Handling last week at work - lazy manager

[Whitehorsegirl]

I am leaving my current job in the charity sector due to health and personal issues (I was assaulted by a former partner and need time to recover and currently having counselling) .

I did not like the job so can't wait to finish but today I became royally pissed off at the generally poor handling of me leaving.

I pro-actively put my handover notes together and arranged a face to face chat with the person who is taking on my role to go through them.

My Manager though has made no plan for an exit interview (I assume none will be offered...). Today she asked me what I was doing for my leaving do and what presents I would like.

I managed a team and the protocol in this organisation has been that the manager of the person who is leaving arranges the team leaving do, or at least involves themselves in the preparation, pays for the meal/drinks for the people attending on the day which they put on expenses and arrange a collection at least two weeks in advance and buys a present on behalf of the team. The Manager also thanks the person for their contribution to the organisation and wishes them well. This is what I did for any member of my team who left in the past year.

Looks like mine has done bugger all and expects me to pay for the meal, arrange it and also spoon-feed her what she should be buying.

We are a small organisation of just about 20 people so it is not like someone is leaving every week...

AIBU just to refuse to get involved in any of this? Now I am just planning to have an informal quiet meal with my small team on my last day (but I won't be paying for their food, I just can't afford it...) if they fancy going out for lunch but not invite anyone else or book anywhere.

Asking what present I want is just odd to me as I don't know what she/the organisation wants to spend/has collected so I just ignored that query and thought ''do your homework''...

Anyway I am rambling a bit but to me as the organisations knows that I am leaving because I have some really tough time healthwise I would expect them to at least bother to be a bit more sympathetic and to have a formal exit interview.

I wonder if anyone else felt just like coming in on their last day, clearing their desks and just leaving without a backward glance rather than bothering with ''leaving dos'' beyond saying goodbye to a couple of colleagues who have been supportive.

I think you are being a bit precious to be honest. Of course you should have done hand over notes and proactively and had a chat with the person taking over, this is basic professional courtesy isn’t it!

Your manager maybe doesn’t see the value in exit meetings, I would have thought it more unusual to have one than not. I have been in the workforce for 30 years, multinational background and they are not common.

Asking what you would like as a present doesn’t feel like a bad thing to do either? Perhaps your manager doesn’t feel they know you well enough to guess. You reply a pen, a spa voucher, something to do with cats, whatever you want, you don’t need to ask how much money is available.

Nothing here sounds unusual, including organising your own leaving do. I have literally never come across anyone that had not organised their own leaving do, we’ll exception maybe for the odd very senior C-level executive. Just because you have opted to do things one way doesn’t mean that other people have to.

I couldn't get worked up about it to be honest, when i left my last job a close colleague asked me what I wanted so I didnt end up with crap and I arranged a leaving do and a couple of lunches with people who id not seen for a while...also didnt have ane xit interview but my boss knew my reasons for leaving.
Dont let yourself get worked up about it!

Thank you for the replies.

I am not being ''precious'' @Aprilx, just disappointed.

If there is an established way that managers deal with staff leaving in this organisation and your feel that you are the only one for whom the procedure is not being followed then you can't help but feel a bit annoyed...that is my point.

Other staff members in the company have had exit interviews and basic manager involvement in their last day.

The organisation was also very unsupportive when I was assaulted. They also refused to shorten my two month notice by a week or two although they knew full well I was struggling with my health.

It just all feels all a bit grubby to me.

Missing the point - but your charity organisation puts leaving drinks on expenses?????? Jesus.

Your boss is pants.

And yet despite being assaulted and your health needs not taken into account you start a thread complaining that you were asked what present you would like. Or did you just add those bits in to make my response look uncaring or something, even though they were not mentioned previously..

Sometimes things need to change. Perhaps somebody has worked out that exit interviews have little value or that managers should not be spending their time organising parties. I don’t know. Perhaps even somebody has worked out that charities shouldn’t be using funds to pay for leaving drinks. I have been the Trustee / Treasurer on a board for a charity and we would not permit this. My working life has been spent in very rich multinationals and they also do not do this.

Honestly, I think you might get a shock when you get to your new workplace that does things more conventionally.

I can understand that you feel disappointed - you're not getting the same treatment as other members of staff in your organisation which is crap, especially as you're obviously having a tough time. I sympathise, but I guess all you can do is focus on the fact that you'll be out of there very soon, and also hang onto the fact that you gave your team members a very different leaving experience which hopefully they valued.

I do think that how a company treats people who are leaving speaks volumes, and most organisations which are systematic about staff retention do some form of exit interview.

And why shouldn't a charity pay for a meal on expenses - are charity workers (normally not especially well paid) not worthy of having their morale boosted? Out of the two small charities I've worked for recently, the one which is much more proactive about staff morale does this.

I wish you well for the future, and I hope you can put this crappy experience behind you.

You truly don't know the meaning of empathy @Aprilx and I find your message appalling.

If you had any experience of trauma you would grasp that sometimes it is the little thing that just make people reach the end of their tether when you have been pretty much ignored for months.

If you don't see anything wrong with the way management is behaving then you are probably the same as they are.

I am not surprised that you were a Trustee as most of the people I have encountered in my 20 years plus working for charities on charity boards have been the most useless and uncaring I have ever seen.

And no, drinks are not put on expenses.

What we do is spend about £50 in total for a simple meal for 4 people. I don't think that is unreasonable for people who are dedicated, get a rubbish wage and work in the frontline for years.

People like you are one the reason I am leaving the sector. Full of people who don't even know what charity or caring for others actually mean.