Random work stuff.
May. 21st, 2005 12:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plutherusDon't know why I'm writing this now, but I haven't written anything in this blog for a while, even though if you've ever spoken to me for more than half an hour you've probably heard all these stories before.
I've had some crappy jobs in my life. The worse I can think of off-hand was as a stocker for the food service in a hospital in Portland. This was a summer job I had after my freshman year in college, so I was about 19, and the first job I'd ever had in the “real world”, previous work experience having been limited to delivering papers, mowing lawns, and working in the campus computer lab. Now, part of this was that it was really hot that year, and I worked half the time in an un-airconditioned, un-ventilated room full of canned goods, and the other half of the time in the deep freeze: Zero degrees Fahrenheit. (That's 18 below zero for you metric folk). So, going constantly back and forth from very very hot to very very cold meant that my sinuses were dripping pretty much all summer, which sucked.
As a side note, I had a heavy coat I'd wear when I had to stay in the freezer for extended lengths of time. Of course, the nice thing about a heavy wool coat is that it traps the cold in as much as it keeps it out. So, after a few hours in the freezer, I'd leave to go home, and forget to take the coat off, until it started getting hot. So you could often find me standing out at the bus stop, in 100 degree weather (38 Celsius) wearing a wool coat, hat, and gloves. I noticed pretty quickly, though, usually from the stares of passersby long before thermodynamics started making things uncomfortable for me.
Anyway, the bad part (aside from constant sinus thing) was my total psycho boss. Her one big trait was that she hated the union. She was constantly going on about how bad unions were, how they made all her employees lazy, and so forth. Ironically, I was never a member of the union, as I was just a summer temp employee. I kept thinking she was just trying to subtly hint that I wasn't working hard enough, until The Ice-Cream Incident. You see, normally the ice cream arrived at 12:45 on Wednesday, giving me 15 minutes to move the pallet full of it into the deep freeze and pack it away. Why the time limit? Well, you see, I had to take lunch at 12:00. According to her, that was Union Rules, and we can't go against them. I absolutely MUST clock out for lunch at EXACTLY 12:00 She used to call me into the office a lot for punching out at 11:58 (“You're leaving for lunch too early, you're supposed to be working during that time!”) or 12:02 (“You were supposed to punch out at 12:00. You need to manage your time better.”)
Anyway, of course, you couldn't fit the pallet into the freezer, and, of course, we didn't have anything like a pallet jack there, so I had to unload it onto the hand truck, one load at a time, from the dock, take it into the freezer, and stack it on the shelves. It usually took me about 10-12 minutes to do this, leaving me with 3-5 minutes to go stand by the time clock with everyone else waiting for it to be exactly 12.
That is, until The Day The Truck Was Late. It arrived at 11:57. Ah, yes, I remember it well. While on a good day I could pack away a pallet load of ice cream in 10 minutes, there's no way I could do it in three. But, I began anyway. At about five minutes after noon, my boss saw me valiantly trying to pack away the ice cream and started screaming. Literally screaming “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?! HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU...” etc., along with various other rants, continuing while I walked the hand truck load of ice cream to the freezer, waiting patiently outside it while I put it away, and starting again when I came back out. So I stopped and tried to explain that the truck was late and really there's no other choice, is there. Of course there is, I was to clock out IMMEDIATELY and HOPE TO GOD that the union didn't bust her for letting me work extra time. I asked her why I couldn't just take lunch from 12:15-12:45 today, and I don't remember exactly what her response was, but she did turn kinda purplish as she replied.
But, she was the boss, so when she demanded I stop work immediately and punch out, even after my futile attempts to explain that ice cream may not be very good after sitting on a loading dock in 100 degree heat for half an hour (well, 23 minutes, now, because of course I was expected to punch back in at exactly 12:30.) But, not having a solid grasp of thermodynamics, she insisted I go, so I went. Only to come back at 12:30 (exactly) only to have her screaming some more about why the hell I let all the ice cream melt. Her response to my attempts at pointing out once again that the truck was late and there was no way I could have moved all the ice cream into the freezer in time and besides SHE was the one who insisted I stop working, was to inform me that this is a real job and I will need to learn to plan better if I ever hope to make it anywhere in life.
Man, was I glad when that summer was over and I could leave for school, leaving the job behind.
I never did learn if she was really that paranoid about the union, or if it was just her excuse for being such an incredibly bad manager. Or how many people checked out of that hospital sicker than when they went in due to her poor food handling ideas.
OK, this ended up a lot longer than I expected, and it's late, so I'm not going to bother with the other stories now. Tune in next time to learn about my 45 minutes as a Kelly Girl, the day I got fired by my boss' manager's boss' wife, and why a certain telecommunications company has a “quality” meeting every Tuesday at lunch time.
And, if you're really good, I'll tell you the little-known secret of why civilization wasn't accidentally destroyed by nuclear weapons on December 31st, 1999, and just how close we actually came.
I've had some crappy jobs in my life. The worse I can think of off-hand was as a stocker for the food service in a hospital in Portland. This was a summer job I had after my freshman year in college, so I was about 19, and the first job I'd ever had in the “real world”, previous work experience having been limited to delivering papers, mowing lawns, and working in the campus computer lab. Now, part of this was that it was really hot that year, and I worked half the time in an un-airconditioned, un-ventilated room full of canned goods, and the other half of the time in the deep freeze: Zero degrees Fahrenheit. (That's 18 below zero for you metric folk). So, going constantly back and forth from very very hot to very very cold meant that my sinuses were dripping pretty much all summer, which sucked.
As a side note, I had a heavy coat I'd wear when I had to stay in the freezer for extended lengths of time. Of course, the nice thing about a heavy wool coat is that it traps the cold in as much as it keeps it out. So, after a few hours in the freezer, I'd leave to go home, and forget to take the coat off, until it started getting hot. So you could often find me standing out at the bus stop, in 100 degree weather (38 Celsius) wearing a wool coat, hat, and gloves. I noticed pretty quickly, though, usually from the stares of passersby long before thermodynamics started making things uncomfortable for me.
Anyway, the bad part (aside from constant sinus thing) was my total psycho boss. Her one big trait was that she hated the union. She was constantly going on about how bad unions were, how they made all her employees lazy, and so forth. Ironically, I was never a member of the union, as I was just a summer temp employee. I kept thinking she was just trying to subtly hint that I wasn't working hard enough, until The Ice-Cream Incident. You see, normally the ice cream arrived at 12:45 on Wednesday, giving me 15 minutes to move the pallet full of it into the deep freeze and pack it away. Why the time limit? Well, you see, I had to take lunch at 12:00. According to her, that was Union Rules, and we can't go against them. I absolutely MUST clock out for lunch at EXACTLY 12:00 She used to call me into the office a lot for punching out at 11:58 (“You're leaving for lunch too early, you're supposed to be working during that time!”) or 12:02 (“You were supposed to punch out at 12:00. You need to manage your time better.”)
Anyway, of course, you couldn't fit the pallet into the freezer, and, of course, we didn't have anything like a pallet jack there, so I had to unload it onto the hand truck, one load at a time, from the dock, take it into the freezer, and stack it on the shelves. It usually took me about 10-12 minutes to do this, leaving me with 3-5 minutes to go stand by the time clock with everyone else waiting for it to be exactly 12.
That is, until The Day The Truck Was Late. It arrived at 11:57. Ah, yes, I remember it well. While on a good day I could pack away a pallet load of ice cream in 10 minutes, there's no way I could do it in three. But, I began anyway. At about five minutes after noon, my boss saw me valiantly trying to pack away the ice cream and started screaming. Literally screaming “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?! HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU...” etc., along with various other rants, continuing while I walked the hand truck load of ice cream to the freezer, waiting patiently outside it while I put it away, and starting again when I came back out. So I stopped and tried to explain that the truck was late and really there's no other choice, is there. Of course there is, I was to clock out IMMEDIATELY and HOPE TO GOD that the union didn't bust her for letting me work extra time. I asked her why I couldn't just take lunch from 12:15-12:45 today, and I don't remember exactly what her response was, but she did turn kinda purplish as she replied.
But, she was the boss, so when she demanded I stop work immediately and punch out, even after my futile attempts to explain that ice cream may not be very good after sitting on a loading dock in 100 degree heat for half an hour (well, 23 minutes, now, because of course I was expected to punch back in at exactly 12:30.) But, not having a solid grasp of thermodynamics, she insisted I go, so I went. Only to come back at 12:30 (exactly) only to have her screaming some more about why the hell I let all the ice cream melt. Her response to my attempts at pointing out once again that the truck was late and there was no way I could have moved all the ice cream into the freezer in time and besides SHE was the one who insisted I stop working, was to inform me that this is a real job and I will need to learn to plan better if I ever hope to make it anywhere in life.
Man, was I glad when that summer was over and I could leave for school, leaving the job behind.
I never did learn if she was really that paranoid about the union, or if it was just her excuse for being such an incredibly bad manager. Or how many people checked out of that hospital sicker than when they went in due to her poor food handling ideas.
OK, this ended up a lot longer than I expected, and it's late, so I'm not going to bother with the other stories now. Tune in next time to learn about my 45 minutes as a Kelly Girl, the day I got fired by my boss' manager's boss' wife, and why a certain telecommunications company has a “quality” meeting every Tuesday at lunch time.
And, if you're really good, I'll tell you the little-known secret of why civilization wasn't accidentally destroyed by nuclear weapons on December 31st, 1999, and just how close we actually came.
