In keeping with the anti-work-based-authority rants that have been proliferating here, I am posting my own tirade aganst my boss. I’d’ve done it anyway with the week I’ve had, but at least it’s good timing.
Let me list the charges against her.
1.) Breaks. Or, more accurately, lack thereof. I haven’t had a single break while I’ve worked for her (and it’s been 3 months now). I’m allowed to go to the bathroom, and to turn my lights off if I’ve left them on. That’s it. Additionally, meals, if I need one (and with my hours, I do) are to be eaten while working. I work 4-5 hours some days, and am doing two 8 hour days this week. 8 hours without breaks REALLY sucks.
2.) Hours and Payment. She advertised on a college career website for a college student. She got a college student. She wanted 20 hours a week. I gave her the hours I could work. She always wants more. She’s encouraged me to BLOW OFF CLASS so I could work for her. She’s asked me to work the night I had a big paper due saying, “well, you write well, it won’t take you long” because she wanted me to work late that night. Fuck that! I can piss out an article for your paper on some stupid local event; a theology research paper is a LITTLE different. School comes first; if she’s willing to hire me full time without a degree, pay me at least 20K/year and give me benefits, then I might consider giving her priority. As it is, I’m getting paid $5.50 an hour. This is the least I’ve been paid my entire life. For doing something similar last year, I got $10/hour. I’m not a trained monkey; this is labor that requires skills that she didn’t even have to train me for (proficiency in a fucked-up computer program with about 800 bugs). And she’s paying me less than I’d get for slinging hash at McDonald’s.
3.) Holidays. She told me when she hired me that she wanted me to work the Friday after Thanksgiving. I said okay, and, because I was planning to be here, I made plans to feed someone’s pets. Last Monday–a week and a half before turkey day–she said she didn’t want me to work. I said, okay, but I’m going to be in town anyway. Today, I got an email saying that I’m no longer needed to feed the pets. I tell her this. She now wants me to work. This in addition to the fact that I am currently staying in the lounge of a residence hall that I don’t live in in order to work here. All the cafeterias are closed. It’s costing me more in food to stay on campus than I’m getting from her paying me. And she doesn’t fucking care.
4.) Pets. Her pets are often in the house, and half the time she can’t be bothered to shut them out of the office part of her house. The cats I don’t mind. They pretty much just jump on the spare computer chair and nap. The dog, however, I do mind. She’s a mid-sized dog, and just barely out of puppyhood. She wants to PLAY! and she’s not very well trained. Monday, I dropped my highlighter, and, a couple minutes later, I go to pick it up. I don’t realize that the dog has claimed it has her own–I have never HAD a dog in my workplace; I’ve never LIVED with a dog; I don’t KNOW what dogs think about highlighters. She growls for a second, then snaps at my fucking hand. I realize about a millisecond before she does what she’s about to do and pull my hand back. As a result, my hand is only nastily bruised at the base of my thumb instead of requiring stitches. My boss laughed when this happened, and when I asked that the dog be kept out of the room.
I am sick and tired of being treated as though I am of no fucking value to you, yet am indispensible at the same time. I’m not worth enough to pay a decent wage to, but I’m valuable enough that she always needs me here. My life and my well-being and my education mean nothing to her. My HAND means nothing to her.
::sighs:: I only have one more month. ::repeats as a mantra::
