I did call her immediately after receiving my schedule and told her I was not comfortable doing that. She said that was fine and in the future she would remember that, but that hasn’t been the case.
This company is only a year old, she is only one year into being a boss. I think this is the first time anyone has said anything about this to her, but everyone in the office is feeling the same way I do.
Let me see if I can give you some other examples of what I am dealing with here.
I put in a request for a day off in December. I put that request in on Monday of last week. When she got the request she asked another employee if she knew why I needed the day off. On my request for the reason why I put Personal. The boss told the other employee that she needs to know what my Personal day off is for so she can approve it. After all she will need to get a baby-sitter for her kids and drive my route, for her company. Every single employee that heard about this is upset. Personal means personal and no employee should have to explain. It’s a day without pay, and it’s a personal day.
Another example - Some days I work with the kids after they are done with their homework in the game room. (and am paid $10 an hour instead of the driver pay), which I have no problem with. One day a child asked me to play a game of pool with him, which I did. Now I have worked in childcare for over 10 years and one of the main things I have learned is that it is important and valuable to a child to give them your personal attention and time. I was always encouraged to play games with them and always have. So this one day the boss walks in, after not being there the entire week, and see’s me playing pool. In front of a room of kids, waiting parents, and a few staff, she yells from across the room -
“Am I paying you to play pool with the kids?” - (directed at one of the staff) “I’m not paying her to play pool with the kids”. Then she storms off and leaves the building. Needless to say I was totally embarrassed and shocked. If you are a game room employee you play with the kids, that’s your job. She asked me to help out in the game room and that’s what I did. The other employees who witnessed this were also very upset.
I am looking for something else. In the meantime we were told that if we did not raise the number of children to 75 instead of the 35 we have now, by December, the company will fold. I am going to stick it out until then and see what happens.
I think it is a different story if you called her right away, expressed your concerns, and she has gone back on her word.
From your more detailed explanations, it sounds like the whole situation stinks. Good luck on finding a new job, and be sure to get her a book on human resource law/guidelines for a going away present!!
I do wanna say that I do think it’s crappy, dreamer, that she just sprung this on you. She shoulda told you up front you’d be playing chaffeur for her kids, too. (Plus she sounds like a bitch anyway.)
I had a job a bit like this once, where I (rarely) ran personal errands for the boss. He told me about that at the interview, though, so it was cool. Plus the stuff I had to do was no big deal: find him a good cellphone deal by calling companies, go to the ticket place to buy tickets for his kid to see Barney, etc.
Maybe I’m jaded and have no faith in bosses, but to me complaining is a good way to get fired. No, you shouldn’t be fired for not wanting to do this, but right now it’s an employer’s market and people wanting jobs like yours are plenty.
That reminds me of one other thing that has happened with cell phones. She told another new employee and myself in the interview that she would pay us $20 a month to use our own cell phones while we were driving. (we have to call parents when children don’t show up and keep in contact with the center). That sounded fine and we both went with it. Well, when we both received our first phone bill we were in complete shock. I went over my minutes by 125 and the other by about 200. As you can imagine our bills were more than double. Now some of you might say it’s our own fault for not keeping up with our minutes, which is true, but neither of us had ever gone over our minutes before so we did not think of checking. When we told the boss she basically said we need to come up with some other idea for the phones and she would raise the price to $30 a month. No offer to help out with our bills, no apology, nothing. So I went on the Internet, found us a plan we could use and showed her. She then said she would set up the account in both of our names and she would pay the base $39 a month, and whatever we went over, would come out of our paychecks. I could not believe she wanted to put the company cell phones in our names and if we went over the minutes FOR THE COMPANY, we had to pay. :eek: The other employee and myself sat her down and told her that she cannot do that and after quite a fight, she finally agreed and put the plan in the company’s name.
Yes, but sometimes you cannot let people get away with treating you like this, if it’s important to you. If you don’t take responsibility and let them know what they are doing is not right, they will continue to treat others the same way until someone says something.
If you don’t take responsibility and let them know what they are doing is not right, they will continue to treat others the same way until someone says something.
True, but you’re operating under the assumption that people like this care about doing what’s right. They don’t. And they’ll treat people this way their whole lives because they are bad people, and because they can. The more money you have, the ruder you can be and get away with it.
Well, it seems like your boss is still at her kitchen table and really hasn’t made the complete transition to a businessperson’s mindset. That being said, do realize that it is only the first year of business for you and everything is probably pretty tenuous financially and psychologically. In her mind she most likely feels that her time is best spent doing businees-related tasks and she is paying you to do the mundane and this is the only way the business can survive. And she may be right.
So, your expecting a “professional” environment may be a little optimistic here. But if the money is good for you, and you are not doing anything illegal, and you are not being harassed, then, what the hell. If you can get a better gig, then go for that. Every job has its pile of BS–it just depends on the size of your shovel (or spoon).
For those who said “$15 an hour? Why complain?” please be aware that personal concierge services in Southern California wouldn’t begin to come out and do someone’s grocery shopping for anything less than about twice that amount. And chauffeuring children, which requires a special license, clearances and bonding would run even more.
So not only is Dreamer’s boss being unprofessional, she’s being cheap.
