Limited Sanity

What do you do when you start to realize that your 8 year career isn’t fitting your needs anymore? How to you address issues of morality with your superiors? How can I express “You’re fucking up, bud” without any blow back?

Long story short, I work at a car dealership. I run all marketing and advertising for their two dealerships. I’m locally based at one and handle most other things digitally for the other. The store located about 2 hrs from me is run by an absolute joke of a human. He bullied a friend out of the workplace because he didn’t like him. Said friend has had medically excused mental health issues, yet this POS manager didn’t care. Honestly, this friend would have one hell of a lawsuit if he pursued it, but he’s not that kind of person. I went to bat for this friend for over a year. Complaining to the owners, providing evidence of him being a big ol’ mean nasty bully, and I thought they had heard me, yet here we are.

Now some new issues have come up regarding accountability and I think I’ve decided I can’t stand behind them anymore. Our sales team is lazy, not wanting to do their leg work when it comes to customer follow-up and campaigns. The solution? Hire someone to do it FOR them! THIS is what I have a problem with. Continuing to reward bad behavior. This happens every few months or at least once a year. They’re not happy with progress, let’s put new rules, and expectations in place, only to forget they ever existed 2 weeks or a month later.

Full disclosure, this is a 4th generation owned dealership. They’ve been around since the 1950s and have a solid reputation. The 4th generation is coming of age to learn dealership processes and procedures. Fresh out of college, ready to put that degree to work. I love working for a family owned business. What I don’t like is this new generation coming in and all of a sudden all of these great ideas that have been brought to the table before but rejected are suddenly great ideas. I’m also feeling this a bit personally because a lot of what I do is being put into question by these kids that have never done it before. I get it, they’re trying to learn and figure out day to day operations. Maybe I’m just salty because of the changes and the new younger generation coming in. I really think my issue is I’m starting to realize my opinion doesn’t always matter. My experience doesn’t always matter. And as wonderful as this place is to work, if you’re not on the “inside,” it can be toxic too.

I’ve absolutely benefited from their kindness and generosity, especially when it comes to my fucked up family and custody situation with the fella. I’ve been a part of the privilege that comes with being part of the “in” group of employees several times and I am super grateful and thankful for them. However, they fall short in some areas too. We all do and we all can do better, but I feel like after having been dealing with the shit manager at the other store going on 3 years now, losing a great employee because he didn’t like them, and now this sudden urge to hold employees accountable for their work when it should have been happening all along… I need to do better in finding a workplace to call home.

I have no idea what I want to do, but if it could in some small way impact the world or even just one person, that would be a bonus. I’d love to work with animals, the elderly, kids, even from home to hangout with my cats all day. I’ll likely take a pay cut, but sometimes being proud of where you work and what you do is worth more than a paycheck.

In my job search, I recently applied for Life Enrichment Coordinator with a few retirement / assisted living communities and have interviews lined up with 2 different locations. I also reached out to a friend who owns a local company looking to take on local tours of our city. I worked closely with this friend at an event center – he was the entertainment manager, I usually worked all of the shows. Well… he’s looking for fun people to memorize fun facts and take bus tours of our cities with tourists. Could potentially use that to make up for any loss of income with switching. Unfortunately, I did apply for a few “office” positions because I know I’m good at it and it’s steady work, but I’m really hoping to get out of corporate America and really get to things that matter. Or at least matter to me.

Here’s to starting that next chapter of my life…. at 34… hey, they say anyone can do it, right?

Until next time.