Saturday, March 8, 2008

The NOT so fun stuff.....

Work has been NOT-SO-FUN for the past few weeks. Again, I TRY not to talk about it. I absolutely can't say where it is that I work, or who I work for. If it were discovered that I blogged about this place then....well, I imagine I would get fired. Or beheaded. Possibly burned at the stake. But whatever might happen, I can assure you it would NOT be good. So I will be as precise as I can in the most vague and elusive way to not divulge anything that might come back to haunt me.

I am salaried. Which means that I get paid the same no matter how many hours I put in. I am also fast, and efficient, so usually it works to my advantage. Except that every so often, evaluations must be done to be sure I am getting compensated fairly. Meaning is it even remotely possible to force me to do MORE for LESS??? And for the past 2 weeks the evaluations have been ongoing. And its not that we (as a collective whole in my office) are being watched. We are being visually, in your face inspected, some things actually timed by a stop watch, every movement, every blink of an eye recorded...its nerve-wracking to say the least.

The worst part? The work-load inevitably dries up to almost nothing during these times. There is nothing mysterious about it. Its an outright, not even going to try to hide it effort to make it look like we are all over-compensated. It makes my blood boil, and soul seethe. Enron has nothing on these guys as far as fraud and employee-shafting goes. Nothing AT ALL! Luckily, I managed to scrape by without losing anything. Time or money-wise, that is. Of course, during a normal work week, I deal with a 3-4 hour increase in workload. And now I will still have that, only I will get paid the same thing as before. I have to consider myself lucky. A LOT of other people in my office lost as much as 6-7 hours of time/pay. Its like saying I was gang-raped but at least I got away with my life.

So why do I put up with it? I have done a whole lot of soul searching to try and figure that out, actually. I LIKE the job, itself. If you take away the shady underhandedness, and the incompetent, bullying management. If I were fairly compensated, and left alone to do my thing....I would NOT be unhappy. And I have an awful lot of time invested in this, not to mention retirement and other financial benefits that keep me hanging on. I can see it getting to a point where its not worth it any longer. But for now....for now it still is worth it, even if it makes me crazy sometimes. Its not just the benefits that keep me there. I have a whole office full of people that I genuinely like, and have a whole lot of history with. We've all seen each other through good times and the rough stuff. Work-wise and personal. I would really REALLY miss some of those people if I left. So I am staying put for the moment. But I need to find better ways of keeping it all in perspective. Its a job. And then I come home and live my life. And I don't want the job spoiling any of my precious personal time. I've gotten better about it over the years. But there is still a whole lot more room for improvement. And these evaluation times don't really help. But its over. For at least another year. And that, my friends, is a real cause for celebration!!!

2 comments:

Hannia said...

:) positive thinking, that's the spirit!

Lori Kintz said...

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http://www.deusexmalcontent.com/