Joining the ranks of numerous people before me, I quit my job at the PR firm on Friday. The first time I ever quit a job.

I usually am an optimist, ever the company’s and life cheerleader. Ask anyone I used to work for and my friends. But this place has turned me into a bitter and angry Oak. I never thought in my life I could brood, and I did.

If you or anyone you know is applying for a job listing (probably on Monster) for a PR firm in Long Beach, please do check with me before you apply. If it is indeed the firm I have just left, you seriously do NOT want that job. I do not wish this kind of torment on anyone else.

Although I have learned a lot about public policy and PR, and have forged the most wonderful friendship with people at my work, I have learned even more so about how not to treat my employees. We literally have sold our souls to the devils working there: the money was amazing, but they treated you like worthless laboring animals whose only reason for of existence is to make them money.

The Boss Man is an inconsiderate, rude, misogynistic, workaholic, unrealistic man who instinctively lies and is paranoid that everyone is after him. 90% of the client dealings go through him. Nothing leaves the office without his approval. He gets the glory, and we got the blames. Someone mentioned once that at a meeting he was sent to, a client was thorough puzzled to know that there were staff members backing up the Boss Man and another account executive. He never mentioned you guys, the client said.

That’s right. You only see the finish project which the Boss Man would proudly claimed as his own. Here is “MY” analysis on the project, said the heading of the email, which body was a copy-and-paste work which a writer toiled to get done in a break neck speed. Oh no, god forbids it would be “OUR” analysis.

More times than we could count, the Boss Man would ask for projects that are “urgent” and “must get done right away” and that is “top priority”. Sometimes the projects were his ideas and never left the office. We scurried to get them to him on time, and they would sit on his desk or email box for days, waiting for his approval, or waiting for him to send out to clients which we would hear from him later on that the clients never received the work, or the work was sent in late. Of course, it was not his fault. Not at all.

His preferred method of internal communications is yelling. The Boss Man would yell for people in the office instead of using the intercom system, and would keep yelling for them if they don’t reply soon because they either can’t hear him, or not in the office. If he called on the phone, we must answer it in seconds. More than once he’d have someone go into the restroom to let the person know that he was on the phone.

As for the misogynistic part, it comes across by the way he holds a double standard for female employees. From the dress code that was enforced on the female employees, but not the other way around (we rebelled against that one and won eventually), his relaxed control on the male employees about their hours and days off while female employees are under microscope for leaving 10 minutes early or arriving 5 minutes late, to his fraternizing with only the male employees, his misogyny is obvious. He likes woman underlings. Strong female figures seem to make him, hmm…what word should I use, uncomfortable. When a male employee disputed his ideas or questioned his logic, they could argue over it, but if a female does the same we were reprimanded for having “bad attitude” or “bad manners”, or eventually were forced to quit.

The Boss Man would tell a client that they could have a piece of project done in 2 hours when in fact it would take a lot longer than that to complete. He’d look at the works we have done, according to his earlier order, and told us “What is this? This is not what I asked for?” or “This is crap. I wouldn’t wipe my ass with this”. It’s never the “This is good, but perhaps we could change this a little bit” like everyone else would say. Different management style? Perhaps. But I seriously never heard of any supervisorial people degrades someone like that. The Boss Man rarely shares with us the positive comments and praises from the clients, just more work orders and complaints.

He would ask for something that is logistically makes no sense i.e. damn near impossible turnaround time so we had to rush and resulting in less quality in the job, having 3 staff members who had other responsibilities making 700 phone calls in 3 day because he “doesn’t trust the temp”, all of that because, and I quote, “If anyone else can do this, we’d be out of a job”.

No, boss. We’d be out of a job because we were rushing too much, making mistakes because we were rushed, and quality of work couldn’t compare to when we had time to think things through and to work on them. We’d be out of a job because you play favorites with your clients, putting in 110% efforts in the ones that was making you the money, and ignoring others.

We’d be out of a job, not because we aren’t capable, but because of how you treat your client, and how you treat your employees.

IN ANY CASE, there is a breaking point, and I reached it. So I quit. I’m out of there. Already, Brandon and my friends have seen the improvement in my mood.

The Happy Oak is back!