Is it time for a change?
I have been feeling somewhat disillusioned with my current employment, there’s a number of factors, but I have been with this company for a decade, and feel like I am not respected, and it’s a dead-end job, there is no option for advancement, and have very little decision making power, while other people on the same hierarchy level do, different job role, but same level in the hierarchical structure.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all bad, there are positives, such as being able to work from home, being able to be creative with photography, website design, and marketing material creation, and being relatively autonomous, working on my own initiative. But, I feel like I am capable of so much more in this field, sadly, my position is extremely unique, so a move to a company in the same sector to continue to use my unique set of skills is unlikely. Property management companies, in general, tend to want managers to do their own marketing and don’t see the value in a dedicated marketing position.
Onto the thing that is really grinding my gears. I often go above and beyond, working well beyond my contracted 40 hours to get listings together and published, and often work on weekends, I work 10—15 hours over my regular hours each week, in addition to having work email on my personal phone, so I can deal with company website and social media duties, while not at my computer. The following has made me make a decision to remove the work profile from my phone, and only work my contracted hours.
There is a status sheet for our single-family properties, which we all have access to, but often this status sheet is not updated with the most up-to-date information. This means I often have to ask questions of the manager or regional manager to get the information that should be on the status sheet. In my view, a status sheet has no point if the status on the sheet is not correct, it fails at its most basic task!
The issue I have is directly with the regional manager, who I will obviously not name, who, from everything she has said and done, has no respect for me, expecting me to jump, when she says jump, remember, she is on a parallel level to me in the company structure. But, she interjected into a perfectly civil back-and-forth conversation with the property manager, with a highly disrespectful email response.
The initial email from the manager; was asking for some corrections to the new website that had been launched, that website in itself is a whole different story, but the import from the old website was from months ago upon launch, meaning a lot of information was incorrect, but, I digress. Additionally, the manager, asked when I could photograph two properties, to which I responded that I visited one property, but could not find a key lockbox onsite, asking her to confirm that a lockbox was onsite before I revisited, which I didn’t think to be an unreasonable request, as my time is very much in demand.
The manager responded that it had a master lock installed, so I suggested that maybe whoever updates the status sheet could input M in the relevant column to signify a master lock was installed. The manager responded, explaining if there is an “x” in that column, that means master lock, and if there is an “lb“, that means lockbox. I simply responded with “OK, understood, but FYI, for [property name], among others, there is nothing in the LB/LK column.“, this is where my conversation with the manager stopped.
This is where the regional manager stepped in, writing “Is it not reasonable for you to carry your key since you have one?“, this is after I prioritized her properties, over others, getting home from visiting her properties to take photos. When I originally visited the aforementioned property with the master lock, it was a Sunday, and I did not think of the key, as I never had to use it, as there has always been a lockbox.
I was extremely pissed, and being a very sarcastic person, I responded with the following;
“I prioritized your properties for photos to help you out and I come back from photographing [property name] and [property name] to find this snarky response in my inbox. I’ve had these keys for years, and never once had to use them because there was always a lockbox, so sorry for not thinking of trying the key, out of office hours, and on a Sunday, I’ll add!”
And, I got an email response from the regional manager, saying “I think it would be helpful if you carried your key to avoid not being able to access units in the future. Especially during your after hours time. But, just a thought.“, doubling down on her previous, completely unnecessary comments.
To be clear, I have no issue with the manager, from whom this interaction started, and I believe I can work with just about anyone, but the regional manager is intolerable to me, she seems to have a superiority complex, thinking everyone is there to be at her beck and call. So, moving forward, her properties can wait their turn, and I will not be working out of hours, enough. I did not mind working out of hours, but if I get a snarky response when the response should have been thank you, fuck that bitch!
Clearly, I am salty about this, I don’t think it’s an appropriate response from someone in a position of power. Am I being unreasonable? I asked my wife and she thinks I am right, and she would be pissed too.