Farewell Letter

For those who are wondering why I left my company when I know that it takes good care of its employees and working with people there are like the camaraderie in high school or college, here is the letter I sent to our VP (and HR manager)

Dear Sir,

Since January of this year, I already felt the need to grow. I feel stagnant in my career and not fulfilled with what I'm doing. I try to ignore it but things and feelings have been piling up and last April, the feelings of being unsatisfied with my work were doubled when a manager mocked my abilities. But in fairness, said manager already apologized to me.

I am writing this, not to embarrass nor point fingers at anyone, but to tell you of what we, as employees, encounter with the organization, so you may improvise ways to improve the current system and the organization as a whole. I know that the management wants to keep their people and are open-minded for suggestions. Here are what I noticed during my almost three-year stay here:

• Career-wise

1. Career path. And I didn’t mean promotion or job titles. It's where you are headed. I feel stagnant in terms of what I know technologically.
2. Every SOP made is only followed in the first few days and is ignored the following days. It maybe due to lack of resources and heavy time constraints. New SOPs are also implemented without notifying all of the members.
3. Since there's no clear path, the ideas and methods of improving things are 'strike-anywhere' which results in nowhere
4. No clear turn over of knowledge. There's no schedule set for turn over. The employee learns as the tasks are given and since not all tasks will be handled in a specified period of time, the employee now feels inadequate that during the period of his stay, he only knows specific tasks and not all tasks
5. Lack of manpower resources. There are things that can be assigned to an OJT but the employee is the one doing them even if other teams have lots of OJT and they have lots of team members too. I don't know who requests for an OJT but I know that the management knows that a team is lacking in manpower.

• On Managers

1. It's nice to be a hands-on manager but the manager should have trust that his subordinates can do the task assigned to them. Lack of trust on the subordinates can make the subordinates feel inadequate. 
2. Doing the subordinates' task and asking how to do it might take more time than letting the subordinate do it. Plus the distraction it causes on the subordinate's part may lead to more errors than just allowing the subordinate do the tasks assigned to him.
3. Micromanaging might work with newly grads but not on employees with years of experience.
4. Know your resources. Having successive projects is ok. Having simultaneous projects with the same deadline and assigned to the same persons will cause more bugs / inefficient system deployment. This will also make that person feel inadequate
5. Belittling your subordinates is not giving them encouragement to do better.

• ITO / NOC

1. Be professional.

a)     Don't downgrade priority status of tickets without informing the one who assigned the ticket. The priority was raised to that level for a reason and not just for the assigner's whims

b)     Acknowledge requests sent so that the other party would know that you had seen it and not ignoring it

c)      The refrigerator is for everyone's use. But don't consume goods that are not yours, specially if they have names

d)     Being at home while working is ok. But this is still not your home so be professional enough in dealing with your co-workers.

I also hope that the 'lunch incident' during the company outing won't be left as it is. I think it's the company's responsibility to take care of the welfare of its employees. I think it's not right for the employees to lose their daily pay, or leaves, because of the unfortunate incident.

Again, I have nothing personal against any of the employees here. It has been nice working with everyone and who knows; maybe we can work together again in the future.

Regards and more power,