Permit Me To Explain

Intentionally withholding some context from this, but this sequence of events at a previous role is the perfect example of how my experience as a whole was.

Operations is discovered to have not performed a procedure written by my predecessors decades before me. That same day:

Director: “Is this a non-compliance event?”

This would require self-reporting to a government agency in a specified time frame.

Me: “It’s possible that we violated [State Law] as I see the notes in the missed procedure that we do this for compliance. I don’t have any other documentation around why that is the case.”

Director: “YOU need to know this. YOU are responsible for understanding our permits and regulatory requirements. Get an answer ASAP.”

Me: “Will do.”

I understood the permits and requirements perfectly fine, just not this random procedure written with no documentation on reasoning. Cut to two days later, after tracking down documents dating back twenty years before my time.

Me: “I found documents which explain why that procedure was in place for Y regulation.”

I explain the document.

Me: “Not meeting Y regulation triggers a permit violation under condition X, which is a catch-all condition written expressly for instances such as the missed procedure.”

Director: “No. We’re not reporting that. You shouldn’t be wasting your time on this.”

I pushed back by asking if we should run it by the guy who would go to jail should it be determined we hid a violation or at least get Legal’s input. When my director said no, I made my manager aware of the situation.

Result: an HR meeting where I was told that all my work has to be done physically inside the facilities. A few months later, my director chewed me out for not being responsive when I was not onsite.

I already had one job offer with two more on the way when they let me go on a Monday for “lack of improvement.”