I'm starting to hate my job
 

/rant

I commute for an hour in a car to it. 20 mins on the SV.

I'm thinking of moving closer to where I work but as of late I've been growing more and more resentful of how my boss does business.

I'm his personal assistant who's been there for him from the start of the company (it's new but we have 20 mill in funding already and doing something major so it's 24/7 work) and went out on my limb for him to show him my worth but I'm starting to get the sense that he's simply not worth all the trouble.

By Saturday I have to decide whether to drop the lease here and move closer or not. And after today's incident I'm about ready to cut the string and treat it as just your normal 9-5 job, put in only enough effort to earn my pay, and leave it as it is.

How does this relate to bikes? It doesn't really except the ride from home to work is great on my SV, and he has me take the car sometime to drive his clients around, get food for major conference meetings, etc. So today I took the car, sat in traffic for 2 hrs (1 hr both ways) and then had to deal with this one incident that put me into a rather poor mood.

He's been pretty much treating me as a clerk rather than the earlier agreed upon terms of a right hand man. The pay is good but only good enough for a clerk not for the work I've done. So far I've been doing things like running payroll, setting up health, dental, 401k, phone lines, random tech research, handling all new hire stuff and all other employee questions/issues, handling all IT stuff, and a million other things like taking my work home and being on call 24/7, doing my own research, keeping him on top of everything off hours, blah blah.

But more importantly, I've been on occasion taking my car to work instead of the SV and now I have to make the decision to move to the closer location whereas commuting by the SV is fine and enjoyable. (The only downside, this location has no off street parking but it hasn't been an issue, yet).

So I've been thinking, to find a better paying job (albeit one where I don't learn as much because here I definitely learned a TON), or a similar paying job with less work where I'm treated properly (i.e. I've had jobs where I was treated like a nobody but it was ok since that was sort of the expectation from the start), OR I could suck it up, and simply restart my entire thinking of how to handle this position and do my part of the clerk as a 9-5 assistant, go home, forget about the work, collect my check, and do absolutely nothing extra. (Btw, I'm in school and doing well enough to get into Harvard Law, so this job is not something long term for me).

Here is the kicker, what that would entail is.. I'd take my SV to work <I>everyday</i>. And if he wants one of his consultants driven around he can (each of whom he pays 150-450 an hour btw), he can 1) hire a friggin taxi or 2) tell em to bring a helmet.

Sorry I'm just so frustrated. I wasted two weeks of my time getting T-Mobile, setting up appointments with t-mobile reps, going through all kinds of bs with them, only to find out that what do you know, my boss changed his mind and he doesn't want business lines. Ok fine. But then as I was about to leave, I find out that to cancel my service (which I still can), I have to wait 4 weeks before T-mobile pays me back my 500 bucks. And yes, I paid with my card, expecting to simply submit an expense report. But that wasn't even it, as I'm walking out, the friggin guy turns to me and goes, that business rep called, why didn't you go through him to set-up the account.. he came here, spent his time, he should've gotten the commission.. you need to call him and <I>apologize</I>.

Nevermind the fact I wasted 2 friggin weeks chasing that guy down, got the wrong info from him, got overcharged, got a broken phone, spent my money, received not only not a thank you but an "oh nevermind it'll cost me a couple hundred bucks to switch from sprint which isn't really worth it" from a guy who makes millions a year.

I'm a full time student with loans piling up for a 40k a year school, going out on a limb for a guy who expects me to leave my SV at home whenever he doesn't wanna pay 20 bucks for a taxi.

/sigh

I was about to waste my free time learning this new programming code (a position for which he's actually hiring a guy and paying him 4 times more than me) that I know I can learn and help the company immensly but I'm staring at a stack of no less than 20 LSAT books and now I'm thinking, I better start being more selfish.

On an good end note, I installed new red bar ends to my red SV 650 today and despite this stupid Boston rain, I'm taking her out for a spin tomorrow.

/rant off

Re: I'm starting to hate my job
 

Well, I can't give a lot of advice because I've just graduated and am in the hunt for a job myself but...there's one option that you haven't considered/didn't mention in your post.

You sound like a bright, erudite person and this is backed up by the fact that you say you are capable of attending Harvard Law. You could draft an adult, patient letter stating as best you can all that you have just mentioned to us and the reasons why all the functions you have been fulfilling do not fall within the purvue of your job description/your wage. If, as you say, this is a relatively new thing with the two of you doing a lot of the work and you are not just the office boy whose name the boss doesn't know then you should be able to discuss the matter without causing problems; from one person to another, setting aside positions within the company for a second.

State in the letter that you are giving him the information to mull over prior to a meeting you wish to call to discuss the issue. The best you could achieve is that he honestly hasn't realised/hasn't been thinking about the extra hours and effort you've ben putting in, and he may agree with you. He may react badly but then again you've said it's not permanent so that wouldn't be the end of the world. Make it clear that he would be in some difficulty if you only did the 9-5 stuff (without threatening though) you should and that it is worth his while rewarding you accordingly unless he wants to take on a whole new salaried person to do what you don't anymore.

Hope that made sense, just my 2 penneth.

Re: I'm starting to hate my job
 

OK 2 things
1) Don't move your home just to be closer to a job you're having issues with.
2) Tell him whay you like - you've crashed/sold your car whatever. But just ride to work if that's what you want to do & tell him to provide you with a car (left overnight at the office) if he wants you to drive during the day. Or use his car.

Re: I'm starting to hate my job
 

I agree with stu - just because he is in a higher position, dosnt mean he can treat you (or anyone else) like crap. Just ride to work, I would. If he wants to know why you havnt got a car, say something major has gone wrong with it (if he dosnt know alot / anything about cars then this shouldnt be too hard to blag!). And say that he must pay you extra for duties not specified in your job description (the one you should be working to, outlined when you started the role).

Matt

Re: I'm starting to hate my job
 

Thanks for the much appreciated advice fellas.

Meridia, you're right, I should treat the matter professionally and officially. The problem is I had no written terms when I took the job and put my trust into the guy not taking advantage of me. He saw it as an opportunity to take someone with no experience, underpay him and teach him the ropes as a reward; alas, he hasn't taught me anything, it was all (like I said) on my own doing.

To give an example.. the day the T mobile rep came to discuss rates it was the end of the quarter and he said he would give us great discounts to meet his quota if we file by that day. But instead of making the decision, my boss spent entire day looking at coffee makers (he's big into coffee) to decide which to get... not only that but he spent no less than an hour deciding between the same exact model from one company over another simply because one company was cheaper something like 30-40 bucks cheaper but charged 15 more shipping.

My suspicion is that it's simply his personality. He likes to micromanage and has been doing it all his life; we had a meeting about 2 months ago where he admitted he wasn't sure how to use me. Personalities at 60+ are hard to change and I respect that but like I said, at this point, it's getting a little beyond the "oh ok boss, I'll work with you" and starting to feel pretty disrespectful. He's been asking more and more of me, and doing less and less for me.

I'll think about the letter after I discuss the matter with my mentor/advisor this week.

I will also definitely take your guys' advice and might tell him I sold the car to afford the commute or tuition or books or whatever.

What worries me is if I push too many buttons he'll just replace me with some 70-80k salaried executive know-it-all because like I said he has zero problems handing out money left and right when it comes to big bucks. Since I lack vast experience and a list of huge references he probably still thinks he's doing me a favor more than anything by taking me on and it's not easy to disput the fact simply by pointint to a list of things I've been doing. Without an official written contract as to what my duties are, he can pretty much legally use any excuse and he already has a firm that he pays like 50-60k a month to to handle most of everything. I like the written letter idea where we clearly state what my duties are and I tell him if he wants me to keep scheduling conferences, making coffee, keeping his calendar in order, then that's cool but if he wants me to do more (without even teaching or guiding me in any way), I'm not gonna put in my own free time to do it w/o extra pay so his options would be either to fire me and hire a guy who can do all these things (doubtful an 80k assistant will want to make coffee for a living), or hire 2 people, 1 to take over my simple duties and 1 to take over the hard ones. At least that's what I suspect, I don't claim to be versed well enough in business to know how the whole thing can pan out.

As many people tell me, I'm naive and trustworthy and people will take advantage of that, I guess I'm starting to learn this the hard way.