One of my teammates has gotten a raise she richly deserves, after being paid less than the rest of us for the last 6 months, yet doing much more work. She had to fight for it and it’s only temporary, and there’ll be no backpay (even though we’re all supposed to be on equivalent rates). But she’s at least got some recognition.
The most useless member of our team, who does NOTHING apart from barely meeting her stats, has been going around bitching behind other teammate’s back. She came to me and flat out said “Aren’t you annoyed that Girl1 got a raise?”
No bitch, I’m not. I’m happy she got a raise. She does more work than the rest of us combined. For less pay. Plus it’s only a temporary raise. You on the other hand, do jack shit. I don’t begrudge you getting paid what you’re getting paid, it’s the rate for the job we do. But don’t pretend like you deserve anything more, because you fucking well don’t.
So, I know the newspaper industry is in terrible straits. I get it. And if I liked my job, I’d feel lucky to have it. But I hate working here, more all the time. My boss (and his boss) are crazy psychotic workaholics who think they can tell people how to feel about things. (“We’re adding an entire weekly paper to your workload, on top of the daily paper you already do. No, you’re not allowed to get any overtime, you just have to do it in the same time with magic. And you’re only allowed to complain about it for today, and then you have to do it cheerfully with no attitude problem at all or I’ll yell at you for having a bad attitude.” Fuck yeah I have a bad attitude – because it’s a bad situation, cockguzzler!) They just keep heaping work on in general, until there’s so much detail to be sorted out that I can’t keep it straight and I fuck things up, and I have terrible insomnia from stress so I’m always tired and fuck up even more.
I hate newspapers. I hate news now, where I only used to be indifferent to it. I wish my boss would fire me so I could collect unemployment. I could make more money than this working at Home Depot and I have a college degree.
I hate, hate, hate my job. Anyone who comes into this thread and thinks we’re all lucky to have jobs and whatnot can have mine anytime.
Let’s see - its Sunday morning & instead of sleeping, I have been up since 4am & I am now sitting in an airport waiting for my flight so I can spend the day with people I work with. Hmmmm…
I am one of the lucky ones. I was laid off on October 30th and started a new job with better pay on December 8th. I received 5 weeks severance pay, and got unemployment for 4 weeks, so I actually profited on the deal.
But, I’ll never forget those scary 4 weeks when I wasn’t sure I would be able to pay the bills or keep my home. I understand that there are several posters in that position today, and it is a tough one.
So, and I know it is cliche, but even if your job sucks, it is better than sitting at home wondering when the walls are going to fall down around you…
Meanie, what do you do at your newspaper? I used to be a page designer in Kansas City until I got laid off in September. It wasn’t much fun working there by that point, and by now I think all of my former co-workers feel about the same as you. One of my friends there is working 12- or 14-hour days without getting paid a dime of overtime.
I have to say, though, that I just got a similar job here and it’s actually working out really well. My boss is very nice and very appreciative of what I do, they’ve given me a lot of responsibilities, and I’m not being overworked. It did suck when they laid off half a dozen people the week after I started, though. That was awkward.
I’m in the awkward position of loving what I do, but kind of hating my job. I’m a vet tech, and I love taking care of the critters and their people (aside from the assholes, of course.) But the clinic I’m at now rather sucks. My boss is one of those guys who lives to make things 9000x more complicated than they really need to be, so every day is an exercise in frustration. He’s mood and unpredictable, and if he finds something that isn’t the way he wants it, he bitches at the person who thinks should have done it, rather than the person who actually did do it.
His wife is the clinic manager. She shows really obvious favoritism, things like insisting the clinical staff turn off their cell phones when we enter the building because once every week or so someone will get a non-urgent call while the receptionists spend an average of an hour a day either talking on their cell phones or texting. She gossips incessantly, and she talks about all the rest of the clinical staff like dogs in front of me, so I have to assume she also bad-mouths me behind my back. She massively overschedules things and then nags at us because we’re behind and people are waiting.
Anyone who is less than chipper about all this, has a bad attitude and is probably burned out.
They went to a big CME conference a couple weeks ago and came back with all sorts of things they’d learned about avoiding burn-out. We went through the first bit of it at our monthly staff meeting last week. It was a hand-out entitled “Are You A Heart Attack Waiting to Happen?” about eating right and exercising, along with some pages photo-copied from Eat This, Not That. Evidently, 90% of people who suffer professional burn-out do so because of their lifestyle.
Since the meeting was at lunchtime, they got lunch in for us–Lee’s fried chicken.
I hope you said that to her face. I’ve worked with/for people like that, and it’s wonderful to be able to tell them how you feel without repercussions.
I told her the first part, about the not being upset because Girl 1 got the raise. I couldn’t tell her the second part. Even in the public service there’s limits to how much you can push things before they can you. And Girl 2 used to be the pet of the Department Director, so there’s a bit of an unspoken barrier.
To the creepy, old guy who works on the other side of the very large room I work in: stop it. I know what you’re doing. I see you creeping around constantly, spying on Jen and I every time we work together. And the rumors you keep starting about us do make their way back, you know.
You’ve got to be dying to know for sure the way you sit in your car and wait fifteen minutes after your shift to see if we walk out together, so I’ll just tell you - yes, we are seeing each other, and the reason we’re doing our damnedest to make sure nobody at work finds out is creepy fucks like you.
I’m kind of in the same position - I work in a regional office, but I am very, very isolated because I work for our national training division and I rent my space from this office. Because of this, I’m not involved with our money-raising events, and although I’ve made a concerted effort to GET involved, I do sometimes feel very alone here. I’m fortunate that I’ve made some very good friends, but I’ve just come to the conclusion that I’m never going to feel like a full member of this office unless I end up in one of their jobs instead of national, and I doubt I’ll do that (because I adore my department and my work). And since my manager just moved to a home office in a different state (although we’ve been working remotely since I started, thanks to an office remodel), I really am on my own here.
It doesn’t help that there are going to be some layoffs here this week because they are fundraisers, and my division is more of a sales atmosphere so we have a bit more security, so I sound like an @sshole trying to reassure them because I’m not directly affected. I’ve been with the company for 3 1/2 years (doing the jobs that most of them do in a smaller office), and with this division for 7 months, and there’s a really big disconnect between the fundraising side and my side that was there before I ever started, so it’s just something to deal with. It does suck not to be included sometimes, though (like, everyone else in our area who’s had a birthday has had a cake or a lunch or something, and I’m invited to all of those, and for my birthday last week, there was nothing planned. I did have my favorite co-worker take me out for sushi, though, so at least I didn’t feel completely forgotten.)
However, I love my job, and I love my company, and for the most part, my office-mates are good people - they just have their world, and I have mine, and unfortunately, I’m flying solo because of the nature of my work.
While I am grateful to have a job, especially one that pays the bills as well as this one does, I’m not real happy that it’s located >150 miles away from home, necessitating that I only see my family on the weekends.
I’m also not happy with what they have me doing now: I was hired originally as a Technical Writer on a one-year project, and when that project ended, I got moved to another department, doing a different job. While I’m grateful for the contract extention, and while I agree, it’s a highly marketable skill, and once i get more experience I’ll be able to take my pick of positions available in this field…the fact remains that I just don’t like doing it.
Without going into detail, imagine that your job entails working on those “group projects” - you know, the ones you hated in High School, where you were randomly assigned “project partners” and no matter how hard you worked and how great a job you did, if there was one “partner” that decided to just fuck off his responsibility you all wound up looking bad, and the ones that WERE working hard on it wound up pulling a couple last-minute panicked all-nighters trying to get the whole project finished.
Yeah, that’s my job. With random supervisors, too - of varying competencies and levels of involvement.
And, since my state is hemorrhaging work…and workers…and the Unemployment Rate is climbing faster than my Blood Pressure, I have to just grit my teeth, think happy thoughts and keep applying for jobs near home that are absolutely perfect for me that don’t actually ever email or call me back.
I wish people would read their email and actually understand what’s being said.
My department relies on other departments to finish their work before we can do our work. The work we do can actually be done by most people here-- they just throw it at us to save time and let other departments concentrate on their department-specific work.
My department is also pretty strapped. We have 3 people, but they’re all part-time and not equally skilled at the work. My best person is gone for the day by 3pm.
So if I email you to say, “Hey, can you please handle [our task] yourselves after you finish [your task], because I don’t have anyone who can work on it,” this is not code for “Please accelerate your portion of this project so I can give the work to someone now.”
It’s right there in my email: I DON’T HAVE ANYONE WHO CAN WORK ON IT. PLEASE DO IT YOURSELVES. It doesn’t matter if the file is ready in 5 minutes. I still don’t have anyone who can work on it.
Thank god Outlook doesn’t have a blinking-text formatting option. Or reach-through-the-monitor-to-slap-people option.
I love my job. What I’m hating right now is the tense atmosphere caused by the financial environment. Everything’s all about the budget, and the fear that MORE jobs will be cut after the first quarter results are in.
I run a small electronics servicing business in a medium-sized city. Mostly we repair TVs and realted Home-Entertainment devices. Have done for fifteen years.
As you might guess, this is not a growth industry. At one time, we had thirteen employees, we are down to three if I count myself. I really like electronics and I enjoy working with customers as long as they don’t push my “social anxiety” buttons.
I fix TVs. If your TV is busted, I will do my best to fix it. It is not my responsibility to sort out problems with: your cable provider, satellite provider, the fact that Dish-Net or Bell Expres-VU has changed the encoding on their signal so that you can’t steal their programming any more.
Not to mention the fact that you bought an extended warranty which doesn’t cover the $250. lamp in you projection TV (and, yes, I DO believe you when you say the salesperson said it was covered…)
I cannot give you a new TV just because your TV doesn’t look like it did in the store even though you are using rabbit ears (made from real rabbits :rolleyes:) . HD TV? Yes, your TV is HDTV capable… let me show this short Power Point Presentation…
That said, I usually do fix problems with bad source siganals when practical. (I carry some cables so I can hook things up properly)
I write down details so my client can converse with some level of knowledge with the programming provider and/or their dealer.
As for the fact that the government is using your TV to spy on you and/or steal your DNA, I can only suggest that you try an AL foil hat. (I only had to do that once in fifteen years). Perhaps if more of my customers had experienced such problems, I wouldn’t feel the need to vent here.
I loves 98% of my customers. The dealers who sell the products I service? not so much.
I’m a copy editor/paginator – though, Lord help me if I have five minutes to edit anything, with all the pages to do, and the reporters turning in their stories just before page deadline (and treating story deadlines that we try to set as jokes).
My job would be easy if they didn’t expect one person to do so much of it.
