Rant

So, I haven't posted in a few years, so hello. I will make another post about some updates, but this one is just because I need to rant for a few.

I just recently left a retail job that I greatly enjoyed. The job was wonderful, and my coworkers were amazing. 

"Well then, why did you leave?"

Because my supervisor, who also happened to be the owner... and it sucks, because I was good at the job, loved my position, customer base and was learning a lot.
My supervisor just didn't see any of that, sadly, even after having been there over a year and a half. 

So, I left and even worse, I don't feel like it was on good terms like I had hoped. I had done the proper thing with having given my two weeks and had agreed to stay longer if needed in order to help train and finish up a few events that we were going to be at. Then something happened, and my supervisor ended up letting me go because he felt as if I had been lying to him. The thing with that is, I hadn't. I still can say I hadn't. There was no reason for me to lie, and any time I had done something wrong previously, I had owned up to it. That is who I am. 

Now, the supervisor is really good at aspects of his job, in my opinion, management isn't one of them. The way he would speak to people would make them cry, fear him and all around feel like complete shit (excuse my language). There were a few instances where he would talk down about me either to or in front of customers, to the point where said customers no longer wanted to work with me because I "didn't know what I was doing" but was good at my job "because I'm pretty". 

EXACT QUOTES!

The first part of that always hit me funny when it was said because I had never formally been trained. I started and not even two weeks later, the person training me left the state for 4 months. I trained myself with the help of a binder that was left by the person before me. If it wasn't in the binder, I taught it to myself. So, if I "didn't know what I was doing", it was because I wasn't doing it their way because I had received maybe two weeks of training. I was proud of everything I had figured out on my own and was even able to re-write the training binder before I left to include even more knowledge to help out whoever would work behind the counter.

 Now, I don't want to go into everything that was wrong with this, because honestly... I don't have the energy or care enough to type it all out again. There are many people who left this place of employment who would have a similar story to mine, and sadly, there will probably be many more to come.

ANYWAYS..... 

The real reason for my rant is how ridiculous the Oregon Employment System is. 

Before leaving my position, I had already found another job with a great company, problem was that I was not sure when I was going to start, it was guaranteed that I wouldn't start for at least a month (which worked out great until my previous supervisor had decided to let me go due to my "lying" because then I would have only been unemployed for a couple weeks - 1 of those weeks I was in Vegas), but since I had been let go early from my position, I filed for temporary unemployment. I went through all the steps and jumped through all of the hoops and since I had technically left my place of employment, let me tell you.... there were a lot of steps and hoops! I had gotten an email saying that I had been approved to collect unemployment until I started my new job, as long as I kept doing all of the proper stepping and hoop jumping and finished my "welcome process". I did all of this. 

Then I get a phone call, I had to give statements as to why I left my position, which is fine until they say that my previous supervisor will be hearing my statements - which I had been informed were recorded. This is where things started to go downhill. Due to the conditions I worked in, who my supervisor is as a person and how things ended, I was not comfortable with this so I had to deny my unemployment and figure out something else in order to make it until I could start my new job.

Disappointing, but fine.

I am nothing if not resourceful.

Due to the things I had seen and had been subject to, I had also filed with BOLI under "whistle blowing". 

This is where things become not so fine.

I spent 2 hours on the phone, four emails, countless forms of proof and was able to provide witnesses to all aspects of what I was claiming... but, in order to process the claim, the previous supervisor gets to read all of the statements and my name is plastered all over the paperwork!

"I thought I had checked the box for this to be anonymous due to not feeling comfortable/safe with the supervisor know who was filing"

"Well, the anonymous part is that we don't provide your address or phone number"

"He already has that in my employee records"

".....yeah....unless he got rid of them or you move and change your number"

Even after she has heard the forms of retaliation that happened while I was there -whether towards me or that I had witnessed towards my coworkers- even after she had heard all of the things I was bringing up, read the messages and heard the recordings... I would still have to agree to risk more retaliation by letting my prior supervisor hear/see everything and have my name plaster all over it!

Thanks for keeping your employees safe, BOLI. Instead, everything that you now have on file will keep happening because I can't risk more retaliation, so now it is on your hands that more people get to endure what I told you. 

UGH!