The office: Chatter about your job

Update: the team meeting was because corporate wanted us doing monthly team meetings, but it was canceled because of the short notice.

So apparently at the pizza place there was a big fight, with the result being one driver getting fired for fighting, one transferred to another to a different store for egging on the fight, and an assistant manager fired for not taking action to break up the fight. Now we're shorthanded.

I was told yesterday to come in at 3, and according to the schedule I was meant to leave at 10. At about 11 this morning, the manager asked me to close for him. I agreed. Then at about 10, he asked me to come in from 10:30 to 3 tomorrow. I said I could do until 2:45 since I'd told him earlier I needed to be at my other job at 3, and 10:30 was a bit early as I was closing, but it was already such a short shift I didn't see a way around it. So he told me he'd have someone else close and I could go home early.

I work as a package handler at a FedEx terminal while I'm going through school. My job will consist of one of three duties any given night: loading the trailers, which can be really chill or a goddamn nightmare depending on what we're getting for unloads, unloading the trucks, which is a pain in the ass and something that I really, really hate, or floating, which is wicked easy and mostly consists of bagging small packages, loading stuff that can't go on the belt onto carts, pulling off hazmats and international shipments for further processing, and occasionally helping unload or load depending on how the night's going. It's not great, but we've got a solid crew and I've been there for long enough to have gotten some decent benefits. Best-case outcome is that I'll get promoted.

edited 16th Mar '15 5:49:55 AM by HasturHasturHastur

Interview Friday. Tomorrow I get a haircut and see if my girlfriend thinks I need to get rid of the beard.

I'm fucking terrified, I haven't interviewed in months and I haven't interviewed successfully in years, I'm not sure I know how.

My shift today was 11-R, meaning "you leave when it slows down enough we don't need you".

It was slow most of the day, so I was hoping to leave around 6 or 7.

At a little before 8, the day shift manager asked me if I could stay until 9 (as if she would have ordinarily let me go around 8 or earlier) because the way the schedule was we only had two drivers for the evening. Nine was early enough to still go have fun reasonably, so I agreed.

People suddenly wanted pizza at 8:20.

At 10, the day shift manger asked me to take one more run, a triple, and then I'd be done. Great, fine.

I came back from that at 10:40, and the day shift manager had finally gotten to go home for the night, and the night shift manager asked me to take just one last really close by order.

At 11:20, I was finally able to start settling up for the night. If the night manager understood the contract deal the general manager has with that business correctly, it screws over the drivers even more than I thought, getting less fuel money per trip than normal even though they're a business and will never ever tip, even though we're still getting paid at tipped minimum for those runs. I argued about that with him.

I walked out at 11:56. Later than I wanted to have time to go out and have fun, but I didn't have time to buy booze for drinking at home before the local blue laws cut off anywhere that isn't a bar or restaurant, so I went to a bar.

My shift last night was retarded too. Two of the worst trailers that I've ever seen (one was beaten to shit and had rollers that sat an inch above the dividers and were so worn that you had to put in quite a bit of force to get the packages on them to move, the other had a divider that was stuck shut when we got there because the idiots at Hartford had put an ungodly amount of weight near the door, crushing the guard on the roller and keeping the divider from being able to open; oh, and the divider had what appeared to be a bullet hole in it), huge volumes of packages, and a bunch of unloads that couldn't really fit together in the trailer. Honestly, this was probably the worst night that I've had since peak, and my mood was not helped by the fact that I had slept wrong and fucked up my back, which was only made worse by all the twisting and running around that I had to do.

edited 18th Mar '15 6:57:42 AM by HasturHasturHastur

Meanwhile, my other job has cut both of my shifts for the current week because business has been slow.

But that horrendous shift yesterday earned just over $200 in just the evening payout.

I went to bed at one last night and got up at eight this morning. I wrote some documents to add to Blackboard and walked the dogs. I got back home and wrote out a schedule of how I am going to get everything done and then I wrote a test and study guide and sent them to the printers. I took care of some money things and showered and went to work. I worked my regular shift from 11- Close, made the deposit and got home a little after 8. I ate dinner and then wrote more documents and organized the first two class sessions on Blackboard for the eight week courses that start tomorrow at 9:30 am. I wrote some emails and there's still some grading that has to be done.

I'm getting ready to make Mr. b's lunch for tomorrow and with luck I'll be able to watch an hour of something and drink a little sake.

I'm writing all this out because I am mad as hell. My boss pulled me into the office today to tell me that my co-workers felt that I wasn't doing my share. (The first time in my life this has ever happened to me.) I suspect it is one co-worker, the one that I told to fuck off last week. But, I find I don't trust any of them and that makes me sad.

I realized that for people who only work 40 hours a week 8 hours a day at one job, I probably don't seem to give as much of a shit about the job as I should.

So any way. I just really needed to grump about it over here. I can't do anything about it, and my feelings will eventually recover. Yeah, I'll look for another job, but right now I am working as much as I can handle.

ETA: Just realized that I should print the rosters and stuff tonight. Sooooooooooooo

the end,

love.

someone who would like to be lazy

edited 18th Mar '15 8:45:46 PM by blackcat

Well I just kicked off another shit storm at work.

Because of my back still being notably tweaked I am now on adjusted patrols. Which means shorter or alternate patrol routes. That isn't the shit storm though. The client is notably pissed that we have to take that option because no one can cover for me for two days to rest and recover. I made sure my immediate supervisor who has been pushing to stop this being a problem out of it. Neither I nor he have the pull to fix the problem. So this complaint is officially going up the chain.

I am just hoping the ass hat higher up doesn't take revenge on he or I.

I'm amazed every single day by the shit that people try to ship. Everything from the boxes that they use (sure, I'd LOVE to move that massive ninety-pound box that obviously can't handle whatever the fuck is packed inside judging by how visibly worn the bottom is) to the sheer craziness that the inbound shift gets. Craziest I've seen would have to either be the full-size stepladder that was nearly the length of one of the diesels (which the driver rejected; his exact words were "my truck is already packed to the fucking brim, this thing is not an option") or the 138-pound wooden crate that three people had to lift out of the belly of a 28' trailer (A+ load job, Hartford); what makes it noteworthy is the fact that one of the three bottom supports broke off when they were getting it out, which left it with uneven weight distribution and nails jutting out from where the support once was. Morning manager tried to get me to lift it off of a cart and onto the load platform; I refused and told him to get the driver, who took one look at it and absolutely refused to let it on his truck. It was quietly moved off to the quality assurance cage and that was the last that I saw of it.

Oh yeah, and some idiot tried to ship an electric massage armchair. No packing and the shipping slip was kind of just left on the thing. It was absolutely filthy when we got it off of the truck despite obviously being new and we knew that it wasn't going to survive the trip to the customer. Like, it had zero chance of not getting demolished en route. Last one that I can think of was the 188-pound box (which is not something we deal with; anything more than 150 is supposed to go to Freight) that someone lied to the shipping partner about and put 100 as the listed weight. 100 is something that all of us can one-man with a little difficulty. We figured out that this definitely wasn't 100 when two people just barely managed to get it out of the truck, which resulted in my boss putting it on the scale to figure out the real weight. Yeah, he wasn't happy. I think it sat in the QA cage for over a month before we eventually got around to getting it back to the shipper. Cheap fucks didn't want to pay Freight rates and found themselves with a far bigger headache on their hands when the customer started wondering why they still hadn't gotten their package. Oh well. It stopped being our problem the minute that we figured out the real weight and dumped it in the cage to collect dust.

So the shop I've been working at has been steadily declining in business since Valentine's Day, and I've had so many shifts cut I've been worried for the last six weeks about getting laid off.

Now I don't have to worry.

Oh, Para. Hug?

Sure.

I took the job in order to be able to escape pizza delivery, but it was never enough hours to live off of. It did get me out of a lot of hours of it though.

And I enjoyed it even though there wasn't much to do due to the slow business that resulted in the layoff.

The boss stressed that it was entirely a budgetary decision, and I suspect I'd been losing the most hours up til now since I never left the pizza place and thus they knew they weren't going to hurt me much financially.

So on Tuesday I will be starting my first ever full time job as a veterinarian

... I am a little terrified.

You'll be fine, I'm sure of it. But best of luck anyway even though you don't need it.

My department continues to be a revolving door after yet another person left on Friday, though, to be fair, she was only the second one who was fired instead of leaving voluntarily. Since last January it's gone through three payroll clerks, two AP, and a CFO. We're supposed to be department of five, if you count the CFO, but there's only been four for the last couple years because the director is cheap. And now there's three.

At one year and one month I'm considered an old timer. But the worst part of that is that three and a half months of that don't count, because I was temp to hire, so far as benefits, raises, etc go I've only been working for them since late June. And even by that I'm still the department old timer!

The new CFO, who's only been around since September (poor bastard didn't know what kind of a cluster he was walking into), keeps on making the kind of grumbles that has me worried he's going to be leaving soon.

I'm terrified he's going to, because he's actually competent and pretty darn smart. And that'll make us a department of two. We're months behind on some things as it is thanks to the turnover. We won't be able to keep up with the workload. I barely managed as temp department head for a month, and that was when we still had one person left who'd been there for six years.

AAAAARGH SCREWWWWWWED AAAAARRRGH

edited 6th Apr '15 10:17:25 PM by Bur

Loni: Oh good luck on that one.

Bur: That sucks. Why aren't they sticking around?

It's got a lot of layers. The biggest are pay and upper management. I'm a staff accountant with an MBA and four years of experience, and I make about five dollars an hour less than the average staff accountant pay in the area and two dollars an hour less than the lowest amount the company's own wage ranges say I should make for my position. Heck, I got a pay cut in December when I was moved to salary without a marginal increase to compensate for lost OT. Because upper management is sure all I have to do is press a button and my job is done. It's more or less the same for the other people in the department. It's a lot of work for less pay than you can get somewhere else with a lot of stress from the people higher up who don't get just how much paper and BS flows through our office.

A lot of things also work ass backwards. I work for a hospital, and the nurses have so much power that any kind of policy change gets scrapped because they all just threaten to quit en masse. We end up with layers of grandfathered policies which make payroll a nightmare for anyone who tries to step in, and when they can't memorize the three volumes worth of exceptions and make too many mistakes they end up being let go.

Inventory is impossible to keep track of because it uses a different system than the accounting does, but instead of holding materials management responsible for inventory costs and counts it gets sent to accounting who has no way to track it, and then accounting gets blamed when expenses are up or corrections have to be made because of bad count numbers.

Tip of iceberg. But, despite it, I like working there? Most of the people are great. I'm never bored, I'm learning a lot, I'm way more confident in what I know since I've been thrown into the fire so many times. It's been good for me and I really hope they give me a decent raise for my official year so I can stay without feeling I'm screwing myself over in the long run.

Wow that is walking cluster fuck of the highest degree. Sounds like the entire system needs to be gutted and rebuilt.

Sounds like your one year mark may determine if you want to hang around for the abuse. If not you have the experience of holding out like you did.

Damn it all to hell. Once again they leave me out of the loop. Something happened to the printer network and my credentials have been scrubbed from it for some reason. When were they going to tell me I needed to fix this? Or that my current pass and logon stuff suddenly doesn't work with whatever they have in place. Not like I have a scan and document backlog because of regular problems of nearly two months or being an important part of my job.

Well, about to start week two of my first job.

The bad news is... this workplace does not seem to be terribly supportive of newbies. I'll be the only vet in the place one day a week, which I am not very happy about.

But, well, the coworkers are nice. And I'm earning money as a veterinarian, which is what I've spent literally ten years (grade 8 to now) working towards. So, y'know, can't be too upset

edited 12th Apr '15 3:40:00 AM by LoniJay

Good luck with that all Loni.

I have another interview for a toy store tomorrow! Part time with the option to go full time, even with my schedule. Wish me luck, Cobs!

Well wishes aplenty en route.

About two weeks ago, I tried to tell my boss about a sudden class change. It was completely out of my control, I couldn't miss it as all the classes are mandatory (students can't even come in 10 minutes late, they have to come in during the break), and I couldn't give more than three days notice because that's when I heard about it.

She lectured me in front of everyone and criticized me about my lack of commitment to the job to the point where I cried in front of everyone. I mean, I'm not committed to a job that can't even give me full time hours, much less one with a micromanaging boss who overlooks a $200 mistake at the same time. But I've been on time, professional, do all the things I'm required to do, I haven't made any horrible, permanent mistakes, and most importantly I had apologized for the short notice, explicitly said that it was not in my control, and I was perfectly willing to get someone to cover me.

Guess who just left for a sudden, week-long, personal trip to Pittsburgh with a day's notice that only reached two other people. And who emailed the rest of the company on the plane.

I hate how jobs require people with a 4-year degree and 3 years of experience for a part time position, then get pissy when someone gets a job while still in school.

Your boss is just a dick.

Having all sorts of random chaos at work. Fridges breaking, printer networks acting weird, that one gal in the day I hate bitching and making my job harder again. I must have tripped on one of murphy's dice or something.