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Spacetraindriver

By Spacetraindriver
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richfiles

richfiles

Posted
Posted (edited)

My employer is taking advantage of my part time status. They wanted me to go full time, but their health insurance program is abhorrently expensive and quite frankly, what I'm on now is affordable and has reasonably decent coverage. If I went full time though, I'd not qualify for the insurance I'm on, cause as a part time employee, I don't have access to the company health plan, and having employer coverage would disqualify me from the insurance plan I'm on now.

So, with that out of the way, I work two part time jobs. One job at a testing lab, and the other doing electronic assembly and occasional design engineering for a machine shop that makes electric motors. The machine shop is run by an old friend, and former supervisor from my old job, also making electric motors... His business is a continuation of what we did at out old employer, before they were bought out and closed (The old company was purchased so the buyer could acquire our linear motor product line).

I've had the shop job for 7 years, and prior to that, I'd worked 9 years at the old motor manufacturer. Sadly, while it's a very profitable business, it's also very small. On slow months, I typically only get a couple days of actual work. Sometimes, when we're busier, I can have a week or two worth of stuff to work on, but it's a far cry from full-time. Pay isn't bad though. It makes a great supplemental job, as I can go in and work 3-4 hours over two afternoons, and come home with an extra hundred bucks in my pocket. The job at the shop has been exceptionally busy. Apart from the regular monthly stuff I do there, we finally got orders for a cable for a surgical tool, for the first time in almost two years! (We used to make the motors that go into the tool) That is GREAT, cause I can do 90% of the work from my home workshop. I'm also designing a piece of test equipment (I finally learned KiCAD to make the PC board), so that's a big project that's racking up the hours too...

Here's where the problem lies.

The lab job. It was alway part time. I started there doing an 8-12 shift. They decided a year in, they wanted me to do 10-2pm instead... No additional hours gained, no pay raise, but I LOOSE 2 hours of my afternoon. I refused to accept the change without fair compensation for the loss of my time, and they agreed to shift me to a flexible hours arrangement. I'd come in and do an "official" 9-1pm shift, but I had the option to come in early if I knew the next day would be busier, and I could stay as late as I wanted to get additional hours, if there was work to do. This was actually GREAT! All the time benefits of part time work, with the option to work extra as needed (and pad that paycheck). As time went by, things began to change. Suddenly, everyone in my area had to "check out" before leaving. The managers all took lunch at the time I normally would leave, so suddenly, on days I wanted to get out, right then and there, at 1pm, I suddenly couldn't check out for up to an hour. Then it shifted from, "okay, you're good to go" to "well lets make sure there's nothing left that you need to do"... Mind you, there are always 2 full-time employees there, and I was the part time help for when things are supposed to be busy.

Queue another year or two later, and we've had 3 or 4 total employees in our area at any given time, at least 2-3 full-time, and me as part time. Sometimes it was 2 full, and 2 part time. Occasionally, it's drop back to 2 full and me as part time, when we were between fourth employees. The area I work is most definitely a three station workflow. Sample disposal, container lining, and media filling. There's other tasks, but they get divided up, and that was often the responsibility of the fourth employee. We had a particularly troublesome fourth employee, who managed to last a year. The two full timers transferred to bigger and better things, and a new third full timer was brought in, bringing us to three employees. Well... The troublesome one got fired a month or so ago, and we've now been down to one NEWish full time employee, and me... Still part time, but working 7-10 hour days. A two person crew, trying to operate a three station workflow. Anyone with half a brain understands that that's a bottleneck. if one person handles two stations, they operate each station at half the capacity as the third station being operated at full capacity. It creates buildups, delays, and leaves the autoclaves suffering from major idle times. It's... It's real bad!

When I addressed these issues to my manager... Her response was "I'm not hiring a third employee. We don't need one. Besides, don't you think you two couldn't just work faster?"

:mad:

I'm NOT going to burn myself out, to do MORE work, for NO ADDITIONAL COMPENSATION, ESPECIALLY when I see that the friggin' ALDI's grocery store... You know, the REALLY CHEAP place, is hiring people with a STARTING WAGE that's half a dollar HIGHER than what I'm earning after nearly FIVE YEARS at the lab... What the!?!?

She tells me that there are enough people in other departments that if things get busy, they can just have other people put in a little time to help. This is a garbage response. First off, EVERYONE is busy in the mornings, and that's where our worst bottlenecks are. Most times, when people FINALLY come to offer us help, we're in the middle of cleanup, at the end of the day. One day, the first offer of help was literally so late, that I had to respond "Well, you could help by wiping down the counters, but then we would have to leave, cause there's literally nothing left to do. I would literally have to stop working for the day, to let you help me right now". :huh: While there are RARE cases where we get help at useful times, it's not all that common, and it's burning me out.

What's more though, is I have ALWAYS had two or three separate jobs, and the lab always accommodated my need to get my hours in elsewhere. When I needed to work a shift at my old job at Gamestop, or get hours in at the shop, what was once my manager saying "Once you've worked your official shift, you can optionally stay later and work any extra hours you can take. If you need to leave at 1pm, that's fine." has recently shifted all the way to "Well you can leave once everything is done. I need you need to finish with everything here before you head out". Yeah... My "part time" duties seem to have shifted to full time duties, without any of the full time benefits.

Tomorrow, I'm leaving at 1 PM, and my manager can just deal with it. I've told my coworker that I'm leaving at 1pm, so it's not a surprise, and it's not like it ain't fair to him. He got a whole day off. The previous day, my manager actually called my coworker to stay home on Monday (Our days off shift between Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, to keep someone in the lab all week round), cause she didn't think it would be busy enough to need two people... DESPITE me telling her the previous Friday that I needed to be taking off at the end of my normal shift to go to the machine shop the next week... BTW... it wasn't a slow day at all! :mad:

The impression that I get is that:

A: She is completely dismissive of my other job, and feels I should ignore it, to prioritize the lab.
It's reached the point where it almost feels like she's sabotaging my ability to leave at a normal time (like on Monday).

B: She wants me to go full time, and is treating me as if I already was FT, but is ignoring the fact that I get no FT benefits at all. It's been months since I left AT 1pm.

C: Multiple people in the lab think firing the troublemaker and not replacing him is an active ploy to pad her bonus, by reducing labor beyond reasonable means. She's actively IGNORING the fact that the lab employees are struggling to keep up (and who have spoken up to her about it), and taking advantage of part timers like me to get full time work hours from non full time employees, and pad the total labor pool with non-overtime hours, and fewer employees to pay out benefits to.

I should have had a sweet paycheck from my other job, but days and days of delays, where I just don't have the time to drive out to the shop (which is out of town) have prevented me from getting as many hours in over there! If I could get a position at the other lab in town, I'd jump ship in a heartbeat. Sadly, the lab I work at JUST built a MASSIVE expansion that directly competes with the other lab in town, and they've been slow for the past year. I know, cause I've been checking with them. I mentioned that the friggin' ALDI's in town is hiring at a starting wage higher than my nearly 5 years at the lab... At my employee review, they literally pointed their thumb at the new building, and used it as an excuse for an abysmal QUARTER raise. No one got good raises. The company likes to spend on the buildings, and cheap out on the labor. Those people have me hating my job. I genuinely hate going there. My coworker is awesome. He hates it, but we have fun. It's how we cope with such crummy management, and such low wages.

The ONLY REASON I haven't already walked... Is it's probably the most stable job I've ever witnessed in my entire life. I watched a man tell his managers he was quitting FIVE TIMES, be called into meetings about his behavior and attitude four times, run a cart into a pregnant woman, and verbally harass other employees, and not show up for a few days, cause he was in jail for a DUI... And HE'S STILL WORKING THERE!!! :0.0: He's NOT even the guy who got fired!!! The one who got fired eventually got fired for repeated no-shows, blatant NSFW speech and behavior, and repeatedly getting into it with managers. He ONLY got fired cause he went directly up against management... And it took a YEAR. :o As long as you do your job reasonably well, and don't pick fights with management, I'm not sure you even could get canned from this place. I've only heard of one other firing in 5 years, and that was for stealing from the company. As for what we do, my department does food testing. Unless the government suddenly stops requiring foods to be tested to be safe for human consumption, or humanity suddenly stops eating, we will ALWAYS have work. It's the most stable industry I've ever seen in my life. In five years, we've never had a downturn, never had a layoff, never had lack of product to test. We're stable, BECAUSE we are a service industry, that services a government mandated safety regulation, on something every human needs (food), and that testing needs to be done fast. You can't outsource it to China, cause it'd take too long and cost too much to send the samples around the world. Instead, there are numerous testing labs dotted all over the country that service local food growers and manufacturers. It's the fast response that is beneficial, and drives companies like where I work. A customer doesn't even need to wait for UPS overnight, cause we have a network of couriers that can literally drive straight to you and pick up your sample, same day. If a company can't sell what they produce till they get a test result, then having rapid response makes a world of difference. Shipping by the afternoon, vs storing everything in a warehouse for a day or two. It's cause of that stability, that I've not walked away. I will probably never find a job as stable as a food testing lab in an agricultural town. :rolleyes:

Still, I want out...
I know it's a waste of money, but they've driven me to start buying the occasional lottery ticket, just so I can DREAM of HOPING to wave that in their face and WALK!
Why dreams! Y U no true! ;.;

Edited by richfiles
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monstah

monstah

Posted
Posted

I've been doing extra hours for weeks, banking up for new year's recess... I can't do them at the end of the shift, tho, because I got stuff after work, so I have to wake up early. And guess what? There isn't exactly more work to do to fill the extra time, so I'm just tired, and staring at the ceiling for a while longer...

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Green Baron

Green Baron

Posted
Posted

Work never shows up when we have the time for it :-)

Your employer accepts your overtime despite you having nothing to do ? Sounds German generous to me :-)

 

Cat has parasites. I managed to stuff it in the cage. Drove to the veterinary. Closed until Friday. Yeah, banal, i know.

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NSEP

NSEP

Posted
Posted (edited)

Yesterday there was some Dutch holiday thing going on, so there were some dudes giving chocolate letters to everyone. But what liquides me off is that i, along with many others did not get a chocolate letter, while others got two. I expected those dudes to do some accurate planning on wich classes to give the candy, but they just sprinkled it around in the classroom without noticing someone got the choccy letters or not.

Im a little dissapointed, so im starting a communist regime.

Edited by NSEP
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Piatzin

Piatzin

Posted
Posted (edited)
6 hours ago, NSEP said:

Im a little dissapointed, so im starting a communist regime.

I can be your finance minister! I already drew up a complex budget/plan for where we should spend and what we should invest in:

Spoiler

st3mje.png

As you can see, 'research' is a little broad, but I decided to make it like that because there's a lot of stuff and I can't write small with a mouse

:D

Edited by Earthlinger
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guesswho2778

guesswho2778

Posted
Posted (edited)
On 12/6/2017 at 8:37 AM, NSEP said:

I want to sleep, but when i close my eyes i see demons. No joke, a pale skin, blue eyed demon stated right into me.

same except its me dying some horrible death

im really not joking 

Edited by guesswho2778
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Just Jim

Just Jim

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, guesswho2778 said:
On 12/5/2017 at 5:07 PM, NSEP said:

I want to sleep, but when i close my eyes i see demons. No joke, a pale skin, blue eyed demon stated right into me.

same except its me dying some horrible death

im really not joking 

Ahhhh... if y'all had any clue what I sometimes see late at night....  :0.0:

....but I learned long ago to embrace my nightmares.... 

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qzgy

qzgy

Posted
Posted
55 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

Ahhhh... if y'all had any clue what I sometimes see late at night....  :0.0:

....but I learned long ago to embrace my nightmares.... 

Ohhhhh so this is where Emiko comes from.....

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qzgy

qzgy

Posted
Posted
14 hours ago, guesswho2778 said:

oh sometimes in a dream ill fall and it will feel real and i will "land" and it feels painful and worst of all i wake up and still feel it

For me, I've sometimes got that when almost just falling asleep. Its like falling off of a stair right?

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NSEP

NSEP

Posted
Posted
14 hours ago, guesswho2778 said:

oh sometimes in a dream ill fall and it will feel real and i will "land" and it feels painful and worst of all i wake up and still feel it

I have the same thing, with a normal dream, and then it feels like im falling and i wake up. Its scary.

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TheSaint

TheSaint

Posted
Posted (edited)
9 hours ago, razark said:

When moving into a new place, makes sure that
A. The heater works.
B. The breakers are $#(*&@ labeled...

Yeah. Last house we had in California was forty-years-old. I was doing some electrical work when we first moved in, moving a light. I turned off the breaker, started taking the fixture apart. Hey! Why are my fingers all tingly! AAAAHHHH!!!! So "Move the Light Day" turned into "Relabel the Breaker Box Day".

Edited by TheSaint
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Vanamonde

Vanamonde

Posted
Posted

People under 18: 

It is really not safe for you to be posting personal information on the internet. Avoid pictures of yourself, the name of your school, any details about where you live (don't even mention the city), your age, the grade you're in, and so on. We've been pretty lenient about this in the past and just removing the information for you and sending a reminder, but it's been happening so much lately that we are going to start issuing warns about it. This is for your own protection. 

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Geonovast

Geonovast

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, qzgy said:

I hate the VAB camera more. Whats wrong with the one in the SPH

I can't just go "up" that I'm aware of.  I frequently put stuff on the bottom of the plane, and if I'm lucky, I can barely see what I'm doing at the very top of my monitor.

I've never had a problem with the VAB camera.  I've even switched to the VAB while working on planes because the SPH camera wouldn't let me do what I want.  I'd offer some screenshots, but I'm not at home.

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TheEpicSquared

TheEpicSquared

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Geonovast said:

I can't just go "up" that I'm aware of.  I frequently put stuff on the bottom of the plane, and if I'm lucky, I can barely see what I'm doing at the very top of my monitor.

I've never had a problem with the VAB camera.  I've even switched to the VAB while working on planes because the SPH camera wouldn't let me do what I want.  I'd offer some screenshots, but I'm not at home.

You can move the SPH camera up and down by holding down Shift as you scroll.

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Geonovast

Geonovast

Posted
Posted
14 hours ago, obney kerman said:

I'm depressed. What else would I complain about?

I've battled depression my whole life.  I'm not judgmental and can be a pretty good sounding board.  Feel free to PM me if you'd like.

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