u/Sad-Teacher6669

Hi everyone! I apologize if this is a long post, there are a few different things that I wanted to get off my chest and can be a bit wordy sometimes. Overall, I just wanted to vent some frustrations and see if my feelings are valid and if anyone has advice or not. I want to make it clear I don’t feel angry or upset or mad, especially not at any specific people. I just feel full of anxiety and self doubt navigating this all.

Background: I have been with my company for 5 years now. In my industry seasonal jobs are extremely common and pretty much the standard early on. In my years I have worked within a couple of different departments and some different roles. In years past in my positions I have been constantly praised for both my work quality and ethic, and I feel that I am a very hard worker, contribute well, and problem solve quickly and well. About a month ago I started in a new role in a department I have not been with yet. In this new department there is my core team of 10 and then a more senior team of year-round staff members of 15 people. While I still feel overall the same about myself as an employee there have been several instances that had made me question myself, as well as a few other happenings that have just left me with several frustrations overall. To keep it the most simple I will just list the issues.

I cannot determine the level of trust that my coworkers have in me. While it is ultimately going to come down to individual thoughts and opinions, sometimes the expectations of me or what I am allowed or am not allowed to do are blurry. For my role there is a list of tasks that the year-round employees will check us off on over time, but it’s not clear the exact expectation of the timeline. There are some days where I’m asked to do a task I am not technically checked off on a task and I will let those asking me know that I am not and they tell me to go ahead and do it anyways as long as I understand what I’m doing. However the next day, that task will need done and I offer to do it for a different person and that person doesn’t want me to do that task because I’m not checked off. It makes me feel very frustrated because I can’t tell what is expected of me. I am not the kind of person who likes to just sit around and ignore a task that needs done or not offer to help someone with something, however it feels like I can’t do tasks sometimes or even offer because of the way people will react.
In my position sometimes quick tough decisions need to be made. It often feels like if the decision I make isn’t exactly what everyone else or at least the majority of those on my core team would do, then it is the wrong choice. An example happened last night - I had a group of guests out and knew that there was some bad weather expected. I finished out the majority of the experience and was driving to the last activity and the weather shifted within a span of about 3 minutes. Originally when it started to shift my plan was to go switch into a different vehicle as my vehicle was open topped and would have left my guests out in high winds, lightning and heavy rain. I was the only person that had guests out at this time as well. On my way to go get that vehicle the conditions got worse and I instead went to take shelter in one of our office buildings. While there I realized that I had about 20 minutes until the closers normally started finishing things out, and then finishing everything required me to be done with my group. I realized that there was another enclosed vehicle available at the office building I was at and went to grab it and go. (Note: This all happened after the main business hours were over so there was no one I could really check with before I could take it, but I filled out the sign out / sign in log). I finished up with my group, used the van to return them to the normal location, then took the van right back to the office building I took it from and took my original vehicle back. My department director was around at the time so I went and told him that I wasn’t really planning to take that vehicle and normally wouldn’t, but if anything got said to him by the other department please let them know the same and that I’m sorry. My director told me he was already planning to defend me if anything was said and that I had made the right decision, and commended my quick response to the situation. Once I left I sent a video to my team explaining what happened with my group and talking about what I did, and the responses I received were not great. I was told that it’s good that it worked out this time but that’s not really something we should do because it could be a bad look to other guests of my my team members or could cause issues with other departments and things like that. I let them know that these were all things I considered and it was also why I apologized to my department director. I reiterated and told them that I was left with a situation with 3 choices that no matter what were bad outcomes.
- I try and wait out the weather and finish out with my group when / if it broke, which would have delayed the closers and the weather could very well not pass, which could leave the closer (who is one of the senior year round team members) frustrated.
- I could cut my guests experience short after they had repeatedly asked me about the final activity and / or transport them through the adverse and unsafe weather, which could leave my guests experience being ruined or put them in a high risk situation
- I could take one of the enclosed vehicles, finish the experience up really quick and return the vehicle and apologize, which could leave the department who owns the vehicle frustrated that I took it
I decided the last was the best option because at most someone could be frustrated, but wouldn’t directly affect anyone like the other options. However the way my teammates responded to my decision made me question if I did the right thing or not. Deep down I know I did because I measured all factors of the situation and I responded to the issue as its own thing, not a “one label fits all” solution
I am a very hard and firm believer in calling out anything I deem as unjust, unequal, or unfair - especially in a workplace setting. I don’t necessarily point it out to leadership but I will make comments to my team sometimes - often echoing things they have already said. I had a warning about some of the issues before I applied, but a couple of things are worse than I thought. Sometimes when pointing out these issues, or contributing to a conversation about them the response I receive feels a little bit like the message is “You haven’t experienced it as much or as long as me so why are you complaining”. To me a problem is a problem no matter how long it’s been going on and needs to be called out so I don’t become complacent and accept the situation as it is. I could be reading into the interactions too much for all I know because I definitely don’t want to come across as entitled or pushy or anything like that, but I also don’t think I should tolerate blatant problems because everyone else has in the past.

These are honestly the biggest things, maybe I’m overrracting or overthinking but like I said part of writing all of this is just to see if others think my feelings are valid or if how I convey myself as an employee should change but also any advice or wisdom would be so greatly appreciated.

Thanks for reading 🙂

Hello!

I have a 29 gallon, freshwater tank that I am working on improving the quality of. Currently in the tank I have 1 pearl gourami, 1 2-3” pleco, 1 platy, and a whole bunch of mollies and snails. I would like to get my tank to be more bio diverse and self sustaining but the bio load is definitely already heavy because of the mollies.

Originally when getting the mollies I had requested all males to avoid them producing large amounts of fry, but I don’t think the pet store employee could tell the difference and I ended up getting mixed genders. I started with 6 and now have between 15-20.

I also have Java Moss in my tank. When I got it, it unfortunately had snail eggs in it and the snails have been a pest ever since. I have tried assassin snails and using cucumbers but neither seem to fully take care of the issue.

I am considering a couple of different species but wanted to know others experiences. I am considering either adding 1-2 pea puffers or 1-2 loaches. These species are both recommendations I have gotten to help.

As of right now I am more so interested in the pea puffers but I wanted to make sure that it won’t disturb the gourami, adult mollies or pleco. I’ve heard mixed results with some stating that pea puffers may nip at the adults while others have said they won’t bother them, only the babies and the snails.

If anyone has any experiences that could help out here or any other recommendations I would really appreciate it!

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