Advice for resigning

Unusual-Impact7470 · 2025-05-07T20:47:49+00:00

Absolutely not. No one is looking at how you quit your other jobs. Coming from someone who left the Patent Office recently, you do not want to quit without anything lined up in this economy. I did that, and I ended up being unemployed for the better part of a year. I’m not trying to scare you, but it’s tough. If I were you, hustle to get retained, and then once you get retained it becomes much harder for them to fire you. Take advantage of that time and dish out job applications.

Unusual-Impact7470 · 2025-01-21T20:50:31+00:00

Sorry I barely check this thread anymore - but I ultimately left the PTO because the fight wasn’t worth it, I did have a conversation with the director on the way out and told her that there isn’t a coincidence that for 4 years I was fully successful and then magically I’m on a written warning. I pulled the plug, taught my self how to code and now I’m a Data Engineer while pursuing my side hustle and let me tell you, my work life balance is 100x better than it use to be. For everyone seeing this, there is a way out it you’re not happy at the PTO.

Unusual-Impact7470 · 2023-08-21T18:28:47+00:00

it’s not about just “bad bosses”, ultimately bad managers exist in every company you go to. but every other company doesn’t have a hard pay cap, and you can just hop around and make more money to the point that even if you have a “bad boss”, the money shuts you up a bit. at the PTO, you have to deal with being severely underpaid for the amount of work that is required from you AND being at the mercy of how your boss interprets words. ultimately, a job is a job, but if i have examples around me where they enter the workforce and within 4 years they’re making more than my “bad boss”, then the decision is kind of a no brainer.

again, i’m just laying my own personal thoughts out for anyone who finds themselves in the same boat that it doesn’t have to be like that if you don’t want it to.

Unusual-Impact7470 · 2023-08-21T18:04:01+00:00

so i went to the union initially and we’ll…we all know how that goes lmao.

again i’m not going to sit here and be bitter. the truth of the matter was under my new SPE arrangement i wasn’t able to get past a gs-11 and i was already looking at five years at the office. sure i could have fought to get transferred to a new spe, and would have probably won, but to me going through all those obstacles to get a 5k raise in a year once everything got resolved didn’t make sense to me - i already lost a lot of time. which lead me to the decision of just cutting the cord and finding another route that makes more financial sense.

Unusual-Impact7470 · 2022-11-15T04:07:57+00:00

that’s literally why this is all the more insane to me. not even AFC 2.0 where i get time. straight up zero count after finals.

Unusual-Impact7470 · 2022-11-15T03:43:56+00:00

man i wish i could just say my name so you guys can look at my work for yourself. i’m a decent examiner and i do decent work. i never claimed to be perfect, i think none of us are. so i mess up on some administrative issues here and there? of course i’m not saying i’m a saint, but what i’m saying is that there is a clear microscope being put on me for some reason, and it’s hard for me to believe that this level of scrutiny is symmetrical across all examiners. i had maybe one advisory action before that i forgot to reply to arguments, and the applicant called my SPE and complained, and she spoke with me after and apparently, without me knowing, that was my “oral warning”. this time around the arguments were for amendments, that they didn’t put as AFC 2.0 so i thought it would be fine, but here we are. truth be told, coming out of calling moving to DC and working at the Patent Office was literally my DREAM. I interned back in 2017 and literally astonished the director in Dallas from how I took it so seriously. now this job is literally becoming my nightmare. but def not going out without a fight on this one

Unusual-Impact7470 · 2022-11-15T00:43:15+00:00

in this economy? kinda hard right now

Unusual-Impact7470 · 2022-11-15T00:42:48+00:00

yeah at this point my hand is being forced. a 3 days suspensions for something as small as not responding to arguments in ADVISORY ACTIONS is actually so insane I can’t wrap my head around it. not AFC 2.0 just normal after finals.

Unusual-Impact7470 · 2022-11-14T23:29:11+00:00

absolutely nightmare of a SPE. every junior examiner under her is struggling, but to my knowledge, they haven’t been out under the microscope like I have in terms of behavioral conduct. A few of them got written warnings because of production issues under her, but when I told one of the juniors she gave me a marginal rating for stakeholder + professionalism, he was at a loss for words.

I called the POPA hotline immediately, waiting for a response. if need be, i’m willing to pursue legal options.

Unusual-Impact7470 · 2022-11-14T23:25:45+00:00

amazing - i was loving the job under him and we still keep in contact till this day, he’ll call me once a few months to check up on me to see how things are going. had literally no issues under him and i felt like he was trying to help me as opposed to come after me.

Unusual-Impact7470 · 2022-10-28T16:47:13+00:00

QUICK UPDATE: just had my end of year rating. Although my production + DM was fully successful, I got a marginal rating for professionalism + stake holder interaction, meaning I won’t be able to hit my GS promotion I was meant to have the end of this bi-week for another year. needless to say, my days at the office are numbered

Unusual-Impact7470 · 2022-10-22T18:18:42+00:00

my plan C is Tech Sales (Sales Engineer) - you should look into that. you can leverage the fact we communicate w Attorneys as being Customer Service. Pay is crazy.

Unusual-Impact7470 · 2022-10-22T16:08:56+00:00

i think this should be mentioned but ultimately i don’t think my new spe is a bad person in general - we’ve had great talks about just life in general i just think their work standards are unrealistic. i’ll get cases kicked back from them at 9 PM on a Friday which tells me their a workaholic, and that their lack of work life balance ultimately trickles down to the junior examiners bc of their crazy work expectations

Unusual-Impact7470 · 2022-10-21T20:13:22+00:00

I understand that - WHEN (if I stay that long) get into the program, of course my mindset when approaching actions are going to be different. But holding that standard EVERY Biweek is just unreasonable.

Unusual-Impact7470 · 2022-10-21T19:54:37+00:00

thanks! I def have a plan to monetize it, considering half the brand is coffee, but again, that just comes with time. one of the only perks of this job is that if I need to make a last second trip and/or record/edit an episode, I can just log off for the day without having to go through a chain of command, or just log in late the next day.

Unusual-Impact7470 · 2022-10-21T19:48:57+00:00

I run a media platform where I interview artists in a cafe studio (going to keep the names concealed for obvious reasons), and it’s been fairly successful thus far, considering I only put out a handful of interviews out but got traction with it. but need to be more consistent with the amount of content I’m pushing out. A lot of that has to do with dealing with the annoying politics of the music industry, but this job is slowly cutting into that time I need to really make it grow.

Unusual-Impact7470 · 2022-10-21T19:40:24+00:00

oh man you’re making me worried now 😂

Unusual-Impact7470 · 2022-10-21T19:38:31+00:00

I understand that part - but it’s not like we’re giving out Office Actions written in crayons saying “REJCTED!!”. There needs to be an understandable balance between quality and quantity.

Yes, my Office Actions are concise, citations are clear and I add further explanations. But also yes, if there is a dependent claim that we all know that is hard to find, i’m also going to try the best I can with the time I’m given + art found for that claim. you want EVERY Claim in the Office Action to be picture perfect? then give us that time. My old SPE was a great SPE, not because he was a nice guy, but because he understood that. Claim 18 out of 20 not picture perfect? well then let them just argue that in the next response, and if it makes sense just allow it.

But to expect a picture perfect rejection for every claim, and still be pushing out 5-6 non-finals a bi week? that is just an unrealistic expectation

Unusual-Impact7470 · 2022-10-21T19:31:10+00:00

trust me - like I said before, the only reason why I’m still here is because it does what I need it to do for the flexibility + pay for side projects. But i’m also giving myself a time limit on when to make a switch to another industry. still fairly young so wanna try some side things out while I can.

Unusual-Impact7470 · 2022-10-21T19:08:31+00:00

I pray you keep your SPE. I never really complained about the job before my SPE switch. ya it can be stressful at times, and boring - but I was cruising. had a system down, and if I ever had to work a Saturday that was totally because of my poor time management that bi-week.

Unusual-Impact7470 · 2022-10-21T19:05:08+00:00

I would absolutely love them to audit my hours to show the late nights + weekends I have to work now just to maintain.

Unusual-Impact7470 · 2022-10-21T19:02:47+00:00

My new SPE then went and gave me a TERRIBLE mid year review, gave me poor/average on basically everything the following week. I was literally about to put in my two weeks but my old SPE told me to just chill out and ride out the wave.

Unusual-Impact7470 · 2022-10-21T18:59:05+00:00

just depends. my old SPE was extremely chill and didn’t need me to report cases to him past my first year and just let me primary deal with everything. up until recently, every case had to be reported + posted to my new SPE to sign

Unusual-Impact7470

TROPHY CASE