Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Unions Can't Come Fast Enough
There's been all sorts of "union" talk at the Store.
Broken A/C during one of the hottest weeks of the year, managers with no people skills, the ginsuing of everyone's hours - both part and full time - merely because we can't make sales similar to last summer's Harry Potter-mania...all of this has caused me discomfort, annoyance, and poverty in direct order.
However, it is the latest bullcrap that is pushing me over the edge.
Because of the slicing and dicing of hours, we who have committed to working full time (40 hours) have to work whenever we're offered in order to make up those full 40 hours and cover other departments during that time. So some days I'm working at the cash register for almost four hours a day instead of actually doing what I was hired to do. All my immense talent and genius wasted behind a register.
OK, that was going overboard a bit.
But yes, scheduling.
And it's not just the duties that have changed, but as mentioned before, the hours as well. On Mondays I now work 9 1/2 hours. That's right, 9 1/2 hours. Granted at previous jobs this was not really such a big deal. On occasion I'd have ten hour days. But at those positions I had a chair. I had a desk. I had a computer with internet access. Here I stand on my feet for all that time. Sure I get an hour for lunch but that is just a drop in the bucket to the amount of time I have to remain standing. By the end of yesterday I was ready to start shooting up the place with a very very large gun with very very large bullets. As one might guess, I'm not a huge fan of the human race and our Store's customers in particular. And over the past few months, I've adjusted to having to deal with these vipers and soul-suckers for an actual seven hours a day; I trained my body and my psyche to repress all violent and rash thoughts and actions for those seven hours a day. But now...now I have to extend that control to EIGHT!
And I gotta tell you, I'm not all that sure I'll be making it.
I'm well aware that some people might not see the problem with all this but let me remind you: due to the fact that we are considered to be currently "not making money" (Thank you Harry), we are consistently understaffed and therefore working twice as hard to make up for the lack of bookseller prescence on the floor. This means constant phone-answering and customer-helping on top of handling stock, merchandising, and projects. Therefore while it is just an extra hour, by the end of the day I had customers asking me if I was alright.
Where are those damned workers organizations when you need them?
Broken A/C during one of the hottest weeks of the year, managers with no people skills, the ginsuing of everyone's hours - both part and full time - merely because we can't make sales similar to last summer's Harry Potter-mania...all of this has caused me discomfort, annoyance, and poverty in direct order.
However, it is the latest bullcrap that is pushing me over the edge.
Because of the slicing and dicing of hours, we who have committed to working full time (40 hours) have to work whenever we're offered in order to make up those full 40 hours and cover other departments during that time. So some days I'm working at the cash register for almost four hours a day instead of actually doing what I was hired to do. All my immense talent and genius wasted behind a register.
OK, that was going overboard a bit.
But yes, scheduling.
And it's not just the duties that have changed, but as mentioned before, the hours as well. On Mondays I now work 9 1/2 hours. That's right, 9 1/2 hours. Granted at previous jobs this was not really such a big deal. On occasion I'd have ten hour days. But at those positions I had a chair. I had a desk. I had a computer with internet access. Here I stand on my feet for all that time. Sure I get an hour for lunch but that is just a drop in the bucket to the amount of time I have to remain standing. By the end of yesterday I was ready to start shooting up the place with a very very large gun with very very large bullets. As one might guess, I'm not a huge fan of the human race and our Store's customers in particular. And over the past few months, I've adjusted to having to deal with these vipers and soul-suckers for an actual seven hours a day; I trained my body and my psyche to repress all violent and rash thoughts and actions for those seven hours a day. But now...now I have to extend that control to EIGHT!
And I gotta tell you, I'm not all that sure I'll be making it.
I'm well aware that some people might not see the problem with all this but let me remind you: due to the fact that we are considered to be currently "not making money" (Thank you Harry), we are consistently understaffed and therefore working twice as hard to make up for the lack of bookseller prescence on the floor. This means constant phone-answering and customer-helping on top of handling stock, merchandising, and projects. Therefore while it is just an extra hour, by the end of the day I had customers asking me if I was alright.
Where are those damned workers organizations when you need them?
