The Exit
Interview: A New Art Form?
As you may
or may not know, members of Team Shotgun have the ongoing nagging habit of
switching day jobs. The following Exit
Interview was contributed by our own Li Rapkin from her personal files. Is it truth? Satire? You be the
judge. Then again, you might already
know.
Employee Name L.
I. Rapkin Date 10/19/00
What kind of work did you do at the Company? Originally, I was hired as a technical writer. After the advent of the Datafill project, I became a technical editor, although my time was actually spent color-coding manufacturer material for keying overseas rather than editing existing text. When the markup process was slated to be outsourced, I wrote a training manual for the process and trained local vendors. My next position was “Database Advocate”, and my responsibilities included identifying and solving problems in the database. This quickly degenerated to “DataCheck”, where I was expected to proofread hundred of units daily, as well as handling additional responsibilities as the Team Leader. When the DataCheck project finished, I was sent down to Data Acquisition, where my primary function was to hand-number pages in manufacturer material. My most recent position was Managing Librarian.
Who explained your job to you? My technical writer
training was done by Kara
Davis, who left the
company shortly after I was hired. Kyle Dudley and Ryan Williams, who are also no
longer with the company, provided Datafill markup training. Proofreader training was done by a woman
whose name I no longer remember, but she is also no longer with the
company. Data Acquisition training for
the mail receiving & page-numbering position was by Erika Fields. Nobody trained me for the Managing Librarian
position, because I had more library science experience already than anyone
else in the company.
How? Having been in the position of both trainer and trainee, I would say that the best answer to this question is “haphazardly at best”. There are no actual company trainers with experience in education, nor are there any training manuals. Team leaders and/or employees with experience—in some cases, no more than a few weeks’ experience—are selected by managers to train incoming personnel. When I was told I would be training proofreaders for the DataCheck project, I was given three hours to write a training manual for a procedure that was not yet fully defined.
When you began work with the Company, who introduced you to
the people with whom you would be working and told you about working at the
Company? Nobody.
How do you feel about your pay? My primary feeling about my pay is “resentment”. HWS/eCatalogs is the only place I have ever worked where I was
making less money after one year than I was when I started. This was due to my involuntary changeover
from second shift to first shift, and the commensurate loss of my shift
bonus. Later, when I was a Team Leader
with approximately 18 months experience, I discovered I was making
approximately $5/hour less than the temporary employees I was
training for my team. When these same
employees were hired in, they took a significant pay cut, but were still making
approximately the same amount per hour that I was. I was not compensated for experience, seniority, or additional
responsibilities. I am also fully aware
of the fact that this was not an isolated incident. This is also the only company I have ever worked for that did not
have holiday bonuses, a profit-sharing plan, or both.
How do you feel about your progress at the Company? Like training, my progress has been haphazard at best. For quite
some time, I was actually making negative progress. I was hired as a technical writer, a position that required a
Bachelor’s degree, and after two years, I was in a position which required the
equivalent of a high school diploma.
The only reason I even got the position of Managing Librarian was
because I was asked specifically to “come up with a few ideas to improve the
library” and was eventually given the job title after performing the job
functions for several weeks.
Supervision
What do you feel/think about your supervisor? My current supervisor, Erica Carpenter, is one of the few
members of the management team for whom I have any trust or respect. I feel that I can rely upon her to be honest
with me, even if the news is unpleasant.
She is also one of the few managers who publicly recognizes exceptional
employees and their contributions to the team. The only other manager I have worked for who has earned the same
level of respect from his team members is Andrew Moxon. I have also worked
for Bob Ratliff, who has excellent
personnel skills. Stacy Nolan, who was my supervisor
under the DataCheck project, has the full complement of technical skills, but
failed to inspire either trust or confidence in me, particularly because she
told our group in a meeting that contrary to rumor, there were no plans to fire
anyone. No more than two weeks later,
half of the team was fired. Normally, I
would take this opportunity to complement some of the Team Leaders I have
worked with, but none of them are still with the company.
Did you complain to your supervisor? ___X__Yes _X____No
If yes, how were they handled? Most managers I have worked for have had little difficulty solving minor personnel or procedural problems.
If no, why not? On the occasions when I did not bring
problems to my supervisor’s attention, it was usually for one of two
reasons. The first reason was that the
problem was the supervisor herself or himself, and I expected that the sole
result would be either subtle retaliation or a prejudicial firing. The second reason was that the problem was
endemic to the company, and therefore beyond my supervisor’s power to solve.
Have you had any troubles with your supervisor? __X___Yes _____No
If yes, describe. I
have had considerable difficulty with the attitude of Itai Ben-Artzi toward female employees. In one of first meetings after the sale of HWS to eCatalogs, a female employee
asked whether or not telecommuting would be an option. Mr. Ben-Artzi replied that telecommuting was a bad idea,
because “you would be too busy drinking coffee, taking care of babies, and
making dinner for your husband.” I have
to question whether or not a male employee who asked the same question would
have received an equivalent answer.
Given that response, I feel that even if I were to discuss a
work-related problem or issue with him,
I would not be taken seriously, simply because I am female. This only contributes to the already extant
problem of lower-level employees receiving promotions from managers with whom
they were socially involved. The
combination of these factors not only breeds resentment among employees, but
also creates a hostile workplace environment.
More
generally, there is a pervasive “us vs. them” attitude among the
production-level employees. There is a
high level of mistrust for upper-level management, and given the conduct and
attitude of those managers, the only thing that surprises me is that outright
hostility is reserved for so few managers.
These managers have, on more than one occasion, told employees to “have
morale”, and upon asking for suggestions on how one should have morale, the
answer is always “work harder”. There
is no visible effort on the part of management to solve the morale problem that
it is responsible not only for creating in the first place, but exacerbating
with asinine comments such as “Ask not what your company can do for you, ask
what you can do for the company.” There
are no company-sponsored “extra-curricular” activities such as sports teams,
blood drives, community service, etc., nor is there any incentive program to
encourage employees to excel. Other
companies routinely reward exceptional performance with gifts or bonuses, while
this company doesn’t even give employees a holiday bonus. At eCatalogs, an exceptional employee is lucky to
receive a “thank-you” from his or her supervisor. Even practices that are common at other companies, such as a
casual dress code and flexible hours, are absent from this workplace.
Summary
What did you like best about your job? For the most part, my coworkers are very
interesting and pleasant people. Also,
most of the speeches given by upper management are full of unintentional comic
irony.
What did you like least about your job? Most of the work I have been assigned has been boring, tedious, repetitive, and does not give me a sense of accomplishment. There is little to no opportunity to be creative, solve problems, or use any of the skills that I learned while getting the degree that was supposedly required for my position. Production goals have been outrageously optimistic, given the technological problems that the company is experiencing. Also, it is nearly impossible for me to do my job properly without the cooperation of project managers and job advocates. I have had no opportunity to give feedback directly to these people.
What did you like best about the Company? I am pleased to have avoided sexual
harassment by most members of upper management.
What did you like least about the Company?
1. Titles,
responsibilities, positions, and personal workspaces are constantly
changing. It is impossible to learn a
new procedure or position in time to be successful before another change is
implemented.
2. The aggravated
hostility between management and labor.
3. The
regressive, rather than progressive, nature of my alleged career with the
company.
4. Management’s
persistent refusal to deal with morale problems. Given that production-level employees are not responsible for the
creation of the morale problem, it is insulting that we have been peremptorily
instructed to solve it when we are not in a position to do so.
5. Management
continually blames employees for lack of productivity, refusing to recognize
the fact that people are moved around too quickly to learn their jobs, the fact
that one database or another is always crashing or being taken down for
maintenance, and that everyone is so overburdened that it is impossible to get
anything done.
6. The company has been extremely slow to replace employees lost through attrition. Instead, the workload is redistributed among those who remain. Employees are then expected to put in tremendous amounts of overtime in order to complete their work as well as the additional responsibilities that have little or nothing to do with their jobs.
7. The complete
absence of any organized and consistent training. Also, although I was signed up for training in MS Access no less
than three separate times, I was never sent to any kind of training class, even
though I have used Access almost constantly for several months.
8. Management is
perceived as being dishonest with employees.
In a best-case scenario, employees assume that important information is
deliberately withheld. Most of the
time, employees simply assume that management is lying to them.
9. Employees were
compelled to sign a “loyalty agreement” with the company. In return, we were to begin vesting for
stock options. However, there has been
no concrete evidence of stock options, nor has there been any information about
why we haven’t seen any progress on this issue. Loyalty is not something that comes with a signature on a piece
of paper. Like trust, it must be
earned, and the company has done absolutely nothing to return either trust or
loyalty to its employees.
10. The endemic
lack of communication from employees to management and back, the lack of
communication between team members, and the lack of a feedback mechanism.
11. Although
employees have been told more than once they are the company’s “most valuable
asset”, the company has done nothing to back up this assertion. I, and most of my coworkers, feel that the
company could not possibly care less about employees.
12. The widespread perception that competence is its own punishment. Being good at your job only gets you more of the same boring work with the resulting need for more overtime, without any increase in compensation or responsibilities.
Do you have any suggestions for your leaving the
Company? This question makes
absolutely no sense at all. If I were
to answer it literally, I would suggest that I leave the Company six months
ago. However, I would like to point out
that the fact that the question makes no sense perfectly illustrates one of the
problems the Company has. In a building
full of technical writers and proofreaders, why didn’t anyone bother to
proofread the exit interview?
Would you be willing to stay at the Company under a more satisfactory arrangement? _____Yes __X___No
What changes would be required? I do not believe that the company would be able to offer me
anything that would induce me to stay under current circumstances.
Other comments:
1. As the Managing Librarian, I have experienced a great deal of frustration in the course of trying to perform my job. I am constantly hampered by the fact that decisions are made and not communicated back down to those of us who are affected by the changes. One example of this was when the library was trying to provide manufacturer material for Orgill. We were given a list and told to pull material, then stopped on four separate occasions. It is extremely difficult to provide manufacturer material when the list is always changing.
2. I have often compared working at this place of business to living
in Stalinist Russia, in that public information is highly propagandized with
little informative content, and anyone who complains about those in power is
swiftly and effectively silenced.
3. From the time that I was hired in July of 1998 until HWS was sold in February of
2000, the company reorganized approximately every three months. This doesn’t promote a feeling of stability
or job security, and although the post-sale restructuring has been somewhat
more organized, there is still a constant changeover in personnel. Not one of the production-level employees I
regularly interact with has a sense of job security.
4. The morale problem has had serious side effects for
employees. Although the rampant rumor
mill seems to be the primary concern of management, other problems include but
are not limited to a widespread lack of motivation and high levels of
job-related stress.
Employee’s Signature__________________________________ Date____________________________
Interviewer’s Signature__________________________________ Date____________________________