Where the cynicism began

I’ve mentioned on this blog that when I first started working in the corporate world, I was what people like to refer to as ‘a real go getter.’ There were even days when I arrived to work so early that my badge wouldn’t even let me into the office. I would stand outside the door until 7 o’ clock when my clearance to enter the building kicked in. The first thing I would do is sit down at my desk and scribble a list of tasks I wanted to get done before lunch. I would plow through them and time would fly.

This lasted for six months, and during that time I thought that I was going to conquer the world. I was straight out of college and loving the idea of being grown up. I entered the company as part of program where after six months, I was supposed to be able to either stay with the group I was in, or I could move to another area of the bank with the help of the director of the new college hire program. I thought this was great! If I didn’t like what I was doing, I knew that I had the option to move elsewhere.

As the end of the six months approached, I started to suspect that management was not being truthful with me. I was repeatedly told there was paperwork that needed to be signed off on to secure money in the budget to add a full time employee to the group, but it would be taken care of. I loved what I was doing and saw myself staying there rather than switching to another group.

However, things started to get a little shady as the time approached to sign me onto the group. Luckily I had some great people I worked with who gave me some inside information that I shouldn’t have known. I discovered that while I was working there, my salary was being paid out of the budget assigned to the new college program, not the division of the bank I was working in. Little did I know how much these budgetary buckets mattered.

My coworkers had very strong suspicions that there never was any fulltime position available for me. The head of my division had basically heard about the program and thought, “Cool…I can get an employee for six months for free!” I told my coworkers that there had to be a fulltime position available–management had told me several times that it was going to be happening, it was just a matter of getting the proper signatures. Higher ups wouldn’t lie directly to my face, would they?

I was even so motivated at the time that I asked the head of the division out to lunch so that I could ‘learn something from her.’ What I eventually learned was that she was a horrible person not to be trusted. She told me repeatedly what a great job I was doing and that I had nothing to worry about. Everything would be taken care of.

Two weeks before the end of my six months, I still couldn’t get her or my direct manager to officially say that I was going a part of the team. They were trying hard to push the position through, but it was taking some time. It was at this point that the main coworker feeding me information pulled me out into the hallway and said that he had found out that there was no fulltime position that needed to be signed off. There never was and probably never would be.

It turned out that they were saying so just to hold to me as long as they could without any money coming out of their budget. Since things were always ‘in the works,’ I had only casually been exploring other options within the bank. Even if I didn’t stay with them, the director of the new college hire program was supposed to find me a full term position. Of course, she had been lied to the whole time as well, and thus hadn’t been looking around for me.

As the six months came to an end, it was decided that I would stay in my current temporary role until I could be placed elsewhere. Of course, during this time my salary would be coming out of the college hire program’s budget and not that of the division in which I was working.

This whole situation infuriated me. I was a damn good worker and did some amazing things for someone right out of college if I do say so myself. I had fully automated the collection and analysis of reports coming from four different sources. The program I wrote eliminated hours worth of tedious work being done by other people.

I was so disgusted that I didn’t want to give management the satisfaction of using me any longer. I took matters into my own hands and through contacts within the college hire program secured a position elsewhere within the bank. When I told management, they expressed disappointment in the fact that things didn’t come together the way that they should have.

I could have had a great experience right out of college that would make me motivated to make a difference in the corporate world. Instead I felt used, abused, and lied to. I did have a slightly better experience in the other group that I went to, but the seeds were already there. I’ll detail later what eventually happened it that position that sealed my mistrust forever.

I do take responsibility for the way I have managed my career from there, and I know that not everything can be blamed on other people. I have chosen to slack the way I do, I’m just detailing where it started.

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