I Broke

September 10, 2020 — Kaye

No, that’s not a typo.

I said a few times here I like my job, and I do. But much like my previous job, that doesn’t mean I like what they do.

Something I recently realized is we have “6ft sensors”, but the metal detectors were disabled and uninstalled to encourage “social distancing”. So, no one can be within six feet of someone else, but someone can walk in with a weapon and assault someone or open fire. And yes, this did happen at one location, although the employee opened fire in the parking lot.

Having already lived through one workplace shooting, I really don’t want get caught in another.

Safety issues aside, I enjoyed my job a lot more before March. But it’s not just the supposed precautions (also, someone else touching what I want to eat instead of me is gross; “safety”, my ass on that one!).

Temporarily, they added an extra hour to our work days. You’d think an extra hour wouldn’t be a big deal, but it is. I’d prefer an extra day to stumbling around my station like I’m drunk. For a place supposedly obsessed with safety, they certainly think nothing of overtired employees operating their machinery and walking around the warehouse. And, you know, driving.

I also received a write-up for something neither I nor the manager who issued it remembers. I don’t know how that works.

The final straw was watching a friend successfully get a position I’d been asking about for months and never got a clear answer on, despite both of us being there for the same amount of time and having no prior experience. I am always happy for my friends, and even the team I was trying to join continually pushed for me to be added. On top of this, it turns out to do any position, even one on the same level, I’ll more than likely to have to transfer to another building every time I want to.

I snapped.

Even at my previous job, I worked various positions without having to transfer. I did everything that wasn’t management.

But none of that was the clincher that made me decide I want to return to part-time or quit wholly. No, the clincher was when I learned I can make more money with rideshare. After taxes.

The danger of that is lack of insurance, but turns out you can buy health and life insurances, and not have them tied to employment. That solves that problem.

Still, I don’t want to decrease my schedule for the sake of working less. Part of it is I’ve taken up studying again since lockdown has tendered my trade school useless (well, my current job did that too). I like learning on my own time, and since I don’t want to repeat the school/work/sleep cycle if I don’t have to. I don’t even play my Sims game much anymore because I prefer practice. That was unexpected.

If I cannot transfer (again…) or return to part-time, I will try to hold out at my job until January. But if my efforts ultimately change nothing, I consider myself done.

Posted in Work. Tags: , , , , . Leave a Comment »

No, I Don’t Care About Your Corporate Visit

March 11, 2019 — Kaye

Not any more than you care about my safety anyway.

One of the benefits of having a low traffic blog. I’m positive no one at work knows this blog exists, let alone reads it. Even if they do, I don’t hold a weapon to anyone’s head and force them to read it.

No, I don’t care about your corporate visit. You don’t pay me enough to care.

Your corporate sucks. When have they done anything to make life easier for the employees? Don’t answer that.

Actually, do answer that. I’ll wait.

Why is a part-time person scheduled for 30 hours to begin with? Isn’t there a reason it’s called part-time? Forgive me, but last I remember, full-time was a big dud for me. Supposedly, I was too awful to remain in that position part-time either. I can’t have been that terrible if I’m still thrown on the floor for your corporate visits.

“We need you.” No, you don’t. If one employee leaving thirty minutes early makes that much of a difference in preparation for your silly visit, you’re already doomed. When are you not in need? As much as I hate call outs, I don’t blame them one bit. I’d call out too if I didn’t need the money.

You pay me to stand behind a counter, ring people, and take money. And if my knowledge is correct, new cashiers make the same wage I do now, whereas I started out lower. I guess that’s one good thing to come out of my failed promotion. Had I never asked, my wage would’ve never gone up. How fair. I hope I don’t need to add a sarcasm tag to that.

“Look at all the people you’ve served over the years.” So, what? Anyone with a pulse and lack of mobility problems can be a cashier. Why is this called “serving”? This is not an all-important job. This is not the military. It’s supporting people’s spending habits. Nothing more.

You always need help. You never have enough. Why, I don’t know and at this point, I’m too exasperated to care about finding out.

I remember when I accepted every call-in, when I routinely gave up my plans to work extra, when I once had 43 hours in a week from being called in, when I worked every day of a week and more. And I will never do it again. Partially due to losing nearly $100 to taxes (F*** the government! And no, I’m not benefiting, considering I had to go into debt to get higher education), and partially because it took me way too long to figure that in the end, being that kind of employee means nothing. All I get in return is the loss of my sanity, time, and desire to stay alive. Working fewer hours, I still get that, so I may as well keep one of the three that I can.

“Don’t you ever want to be in a manager’s position?” So, I can stress out even more, physically age faster, and panic over corporate visits? So, I can tell employees time and again how much I have to go through and make them question why I took the job if it’s so miserable (I’ve never met a manager who seemed happy with their position). So I can assert how much more tired I am, how much more I have to deal with, how much worse my day is going? So I can lecture them on all the hell a manager deals with and how they don’t make it easier because they have their own problems?

Not even in my nightmares.

No, I don’t care about your corporate visit. You can’t justify any reason I should. I’m tired, I’m drained, and I have long run out of patience.

You’re on your own. Like me, and everyone else.

Posted in Rants, Work. Tags: , , , , . Leave a Comment »

Some Things Are More Important

August 1, 2017 — Kaye

Including today, I’ve had two days off from work. Today, one of my bosses called to ask if I’d like to come. Normally, I would’ve said yes and gotten ready as quick as I could. This time, however, I had to decline.

Well, that’s not the complete truth. I didn’t have to. Nothing was really stopping me from saying yes. But at the time she called, I was with my boyfriend, who I do not have the pleasure of seeing as often as we’d like. I was also in pain. Pain I deal with every month, but it’s still pain.

Accepting would mean I have to leave immediately, cutting my time with this person I see infrequently with barely a chance to kiss him goodbye. We’re used to the distance. That doesn’t mean we don’t want to use every minute we can have together.

It sounds strange for someone who needs money to turn down an opportunity for it, especially for a reason many would consider flimsy. I know very well jobs are hard to come by. But so are good relationships. While I would love extra money, there are some things money can’t make up for. In my situation, that was time.

Yes, more money would let me visit my boyfriend more often, but what would be the point if I had no time? My next day off is after three straight work days. The day I see my boyfriend, if we are both fortunate, may be on that day off. Three scheduled work days to one possible day with who I call the love of my life. Perhaps it’s me sounding haughty, but it’s not really a hard choice. I know I’m fortunate I can turn down the chance without worry. Some people would need to say yes.

When our time was finally up, we had to run to ensure my boyfriend got the bus he needed to get back home (it came earlier than expected). We hugged and kissed each other goodbye, and he waved at me through the window as the bus drove away. There will undoubtedly be many more goodbye affections and waves, but at that moment – when it was happening in the present – it meant everything. Nothing could replace it.

Posted in Romance, Work. Tags: , , , , . Leave a Comment »

Four Small Words

February 12, 2017 — Kaye

Recently, my little state of NJ I call my home had a blizzard. Ah, got to love the strangeness of the seasons. I thought January was the dead of winter.

I was scheduled to work on that day and still had every intent of going. Some people didn’t exactly agree, however. No one in my household supported me going. Two questioned why I’m willing to endure a snowstorm to attend work, but not school (because my job pays me), and one even had the nerve to say something is wrong with me (this same person had to stay home from yesterday night because he got sick from being too drunk, and that’s not the first time; you can guess how seriously I took his opinion). The last of those three tried again to make his vague threat of not picking me up or dropping me off. A threat is not really a threat when you can get around it.

Yes, I know the weather was bad and potentially dangerous. I’m not suggesting they didn’t have a point (though they could’ve made it more tactfully). A small part of me felt bad for going because, as it turned out, if I’d stayed home, the manager on duty could’ve closed the store since I was the only cashier who came in (yes, we still got customers). Whoops! The joys of still learning how retail works. On top of that, she’d told me on the phone I didn’t have to come in, but I somehow missed that part. All I recall her asking is if I’m still coming in. If I’d heard her tell me I didn’t have to, I would’ve stayed home. Plus, I really would’ve loved to have stayed in bed like just about everyone else was probably doing!

So, why was I hellbent on going to work? I wasn’t. But I genuinely like being at my job, not so much because of what I do or how I get paid, but because being around my co-workers is a lot more pleasant than being around my family members. In the end, I worked for 9 1/2 hours that day (I was scheduled for 4 1/2), and I have no regrets because of one thing I got to hear from one of my (now former) supervisors: “I’m proud of you.”

To give some context, since the store was open, that supervisor decided to still come in. A broken down car resulted in him being two hours late, but he still came. I’d say he’s even more determined than I was because while a snowstorm wouldn’t stop me, my mode of transportation being dead would’ve been where I called it quits because I wouldn’t have seen another way. Anyway, when he came in, he came up to the register to see how I was doing and I mentioned I’d been there since morning. He already knew. I wasn’t surprised he knew I was there because he’d called the store three times and I’d answered every call. What I didn’t know was he knew how long I’d been there. Apparently, the first manager had told him. What followed was the quoted sentence.

It’s certainly not the first time that particular supervisor has praised me for what I’ve done, but in those situations, I’d asked for his opinion because I was anxious about if I’m really good at my job or not. On this occasion, I hadn’t asked. I was shocked to hear that come from him, especially since there wasn’t much of customer service to run since we had only a handful of customers. But it made my day and, besides the pride of doing my job, hearing him tell me that made enduring that weather to come to work worth the effort. Few times have I been so happy to have been born with a stubborn personality.

Maybe I still am crazy for going. Maybe people would call him crazy for still coming, in spite of having a broken down car. Maybe everyone who still worked that day is crazy for showing up. I can say with certainty if that ever happens again, I will opt to stay home, if only to let everyone else stay home too. But I really cannot say I wish it hadn’t happened or I regret I went. What he told me is going to stick with me.

Four small words. And they meant everything.

Posted in Work. Tags: , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

Ending One Chapter Starts Another

January 8, 2017 — Kaye

I know I’m probably going to eat my words somewhere down the line, but this year is already starting off well. And that means something since it didn’t particularly end well.

My job as a cashier is a seasonal position, so after a certain date, I was supposed to be let go. Key word: was.

I learned today it’s planned for me to stay on the team after the seasonal period ends, although it’s probably news I wasn’t supposed to learn this early. When I was working today, I confided in the supervisor on duty it was a concern on my mind, but I didn’t want to come across as a nag for daring to ask the manager in charge of it. She told me to ask anyway since we’re allowed (my workplace has an “open-door policy”, which means you can speak to any manager or supervisor you want at any time if you need something) and since I was already at work, I swallowed my fear and asked when I went on break. The answer was yes. When I returned from break, I very happily (but quietly) thanked the supervisor for encouraging me to do that. She was happy for me.

I work my first job and I didn’t fail at it! I still marvel at being able to hold down a job, so to learn I’m keeping it blew me right out of the water!

The other goodness for 2017 is, although it was unneeded, I got a reminder of just how strong a certain person’s love is for me. The circumstances that revealed it weren’t so pleasant and I have enough humility to admit those circumstances were my fault. No, I’m not asking for a cookie. The end of the matter was when he became hysterical over me and sobbed for about five to ten minutes. Few things have crushed me with so much guilt as when I realized I caused that. To top it off, he called himself pathetic for crying and pushed me away when I tried to comfort him (after asking for me to do it just two minutes ago), insisting he didn’t deserve it. Let me make that clear: I hurt him, but he was crying over me. He was hysterical over the person who hurt him because he believed it was the other way around and he’d hurt me.

Before that happened, he’d been prepared to wait all day for me because he didn’t yet know I’d already left home. Now, I’ll admit that sounds stalker-ish on the surface, but these plans were arranged and agreed to, and he didn’t have reason to believe they changed.

I’m fortunate to have someone who loves me so much, he deems me worth having an emotional breakdown over, and right after I hadn’t been so kind to him. I deserved that guilt and, really, so much more than that. He once said I spoil him because I often pay for much of our outings since I have a job. He’s wrong. He spoils me with so much love and patience like that. I genuinely love him and I don’t plan on putting him to a test, especially when I know all too well the misfortune of not having people who love you or have your best interests at heart.

I already know the happiness won’t last and there are some difficult times coming up. In fact, there’s one I’ve been aware of for a very long time. But I’ll have to face it when it comes and knowing I have the above, I’m not afraid of it anymore because it’s not a problem I created. For now, however, I’ll simply enjoy the joy ride.

Posted in Romance, Work. Tags: , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »
« Older posts