In which I quit my job but not until after a lot more weirdness

It has been three months since I quit the job at SergioLandia.

My life is a million times better.

Even though I have some PTSD, I think. Every time my new boss, who is wonderful, calls me into his office, I worry that I am getting into some kind of trouble. But I am not. It is either because he wants to clarify something or ask me to do something or, as it was the other day, to tell me I was doing a good job and that I should not be bothered by his teasing. I am not bothered by his teasing. I would be worried if he did not tease me - ie, treat me the way he treats my two male co-workers. But the fact that he treats us all alike (and well) is good.

I still flinch when I hear an Argentine accent. (Not really Argentine, but that is the nationality I have picked for Sergio for this blog. He is not from the US and had a very strong accent, but his jerkiness has nothing to do with his national origins and everything to do with his jerkiness.) There is an ad that has been playing on the radio and the speaker has an Argentine accent. As soon as it comes on, I change the station.

I go to work now. I no longer have a window office overlooking the river and that makes me sad.

But there is no radio in my office. There are no vipers. There is no gossip, no tattle-taling, no drama. There must be drama somewhere but I have yet to encounter it. There are nice, hard-working, SMART people. I had forgotten what it was like to work with really smart people who do not have to have basic things explained to them - I had forgotten what it was like to work with a boss who had to be told why you could not calculate a percentage increase of margin year over year when the previous year showed a loss and current year a gain.

It is really nice to work with hard working, nice, smart people.

But I have not forgotten some of the craziness at the end at SergioLandia. Right before I quit, which I did the morning that my boss wanted to have my six-month review with me -

Yes! Six months! And did I tell you what the review was going to cover? I had to complete a form where I rated myself on questions like,

Did I come to work on time?
Did I finish my breaks on time?
Did I dress appropriately for work?
Did I answer the phone properly?

I asked my boss why I was completing an evaluation that appeared to be geared toward someone in a very low-level hourly job and he just shrugged. Blesshisheart, I think he had given up by that point.

I did find out that my boss' predecessor had been fired. The predecessor spoke to a friend of mine and said he was so much better now that he was not working for Sergio. His "nervous twitch" was gone, my friend said.

Oh. My boss wanted to have my six-month review but I gave him my resignation instead and it was a great day.

But before I quit, here are some of the things Sergio did:

1. He hired his wife as his executive assistant, with the excuse that she was already doing the work so why shouldn't she be paid for it?

2. He changed the T&E rules so the company would cover his children's travel with him on business trips. Let me note for the record here that this is the same man who stopped buying nameplates for new employees because it was getting too expensive.

3. After the HR audit he had done of the company - the one where nobody answered the questions honestly because we all knew there could be repercussions, he decided that the problem with the company was that there was a lack of respect for authority (well, yes) and that he needed an HR department in Argentina, I guess to get people in line.

4. I made a note before my last day that, "kicks A out of his office after C loses her corner office" but I cannot remember the details. I will have to ask my friend who still works there what that was about.

5. I lost 32 hours of PTO because SergioLandia does not pay out unused vacation, those cheap SOBs. On my first day at the new job, in my orientation with HR, I asked about that. I told them I was not planning to quit any time soon but I had never before worked anywhere with a policy like that and I wanted to know what the deal was.

But don't worry. They didn't pay out those hours. But I made sure I took them. Beware, bad employers. You reap what you sow. I will work my butt off for a good boss and you will get more than your money's worth from me, but if you nickel and dime me, that is what you will get in return.

In which Primo has to compete with trick or treaters to campaign

I am posting this one in real time so you will see how stupid it is here. Our trick or treating happened today. It is not Halloween. It is the Sunday before Halloween. We do not trick or treat on Halloween here unless Halloween falls on a Sunday. Is nothing sacred?

Anyhow, Primo went out as a politician.

I joke.

He said he couldn't do doors because the kids would be trick or treating. I said he should tell homeowners that he was not asking for anything their vote.

Which he did. Actually, the way it worked was he came home from an afternoon of doors and said, "So I had this idea! I told people I wasn't asking for candy but for their vote!"

"Great idea!" I said.

I wish he had asked for some candy, except he probably would have gotten just peppermints. Who gives regular-sized candy bars to a politician?