Chris Benard

Today was my last day at Highland Clinic. It was not unexpected, and if you know me well, you knew about it already. I gave only two weeks notice because I didn’t know whether or not they would flip out and fire me immediately, and I wanted to at least be able to have my vacation money to hold me over between jobs. Keeping a secret like that from lots of people for more than a month is quite difficult, and unfortunately I told one person who doesn’t know how to keep a secret.

I don’t regret leaving. I left for a number of reasons, both personal and professional. The lack of office supplies is pretty pedantic to even be talking about, but I did bring it up in my exit interview. As an employee who has worked there loyally for three years, I think I deserved my own stapler, tape dispenser, and scissors. My boss felt differently about it. It boils down to money not getting spent where it needs to be spent… in my opinion, of course. I have a limited viewpoint, that of the IT infrastructure and its effect on the business as a whole. The office supplies are merely an analog to talk about larger problems.

The environment I worked in wasn’t very conducive to working. I had to sit in a room with a bunch of other people who didn’t perform the same job as me. I liked them, but it did make concentrating on my job harder, and I’m fairly certain it had a similar effect on them. The phone was constantly ringing, because my job duties entailed that of a lowly support person (sorry if you do support like I recently did), a programmer (all the intranet applications programming), network support (both LAN and NOS tasks), and anything else “specified by the IT Manager”. Many things were specified by the IT Manager. If you’d like to replace me, see the CareerBuilder post (mirrored here for when it’s deactivated or filled).

Although I’ve been dissatisfied for awhile, I felt unable to voice my opinions for fear of being fired, as I felt was the case with other employees. I was able to land an excellent job doing what I love to do, programming. It’s a new language and I’ve been practicing it, but I’m sure I’ll be fine. I’ll be working for Morris & Dickson, and more specifically their New Tech Computer Systems.

I’ve visited the facilities and my office and desk specifically. I feel it will be a much better environment, and a place where I can put my skills to dedicated use in the most productive manner possible. I think I’ll be able to get a lot of satisfaction out of seeing lots of people using something that I’ve written, or at something to which I’ve contributed code. I saw that at Highland Clinic on a small scale, but many more people are affected by Morris & Dickson applications.

My last day was great, though. I kept pretty busy and worked through lunch and left around 3:50pm. I had a pest control appointment at 4, and I was a little late. A lot of people brought a ton of food for a party for my last day, my boss’ birthday, and Kelli’s birthday. Ashley made me pasta salad, which was great as usual, and surprisingly I enjoyed John’s wife’s chip dip a lot too. I don’t normally like guacamole based things, but Sharon’s dip was exceptional. My exit interview lasted a long time. The HR person listened to everything I had to say, but seemed more interested in defending Highland Clinic against my criticisms, rather than just listening to my concerns. I’m not saying she didn’t listen. I’m just saying I think it would be more appropriate to be less defensive, especially if the person is leaving.

All my old contact methods remain except my old work MSN which few people knew anyway. I have no hard feelings toward Highland Clinic, but I’m not sorry I’m leaving. I’m incredibly excited about my new job, and I start at New Tech on Monday. I’ll try to blog about it before the first week is over. No promises, though.