The Worst Work Day · 4:58am Nov 5th, 2019
If y'all think you've had some bad days at work,
If y'all think you've felt like shit before at your workplace,
If y'all feel unappreciated and that your spirit is getting crushed in that hellhole of a workplace...
Sit down. I have a story for you to soothe your souls.
So today was my official start of work at my usual work hours. My work hours, so y'all know, are 6AM to 5 PM. For the training that started at 7:30 AM and Ended at 4:30 PM, I'd been getting on the bus at 5:17, but getting there like an hour early in case a bus came early. So for my first day of work, I got up at 2:30. I got up and dressed, took my dog outside to use the bathroom, came back in, packed my breakfast and lunch, and headed out.
The problem with buses, see, is that depending on when you leave, the routes can change. Like, with the buses you take to get there the fastest, I mean. And at this time, the bus would have dropped me off at 5:38 AM.
That would not do at all. I needed to eat breakfast, finish decorating my desk, review my notes, and take a well-earned smoke break to calm down because it was my first real day on the job and I needed to stop for a minute and just appreciate this. You can't do all that in a flimsy twelve minutes. And at my work if you're a minute late, it goes on your record and if you do that twelve times in your first thirty days, you can be fired.
Obviously I didn't want to be fired. I was so nervous about the bus coming late (because it has before) and I eventually caved and took a Lyft to work. It was maybe 3:47 in the morning when I got there. Now, because my shift started at 6, you might think there were people there. It is important to note that the last job I worked at there were people there as early as 4:30 when their shifts didn't start until seven. Considering that was the only job I ever worked, I thought it was normal. My building for work is one you have to use your badge as a key for. It unlocks the door. I've seen people go in before, but it was just me this time. I went in, and nobody was there. At my last job this wasn't a huge deal either. Happened all the time. So I made myself my breakfast and got comfortable.
There was a knock on the door.
It was dark outside and the walls were glass, so I couldn't tell who was there (the lighting is awful) but when I open the door, lo and behold- It's the cops. Apparently I triggered a silent alarm. So I explain to them I work here and they go on their merry way. I sit outside on one of the benches and chain-smoke until two other girls who were in my training class got there at five. Five thirty rolls around, and we all go in. Nobody else is there but us still. At this point we're concerned. Did we miss some sort of memo not to come into work? But, after trips to the bathroom and our desks, we discover other souls wandering the building.
That's the end of that, right? Nope.
My manager pulls me aside an hour into my shift and tells me I can't be getting here that early. Okay, understandable. Got a little overeager to do well, and I kind of botched it. But then he asks for the names of the other girls who came in "early" (It was five thirty and we start at six, mind you) and they get in trouble too because, "Nobody is supposed to come in until 5:45".
Um??? What???? In all the times you guys visited our training class in two weeks you didn't think to tell us this pertinent detail? Especially the Friday before we were to start work??? It would have taken you two minutes! And one of the girls I went in early with had gotten there at five every day during training, and they didn't mention it to her then either.
But wait, there's more!
My work bestie Amanda gets pulled aside by our manager, and when she comes back, she's pissed off to all hell. Apparently, somebody in the office snitched about her smoking weed (For context: She broke her back in a car accident in 2015 and it's for medical purposes which my job knew about, and has never done on the work property) and they broke the lock she bought off of her locker with bolt cutters and searched her purse without telling her when she was already in the building and they could have just asked to see her purse. They offered to replace her lock and told her in the meantime she could use one of theirs. In her words: "If I wanted their shitty lock, I wouldn't have bought my own." So obviously, she was angry.
But the story doesn't end there either. Today was supposed to be our first day of real work. We were told that about Saturday and Sunday too. But the manager who pulled me and my coworker aside screwed up our credentials in the system, and we had to take those days off, when we were originally offered overtime on Saturday, and would have been doing our regular schedule Sunday. We were supposed to finally come into work today and work the phones ourselves. Nope. Instead, we listened to other people's calls. All. Day. Long.
And we work ten hour shifts.
Now you might think that's shitty. And it is. But there is yet more shit to come. For just when I think the day is getting okay, I come back from lunch, and my water bottle spills all over me. I hadn't touched it all day. It was the summation of what I'd felt that day: The universe is telling you to go **** yourself.
But the last nail in the coffin hurt the most.
At our job, if we are in the top fourteen in payments, we can get bonuses. These bonuses played an essential part in my plan to get to Pensacola in six months. But we had a meeting on bonus structures today at the end of my shift (because I guess they recently changed them). As it would happen, most of the people who bonus- in fact all of them for last month, worked weekdays. I guess calls come in more often on the weekdays. As many of my coworkers, and myself pointed out, this wasn't very fair insofar as we asked the question "Why are we competing with people on the weekdays when the weekend has people we can compete against in a more even race?". Our supervisor (She seemed very nice to us but I've seen her be a hardass on the floor. She's tough, but fair.) explained that the reason for that was that before not many people earned a bonus at all, and they wanted to extend that to more people, and that we could still do it. But facts don't lie. Not one weekender has made the bonus board. Just like that, my dreams of escaping my house in less than six months were crushed.
So, to my heavy laden worker friends, I hope you take away this from my crazy day: The work world is screwed all to hell, but at least we all have one another to rely on to share stories of our shitty work days.
If any of y'all wanna cheer me up with some workplace comedy gold of your own, feel free to shoot me a comment.
Sincerely,
A dead inside but alive outside version of Cloe
We all have our bad Days. But we are all here for you.
I have to Deal with Coming Early on a regular Basis
Reminds me of my worst work day mama. It’s not all bad though. I found how it played out 2 years later kinda funny. Whenever you think your in the mood to hear about it just shoot me a personal message, ok mama? Hope you can at least find a way to destress from this experience.
I don’t really have a buisness-led work.
I got tired just reading this.
We all need to vent at times.
So here is to supporting each other during the shittier times in life...
And it will get better.
It has to.
Hey. Saw this and felt the need to respond. I can relate, not to work but during collage I had days where nothing seemed to go right and on the worst ones things went so bad that weeks or even months of work had to be thrown out and I had to start my project over from scratch.
Life is hard sometimes, but it will get better though. It might take a while but it will get better.
Oh, man. This certainly seems more like something one would make for an award-winning Comedy / Drama. How true it is how life can be stranger than fiction.
I work in a call center, too. Most of the software is not 'blind friendly'. This means I can only do so much of the job with promotional opportunities being a strong 'maybe' at best. Though I've been starting to 'ponify' my desk to help make it 'feel' more jovial. I even have a Baby Dragon hat I wear to work on warm days and a duck-beanie on cooler ones.
What you learn from call center is, like you discovered today, there is no bottom for the pit of how low and dumb people can be. I've had some real winners cross my desk. The irony of them all is I work for a grocery store chain and people make not getting a $0.50 coupon seem like the end of the world. <LoL!> I usually take these calls and think, "I could only imagine how'd they handle some real life trauma if something so petty gets them uppity.". :)
Your 'Bonus Structure' reminds me of what my previous employer did. They had this thing where you competed for rank against everyone with the same job title. The problem is that not everyone did exactly the same thing with the same job title. However only so many people could get 5s, 4s, 3s, 2s, and 1s. So it was disencouraging to want to help other people as it made doing your job more a competition than cooperation.
Some managers can't really see beyond themselves. There should actually be a pay increase for working weekends as, well, nobody likes working weekends. I have to work every other Saturday and I hate it. Though I can wear street clothes for a Saturday shift. So that is a plus.
Overall, no job will ever be perfect. However you can always strive to do your best and retain what makes you special.
Losing my sight cost me a $5 an hour job that I was poised to advance in. Now I am a call center grunt at $17 an hour. This may be fairly high, all things considered, but taking an $8 hour pay cut because I'm blind and people don't follow ADA with software development is not my fault.
Applied to you, I know you know you are worth more than what you are going through at this job. However, for now, do what you can with it, gauge the possibilities for advancement and earning extra, and then start looking for other jobs that may be a better fit. Other employers do enjoy hiring people from other companies. You're employed so you are desired. Use this to your advantage to bring in some bucks and seek a better opportunity that will get you to Florida sooner and with less stress. :)