Thread: Take this job...

Originally Posted by Utopian

I have to resist the urge to quote Johnny Paycheck every day.

I have to work every day. Every weekend and every holiday. For the meetups I have attended it has taken weeks of prep before and damage control after in order to accommodate my absence for a couple of days. I worked 100--120 hours a week for over a year until my boss offered me a salary equivalent to working 60 hours--without any reduction in my workload. When I refused it, he capped my PAID hours at 60 and told me to better manage my time. This guy works 20--25 hours per week. I've been able to get most weeks down to between 65--80 hours per week. Meanwhile I get to see three coworkers take weekends and holidays and something I hear are called "vacations." They can leave because they are admittedly useless, incompetent, and lazy.

My work is the sole source of income for the company. They literally do not earn anything for the work done by those three. If I don't work or keep on top of it all the company goes under and I don't get paid. The company deserves to go under and it probably would if I left unless they could scramble and find some other expert. I would love to say "I quit" or something much less polite but my wife's job is insecure and lowpaying and we are stuck in this area due to family issues.

I dread going to work every day. I have to bite my tongue while coworkers spend hours on the phone or computer just to be able to write down the hours. I saved the company. Their methods didn't work while mine, that I had to fight to introduce, produce the best product anywhere; yet I've never gotten a raise and have to cut hours off of my time sheet every week.

So, yes, I'd really like to just walk away.

I feel your pain and frustration including what led to you having to be where you are now and the circumstances of 'why' you are there.

When I started with my current employer 35 years ago yesterday (May 27th at 1 o'clock PM I was an Eager Beaver. I was 26 years old

Today I dread going to work, having to put up with the Corporate BS, lack of hours, working with people who have no 'Sense of Urgency' and most of all a lack of what I would consider proper respect for busting my ass so that 'My' NOT 'Their' customers will be pleased and come back with managements Attitude (Well at least you have a job)!

I'm hoping to hang it up next year on May 27th and punch out at 1 o'clock pm. I may die a pauper but I won't die at work!

I had done ironwork for maybe 5 years, a year on a permit and then served my registered apprenticship. Gotten to be a good all round ironworker. It was during the period of the beginnings of the Arab oil embargo. Work was tighter than dick's hatband and if you left a job you were sure to sit in the hall 6 weeks before your name came up on the list again. Prior to the embargo I had started out in 1968 during a building boom. You could drag up and hit the hall in the morning and pick from a bevy of jobs.

Those hard times got me to take any job they offered without asking, how far away, how long will it last, who is pushing ? By the time the recession was over I was a way better ..... as in more skilled, responsible, ironworker than I had been when it started 4 years previous. IOW I was more of an asset to the employer because hard economic times gave me an attitude adjustment. I became more of a 'team player' to survive. On one short job I was working with an old guy that had been a superintendent on a lot of big work. It was just me and him finishing up the punch list on some building.

We became friends and I asked him, 'Lou, I've been doing this 7 years and I'm a good ironworker. I see guys doing it three years and they are running work. What is wrong with me.?" He looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, "You have to be a good servant before you can be a good master."

I don't know if that has anything to do with your situation. I did learn that, as another mentor of mine would frequently say, "Bring something to the occasion." Business agents used to tell us 'I can get you the job, I can't keep it for you', and 'We have nothing to sell but our labor.'

Whoever we work for invests in us to make them money. That is the only reason they hire people. Assuming they provide decent working conditions and wages/benefits I'll bring a good attitude to the occasion. If I don't like the job, just like the 'little waterboy' in Muleskinner Blues , I'll put the bucket down. When I was an ironworker I would never give notice. If you did the man would probably hit you in the ass with a paycheck that evening, if he waited that long. Anyway, all situations are unique ..... or maybe theyre the same .....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3-mh3vXDA0

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Whoever we work for invests in us to make them money. That is the only reason they hire people. Assuming they provide decent working conditions and wages/benefits I'll bring a good attitude to the occasion. If I don't like the job, just like the 'little waterboy' in Muleskinner Blues , I'll put the bucket down. When I was an ironworker I would never give notice. If you did the man would probably hit you in the ass with a paycheck that evening, if he waited that long. Anyway, all situations are unique ..... or maybe theyre the same .....

Jimmy, I apreciate what you posted and you are 100% correct about the attitude and working hard : At my workplace I've seen two department managers and a Store Manager die within a two year period + a department manager retire due to a debilitating stroke . The 'Parts" (Human Beings) were replaced. The machine chugged and coughed but once the New Parts were 'Broke In' the machine continued to run.

I find that sad.

I hope this is appropriate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI0D44zYP-Q

Giving notice these days in the corporate world will tend to result in a box handed to you, instructions to clean out your desk and escorted out before you turn around. Risk management (lawyers) doesn't like employees that have given notice hanging around.

Hey, I recognize there are lousy employers out there. Twenty + years of ironwork definitely showed me that. "If you can't do it, you can't stay," and "All I want to see is azzholes and elbows," was the motto of the first outfit I worked for as a teenager doing ironwork. One of my two fathers (complicated) told me from his experience as a non-union carpenter, that the contractor's philosophy is 'don't worry about the mule, just load the wagon.' Figuratively speaking.

Just to be clear, the post I made before is no reflection on the OP. I don't know what his situation is, just venting in general about the work experience I had. Not directed at anyone in particular.

I forgot to say...

I wish you the best in your "leap!" Hopefully you will find better circumstances soon.

Originally Posted by Splashone

Giving notice these days in the corporate world will tend to result in a box handed to you, instructions to clean out your desk and escorted out before you turn around. Risk management (lawyers) doesn't like employees that have given notice hanging around.

My friend you are so correct!

We had a ' helper clerk' (minimum wage) give his two weeks notice and he wasn't on the next weeks schedule. He could have had two weeks of work! And this is at a Union Shop.

Well, I'm glad I'm retired. When I think back to my work days it seems like a million years ago and a different person. To those who can do it, retire. Slow down, relax and enjoy life. It's amazing what happens when all that stress disappears.

Originally Posted by Utopian

I have to resist the urge to quote Johnny Paycheck every day.

I have to work every day. Every weekend and every holiday. For the meetups I have attended it has taken weeks of prep before and damage control after in order to accommodate my absence for a couple of days. I worked 100--120 hours a week for over a year until my boss offered me a salary equivalent to working 60 hours--without any reduction in my workload. When I refused it, he capped my PAID hours at 60 and told me to better manage my time. This guy works 20--25 hours per week. I've been able to get most weeks down to between 65--80 hours per week. Meanwhile I get to see three coworkers take weekends and holidays and something I hear are called "vacations." They can leave because they are admittedly useless, incompetent, and lazy.

My work is the sole source of income for the company. They literally do not earn anything for the work done by those three. If I don't work or keep on top of it all the company goes under and I don't get paid. The company deserves to go under and it probably would if I left unless they could scramble and find some other expert. I would love to say "I quit" or something much less polite but my wife's job is insecure and lowpaying and we are stuck in this area due to family issues.

I dread going to work every day. I have to bite my tongue while coworkers spend hours on the phone or computer just to be able to write down the hours. I saved the company. Their methods didn't work while mine, that I had to fight to introduce, produce the best product anywhere; yet I've never gotten a raise and have to cut hours off of my time sheet every week.

So, yes, I'd really like to just walk away.

I'm shocked.
The very idea of being treated, or more appropriately mistreated like that, sounds like a story from a hundred years back.
Or even more.

I sincerely hope you will get out of that crappy situation and can find an employer who actually values what you do.
That, generally speaking, seems to benefit bot parties...

Originally Posted by Birnando

I'm shocked.
The very idea of being treated, or more appropriately mistreated like that, sounds like a story from a hundred years back.
Or even more.

You shouldn't be. This country is sadly racing backwards to the era of the Robber Barons; really, we're more of an oligarchy now than anything else, and the ones who take it the hardest are working people.