attempt to avoid a lifetime in those jobs. Worked with some lovely people .... and some very scarey ones too.
I walked out of 2 jobs... Once when I was 15 or thereabouts I was on some 2 week work placement from school. We had no choice where we went and I ended up in a small hotel with a restaurant. The woman who owned it was a complete bitch. We didn't learn anything and she just used the placement as cheap labour to do all the crap work (including shitty bed linen... I feel for you). One night I was made to wait tables. There was a group of young men there. I served them their drinks and the tray was wet. I put 2 out of 3 drinks down ok but the last one (a mineral water) slipped a little on the tray. I caught it but he got a couple of tiny splashes on his cream pants and made a right fuss about it!!!!! When I served him his dinner I poured the whole plate of food (chicken dinner, spuds peas and gravy!) down his lap and told him NOW he had something to worry about...
His mates were pissing themselves laughing... I took off the ridiculous pinny they made us wear and walked out of the place.
Huge bullocking from teacher and parents...
LOL... I was never very patient...
The other job I walked out of was when I was a student and worked in a cloak room of a night club. The number of pissed twerps who would lose their token... The rule was no token no jacket, and you would have to wait until the club closes and if it's the last one left you can have it... I didn't make the rules... The number of them that got shirty...
Plus a few of the thought that the 50p for the cloakroom also should have included a good night kiss...
I am clearly not suited to work in a "customer service" environment.
LOL Hope, the funny thing was I didn't tell my parents at first, so would leave the house pretending to go to placement but just bum around town... come home at the usual time etc... One night dad asked over dinner how the placement was going... I made up some carp... There was something in his narrowed eyes and twitching moustache that told me he KNEW....
At first he gave me a rollocking (in front of mum) about acceptable behaviour etc.... once mum left the room, he told me no big deal and well for sticking up for myself... LOL
I was in a pretty similar situation a while back - before I started freelancing, I was going to take a temp shop job just to get some money in - was all set to go in Monday, then Sunday I thought to hell with this, I didn't go to Uni for 3 years and put in 2 years hard work at various companies to unpack clothes in a stock room.
It's good to have ambition, otherwise no one would get anywhere
It shouldn't be about whats below you - I am currently lookling for well paid consultancy work but will do low paid teporary admin roles to get off the dole in the meantime - some things just don't suit your personality but thats a different to something being 'beneath you'