Post-game analysis

Monday's meeting was with a lady whose job includes making sure the Studio runs efficiently.

After buying me a "coffee" (actually, it was Perrier) and settling down in a nook in the nearby caferia, I kicked off the meeting by asking her what role she has within the company. After that, I proceeded to tell her my motivations for leaving the company by giving her a timeline of events — explaining that I was hired under 3 months probation, spoken to about 3 separate issues before probation, which were then raised again during my probationary review, despite CFB's comment about noticing my "improvement", resulting in an extension of my probation. I highlighted that I was denied two days of vacation, given one, and then denied further vacation recently, while working on a project which has required me to put in a great deal of time and effort to compensate for my contact's ineptitude.

So, when I was restated that I would have been with the company for 6 months by the time my requested vacation time would have ended, the lady I met with pre-empted my statement by saying I've had "no vacation", as I was stating that I've had "one day of vacation", due to it somehow being deemed wrong of me to have asked for two days.

The conversation then, upon her questions, delved into the professional atmosphere, including my opinion of the role with relation to what I feel I was hired to do, versus what I've actually done. She agreed with me that leaving based on the lack of actual creativity is probably the best choice for me.

We then began discussing the Studio environment at this company, versus the Studio environment in a typical Design shop, with me explaining that the atmosphere here is draconian in comparison with the average Studio environment. She seemed suitably concerned when I explained that a co-worker had slept in her car over lunch, which Jane not only knew about, but responded that it seemed like a good idea.

I think that overall, the meeting went well. I believe that a lot of the information I was presenting her with was unexpected, and I think she understood that I was trying to downplay my own feelings of being unappreciated as a worker, to accomplish something bigger; namely, making the environment genuinely better. She admitted to me freely that I'd giving her some things to think about, including a "concern about the amount of work going through the Studio".

So — while I'm more convinced now than ever that leaving was a good idea for me — I'm optimistic that conditions might actually improve for my current co-workers, and any poor sap who happens to fill this role after me.