May 27th, 2018
Today is my daughter’s birthday. Almost forgot about it being that I slept all day yesterday and today. It’s Sunday and there is so-called mandatory overtime.
There’s a couple of reasons I don’t foresee myself at this job past Monday or Tuesday:
1) It’s hard on my feet. I’m too young to grind my joints down for just being a guy that sweeps fucking floors.
2) My wife has no way of getting home from work while I have the car, forced to take Uber every night. That adds up and it’s bad enough we don’t have extra money. No, it won’t get any better if I quit — but when a job becomes expensive to GO to work, you have to start really doing the numbers. I didn’t even include the gas and more food I’m eating.
3) She has a job-sponsored event to go to Tuesday and Wednesday where she needs the car. I entertained taking the bus but after mapping it out via my usual mass transportation app, it will take me 4 hours by multiple buses and trains to get to a job that I’ll be on my feet for the next 8-10 hours after I get there.
Call me a lazy American all you want, but that shit isn’t worth it. Plus I have to figure out where to get the bus cards and load it up with cash I don’t have.
4) The job hinted at giving me more jobs to do outside of sweeping. Picking actual orders and what not. My feelings on that is simple: I do not want any further responsibilities that will force me to stay past a time I want to leave. Typically, people at this job have been leaving at 4, 5 or sometimes 6am. Technically, they expect me to stay until the end of the shift — as of now — sweeping the floor.
I’ve been leaving at 1am. Maybe 2am because I was done and sticking around was a waste of time. You might say: fuck it. You’re getting paid. Why not stay the extra couple of hours?
So you’re suggesting I stay on my feet for 16 hours a night? Sweeping and mopping floors. Looking busy when there is, most times, nothing to do?
I need the money. I can’t deny that.
But, as you can agree, I also need my sanity and my sleep is connected to that.
45-minute drive to and from work. At 4am, I am serving on the road exhausted. I chose to leave at 1am to give me ample time to come home, shower, eat, sleep and be well rested for the next day. It’s balanced giving them the work they need and the sleep and rest I need. Keep this also in mind, this is supposed to be a 12 hour shift Monday through Friday. Most 12-hour shift jobs I know have three off – two on days alternating weeks. These dudes working this job are doing five days straight.
Let’s also be clear: they are riding around on electric pallet jacks. Less foot time, but they do lift a lot and have other responsibilities for picking orders. None of which I want to dig into at my pay rate.
Lastly, there’s ….
5) I start classes again this coming Wednesday. I had a week off (some sort of Summer break I guess) and my next two classes are focused on my major.
Discovering Information Technology and Information Technology and Society.
They ‘sound’ easy stuff. Not so much trouble as, say Algebra coming up after these. But with my goal to not just do well but do OUTSTANDING (fuck Environmental Science and that instructor that fucked my GPA a little), do I have the energy to do this cornball maintenance job, take a four-hour bus ride and still concentrate on what i have to do for class?
The argument can be made that it’s only two days and I have plenty of time to catch up on all the class stuff over the weekend — possibly.
But four hours is insane.
What I might do is tell them I’m not coming in Tuesday and Wednesday. Leave it like that.
I’m getting ready to go in today. If there’s more talk of me picking orders and doing more than mopping, I’ll consider it but it’s putting one of my feet out the door. You see, I want this job to be simple since it’s already taxing on body and expenses as it is.
That said, I’m reviewing my resume/job search game. I got this one, with a few calls from others, with a particular format that worked. The IT jobs I want, but not getting, are being overlooked by that ‘honest’ resume I had help with from AIU’s career center. As mentioned, lying and cheating works, I need the time to adapt the resume that works into the IT sector.
It can’t be all lies and cheating because I am ACTIVELY in a major IT Bachelor’s Degree program. I just got to find a place that will take on students and talk up that part of my resume. I’ve seen IT jobs at 18.00 an hour doing things I know I can do even if I wasn’t in this degree program. Might I also add, stuff I can do that the degree program hasn’t touched on yet or even plan to.
I need to make this degree talk the talk these fuckers only want to hear.
This is the American way of working: paid more, less work. Working smart.
myJournal 