A work rant thread not started by BackToBasics

[Strike]

Okay. I work on a freight crew at a Fred Meyer/Kroger store in the Portland, Oregon area. I work on the graveyard shift from midnight to 9AM. Not a great job but it keeps me busy. Obviously I don't make a shitload of money but I live comfortably and I work damn hard for my paycheck. My crew and I bust our ass night in, night out. The swing shift staff almost never gets their work done, leaving us with a mess to clean up. Whatever. I know they suck so I come to work expecting it. Irritating but easy to get over.

This morning, after busting ass, we found ourselves done early and had some time to spare. A fellow freight monkey and I took it upon ourselves to help the frozen food clerk get caught up. About 30 minutes to quitting time, the freight crew was paged to the stockroom by the assistant manager. Quite simply, the assistant is a 100% douchebag. When it comes to doing actual work, his mantra is "I don't like to get dirty." He's actually said this. Out loud. Anyway, he proceeded to tell us that we "need to do more" in the department. Not only are we expected to do our own work, which is considerable, we are now expected to cover whatever the swing shift doesn't finish. Usually, that's at least half their workload. Suffice to say, I was a little more than annoyed and I let him know it. I commented on the fact that they slack off, work slowly, ignore customers, make a mess, etc. All he did was continuously make excuses for the swing shift. "They're shorthanded" this, "they have to back up the cashiers" that. Frankly, I wasn't interested since I've been hearing this shit for the better part of 2009. All I was interested in was the whole "freight crew needs to do more" thing.

Now, I'm not one to whine about work. I chose to work this position. In this economy, I'm damn lucky to have a union job with a decent paycheck and good benefits. I don't expect praise or applause for my work. Acknowledgement of my work ethic would be nice, but I don't require it to function. What pisses me off is that regardless of the job I do (and I do a god damn good job), all I hear is "you need to do more".

Am I overreacting?

[mavs>spurs2]

no, the working class guy in america get's fucked over more and more these days

[CosmicCowboy]

You need to do more you lazy sumbitch! :lol

[Strike]

You need to do more you lazy sumbitch! :lol

Apparantly. Eventually I expect to be stuck with half the swing shift work when I start, then I get to do my own work, then I'll be expected to do half the day shift's work before I go home.

[clambake]

i'm guessing the asst. manager is non-union?

[Strike]

i'm guessing the asst. manager is non-union?

You would guess right.

[clambake]

i used to do some work for the teamsters. what happened to the good old days where you'd just send in a heavy?

[Strike]

Gone and gone. Unions are nothing like what they used to be. But I'm still a pro union guy. My great grandfather was a union organizer back in the early days when they would get beat down by the strike breakers.

[DUNCANownsKOBE2]

No, you're not overreacting. The first job I ever had was a horrible job, but I was 16, it filled the gas tank and I had spending money. The store was run in a completely sexist way, anytime a woman employee didn't feel like doing something, she would ask a guy to do it and the guy was expected to do it. For some reason, men were more equipped to do stuff like change light bulbs and go on ladders.

One day, the manager asked me to help this skank who was an expert at conning her way out of doing work. It was a job that required going on a ladder. I said to the manager:

"Why is it, that the men who work here always have to do something whenever a woman who works here doesn't feel like doing it."

Like your situation, he immediately defends the woman: "She has a lot of work to do in her department."

I respond: "And I don't have plenty of work to do in my department which is twice as big as her's?"

He says: "I don't feel like having this argument with you, we both know it's better for men to climb up the ladder than women."

I respond: "If we're gonna use these gender stereotypes to determine who changes the lightbulbs, why don't we use gender stereotypes to determine who cleans the bathrooms?"

I got written up for that comment and quit a month later :lol

[tlongII]

You're not over-reacting, but unions are a joke. They outlived their purpose decades ago.

[Frenzy]

When your not white collar... your always expected to do more as the blue collar guy. The more you work... the more the white collar gets paid. Work horse..

you complain... or break. your replaced...simple. White collar will never appreciate what blue collars do...and they don't have to...pretty much. I only admire a white collar guy who started out blue collar ... they understand. Most anyway...


good luck man. All jobs have drama...

[EricB]

You're not over-reacting, but unions are a joke. They outlived their purpose decades ago.

GM is proof of that.

[TDMVPDPOY]

go fuck his wife when his on mornin shift....

[baseline bum]

http://images.despair.com/products/demotivators/flattery.jpg

[spurster]

No good deed goes unpunished.

[phyzik]

Well, I guess this is as good of a thread as any for my work rant. Just to note, this wasnt the owners fault at all, it is all on Dell.

I work in an I/T department at Southwest Research Institute . No, I dont work with the fucking monkeys, there is alot of other shit that they do there. I mainly support the military part of SwRI (aeronautical, astronomical and weaponology research).

Anyway, this guy with a POS Dell M2300 laptop wanted to upgrade to 64bit so he could use 8gb of Ram. Fine. It takes me 2 days to do the following.... remember, I have other shit to take care of, I cant just focus on this one ticket, thats why it took so long.... I copy all of his data to the network share (aprox. 300gb worth) which takes about 4 hours. I take a Belarc Image of what programs he has installed. I reload the system with WinXP 64bit. I copy all of his data back to the drive (another 4 hours or so) and re-install all the programs that he needs. We are talking BIG TIME software. Ansys, Pro/E, Mathcad, SolidWorks.... Heavy duty programs that EACH take about an hour to install.

Everything went smooth...or so I thought. About 2 hours after giving his laptop back to him he calls saying he cant get his dual display working on his docking station. Fair enough, I figure its just a configuration issue. Bullshit. It turns out the graphics card that comes with the M2300 is an Nvidia chipset thats proprietary to Dell. In otherwords, Dell is the only one that has a working driver for this graphics card. Go ahead, try and search Nvida's website for a Quadro FX 360M driver. Its not there and no, no other Driver works with it in 64bit.

After another 2 hours of messing with this piece of shit I give up, the guy needs to work afterall. I let him get back to work while I scratch my head on the issue. turns out there is a TON of people having issues with this piece of shit laptop.

Keep in mind, Im charging hourly for my work, somewhere around $40 an hour. I've already wasted a little over 24 hours on this thing at this point. The laptop cost about $1700 when it was purchased 1 year ago. Do the math..... It gets worse.

So we contact our Dell Rep. and explain the situation. He says he needs a case number before he can help us. I spend another full hour on the phone with Dell gold support, which of course is an indian named "Bob". To begin the call he tells me he didnt even know we could do dual display on a docking station.... fucking great... So I sit on hold with this clueless terrorist and he fucking hangs up on me.

I call back, get ahold of another rep, who thank whatever higher being is up their is in Austin and I can understand him, and I patiently/Angrily tell him to look at the last ticket for the service tag of the laptop. He reads it and asks me a few questions on what I've tried to do to remedy the problem.

This whole time the enineer is sitting behind me hearing the whole conversation, from the motherfucker that hung up on me to this new rep from Dell. I lost it.

I told the guy... and this is word for word.... "you know what, I know this shit isnt going to work. I've tried the latest drivers, I've tried undocking and re-docking the laptop, I've updated the BIOS... I can provide you with a link that has thousands of people complaining about this same issue. I've been on the phone for a fucking hour now and you are wasting our time which is wasting the Governments time. JUST GIVE ME A FUCKING CASE NUMBER."

That 2 minute conversation had the engineer cracking up behind me. I was fucking livid wih Dell. The guy on the phone didnt argue, he gave me a case number. that was that.

Now.... The best part. After buying the RAM.... taking the time to save this guys data.... reload the system with XP64bit.... copy his data back over.... waste my time on the phone with inept script-reading wanna-be support losers from dell... the Engineer now wants to go back to 32bit..... FUCK!!!! :bang

Now, 2 days later, we are still awaiting a repsonse from our Dell rep. I am definately going to call his ass on Monday and bitch the fuck out of him. I dont give a fuck about the time I wasted, I still get paid for it, but MOTHERFUCKER!!!!! As much as they spent on me doing this shit, only to go back to the way it was in the first place, they might as well have just bought the engineer a new fucking system.

What a fucking waste of time.

[Strike]

http://images.despair.com/products/demotivators/flattery.jpg

The biggest reason why I'm not in management.

[iggypop123]

meh doesnt resonate with me. id like a job, especially with fees every semester going up 450 bucks for a state school here

[BacktoBasics]

I couldn't do the work you do. Totally legitimate rant. Let your hate flow.

[angel_luv]

I hate my job today... but it is my fault for being so over tired and grumpy. I am not being as tolerant of people and their stupidty as I ought to be given the nature of my job.
I am just praying nobody ask me today " Can I take the elevator upstairs?". (And yes, people do ask me that. )

[Strike]

I couldn't do the work you do. Totally legitimate rant. Let your hate flow.

The work itself isn't terrible, just strenuous. Gotta be willing to sweat to get it done quickly and efficiently.

(In the following rant, names have been changed to respect privacy.)

On a side note, we had a big freight load this morning. 2000 pieces total. The average is about 1500. One guy (Rick, who can haul ass when he wants to but usually doesn't) showed up an hour late and took another 40 minutes to start breaking down the freight. Jack (dude busts his ass everyday) and I had been working for nearly 2 hours at that point so we were pissed. We gave Rick no help at all. We broke down our sections and got right to work. Rick wasn't done with breakdown until 4:30. Jack and I finished at 7:45 and 8:00, respectively. When we finished, we also threw the frozen food load (about 450 pieces) because the frozen clerk (Autumn, she busts her ass every day) couldn't make it in because of...not my place to say. Jack and I finished frozen at around 10:45 (2+ hours of overtime at that point). Then, we helped the grocery manager finish the deli load(cheese, cold cuts, bacon, hot dogs, etc.). The deli clerk also didn't make it in for some family reason. Around 11:00, Rick finally finished his part of grocery freight and "helped" us finish deli. By "helped", I mean he came in at the tail end and worked the easy shit.

So, at the end of the day, Jack and I ended up with nearly 3 hours overtime each, a handshake and a hearty thank you from the grocery manager for a job well done. Didn't change the fact that Jack and I were pissed about Rick being an utter failure today. Not only did we not get in trouble for refusing to help Rick, it was implied that we did the right thing.

That, ladies and gents, is my definition of satisfaction.

[Strike]

By the way, anyone who needs to vent/rant/bitch about work, feel free to unload here.

Misery loves company.

[Trainwreck2100]

Been working for the same shitty ass pharm. company the last four years and get paid less then the new hires, now even though i get paid less i'm expected to help them with they don't know what they are doing in the photo lab on my days off because my photo lab supervisor doesn't answer her phone, and the new people fuck up the machine. One time (i still don't get why my pls won't answer her phone when its her job, after all she's the supervisor, then why the fuck do i answer my phone. Well even though i gave them step by step instructions on how to fix it they couldn't figure it out. So they thought it would be a good idea to leave the machines on all night. So a simple problem turned into a gigantic problem. And I'm stuck having to fix it because my sup had the next days off.

[Strike]

Follow your own advice.

SWEEP THE LEG!

[mrsmaalox]

The work itself isn't terrible, just strenuous. Gotta be willing to sweat to get it done quickly and efficiently.

(In the following rant, names have been changed to respect privacy.)

On a side note, we had a big freight load this morning. 2000 pieces total. The average is about 1500. One guy (Rick, who can haul ass when he wants to but usually doesn't) showed up an hour late and took another 40 minutes to start breaking down the freight. Jack (dude busts his ass everyday) and I had been working for nearly 2 hours at that point so we were pissed. We gave Rick no help at all. We broke down our sections and got right to work. Rick wasn't done with breakdown until 4:30. Jack and I finished at 7:45 and 8:00, respectively. When we finished, we also threw the frozen food load (about 450 pieces) because the frozen clerk (Autumn, she busts her ass every day) couldn't make it in because of...not my place to say. Jack and I finished frozen at around 10:45 (2+ hours of overtime at that point). Then, we helped the grocery manager finish the deli load(cheese, cold cuts, bacon, hot dogs, etc.). The deli clerk also didn't make it in for some family reason. Around 11:00, Rick finally finished his part of grocery freight and "helped" us finish deli. By "helped", I mean he came in at the tail end and worked the easy shit.

So, at the end of the day, Jack and I ended up with nearly 3 hours overtime each, a handshake and a hearty thank you from the grocery manager for a job well done. Didn't change the fact that Jack and I were pissed about Rick being an utter failure today. Not only did we not get in trouble for refusing to help Rick, it was implied that we did the right thing.

That, ladies and gents, is my definition of satisfaction.
Won't Rick get the same overtime pay simply for "being there"? Being a manager of anything sucks---but that's not an excuse to be shitty at it. I managed the A team(3 physicians, 8 nurses, 5 technicians) in an 18 bed ICU for about 4 yrs and I absolutely hated the whining and it was torture to be stuck in the middle between the worker bees and the administration. So early on I made a "we all work, or we all take it easy" rule. No one was to sit around while someone else busted their ass or I would find them something to do. I was intensely disliked at first, but on the days when we all busted ass we accomplished some pretty amazing things (saving lives, etc ;))and everyone felt so good. Then on the days the load was light, we all ran around for a couple of hours, got things done and then all took it easy for the rest of the day. I didn't care who talked on the phone, who watched TV or who took 20 smoke breaks. After a few months, our team became the one everyone wanted to hire on to cuz everything was so shitty on the other teams.

[desflood]

I am just praying nobody ask me today " Can I take the elevator upstairs?". (And yes, people do ask me that. )
Wait, what? Do they think it goes sideways?

[mrsmaalox]

Wait, what? Do they think it goes sideways?

:lol

I may be reading too much into it, but I think they probably just want to be sure it is a public elevator and not for handicapped or freight use only.

[Strike]

Won't Rick get the same overtime pay simply for "being there"? Being a manager of anything sucks---but that's not an excuse to be shitty at it. I managed the A team(3 physicians, 8 nurses, 5 technicians) in an 18 bed ICU for about 4 yrs and I absolutely hated the whining and it was torture to be stuck in the middle between the worker bees and the administration. So early on I made a "we all work, or we all take it easy" rule. No one was to sit around while someone else busted their ass or I would find them something to do. I was intensely disliked at first, but on the days when we all busted ass we accomplished some pretty amazing things (saving lives, etc ;))and everyone felt so good. Then on the days the load was light, we all ran around for a couple of hours, got things done and then all took it easy for the rest of the day. I didn't care who talked on the phone, who watched TV or who took 20 smoke breaks. After a few months, our team became the one everyone wanted to hire on to cuz everything was so shitty on the other teams.

Yup. Nail right on the head. But, at the end of the day, I get a thank you and he gets a ration o'shit. It all pays the same, yes. But when a promotion becomes available (and they do somewhat regularly), who do you think will get the bump and the raise?

[mrsmaalox]

Yup. Nail right on the head. But, at the end of the day, I get a thank you and he gets a ration o'shit. It all pays the same, yes. But when a promotion becomes available (and they do somewhat regularly), who do you think will get the bump and the raise?

Well if there is any justice in the world you'll get the raise! BTW shopping at Fred Meyer is one of the things I miss about living in the NW. And Shopko was fun too; you all still have those?

[Strike]

No Shopko that I know of. Fred Meyer is still going strong. Actually posting sales gains and profits despite the bad economy. And trust me, if Rick and I both applied for the same position, no question who would get it.

Didn't know you used to live/were from the northwest. Where, specifically, if I may ask?

[baseline bum]

Yup. Nail right on the head. But, at the end of the day, I get a thank you and he gets a ration o'shit. It all pays the same, yes. But when a promotion becomes available (and they do somewhat regularly), who do you think will get the bump and the raise?

If he kisses ass, he will.

[Strike]

If he kisses ass, he will.

Nah. My boss doesn't respond to ass kissing. He's old school. Jack and I are probably the hardest workers in the department but probably have the worst attitudes and kiss no ass. Yet, we get more respect and praise from the boss than maybe anyone in our department.

My boss knows where his bread is buttered.

EDIT: I should also add that Rick was our crew supervisor until it was taken away from him due to his poor work ethic and utter lack of reliability. Don't think that mistake will be made again.