WORK. AAAAARGH.
Tuesday, 21 May 2002 12:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
taimatsu
i just lost half a work rant owing to client crash. Sod sod sod.
Basically, I'm really pissed off. I'm thinking about leaving. But I doubt very much that I can find a job where I won't have at least some of the same problems. I don't know what to do.
For a start, the tasks I am being given to do are incredibly boring and repetitive. Worse, they are labour-intensive and require serious concentration, because of the completely manual way records are kept. Making a mistake is all too easy, and results in laborious back-checking and irritation from others. My favourite task so far is, wait for it, typing (which I get to do very infrequently). I think that says something.
Other working conditions are problematic too. The classic issue is that I am not allowed to wear trousers - my employer frowns on it.
There are four regular people in the office: myself; the Master, Edward Greene; the Registrar (deputy head) Nick Weller; and Nick Stannard, who is mid-twenties and has worked there before in holidays. Nick S. is doing a range of jobs; he started off by compiling the summer exam timetable (a job I had been told was mine, and was rather looking forward to, before I got swamped in a tsunami of filing). More recently, he's been given various responsibilities relating to exam candidates which do not involve sitting at a desk. On top of this, he does not seem to have to adhere to a dress code (despote the fact that right now he has far more contact with outside students, etc., than I do) and has been equipped with a far fancier computer than mine, complete with net connection.
He's a very nice chap; I just get the feeling he's getting slightly preferential treatment.
Anyway, last week, as I have previously ranted, I was feeling very ill. I was off work for three days of five, and late the other two. Yesterday morning I was called into Edward's office and told I was being given a pay cut, because I was not reliable; I'd be getting £6 an hour rather than £7.50, and I would be counted as a casual worker. Nick Stannard would be upgraded from 6 to 7.50 an hour. I can't help being ill. Fair enough, they wanted reliability and I haven't provided it - so cut my pay. But why give Nick S. a raise in consequence? Review at the end of June, assuming I stay that long.
Right now, I just can't face going back. It's like picking up a really horribly heavy suitcase and knowing that you can't put it down. I'm sick of the filing, sick of Edward's idiocy over technology, mad perfectionism (I'd like to see him photocopy eight different tables to exactly the right size into a booklet of A3, keeping everything straight and not making the margins too wide. I spent four hours doing that one day, and when I handed him a near-perfect end product, he said 'Oh, that margin is a little off-centre, do you see? Do you see?'. Idiot.) and religious bigotry (Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which does not allow women to hold any office; and Trinitarian Bible Society council member. He gave me one of their diaries, which contained an astonishingly vicious paragraph about the evilness of Roman Catholics, one of which, of course, I happen to be.) I like Nick and Nick, and Huan the housekeeper, and Sophia and Constantin and Mergen and Sergey, some of the pupils, and lots of the tutors, but Edward is really hard to work with, and he's in charge.
But no matter what other job I apply for, I'm still going to have problems with punctuality. And the chance of finding a job I can do that is not primarily about routine office tasks is close to zero. But I must get a job; I have to learn these skills, and I have to earn money. How do I do this?
Basically, I'm really pissed off. I'm thinking about leaving. But I doubt very much that I can find a job where I won't have at least some of the same problems. I don't know what to do.
For a start, the tasks I am being given to do are incredibly boring and repetitive. Worse, they are labour-intensive and require serious concentration, because of the completely manual way records are kept. Making a mistake is all too easy, and results in laborious back-checking and irritation from others. My favourite task so far is, wait for it, typing (which I get to do very infrequently). I think that says something.
Other working conditions are problematic too. The classic issue is that I am not allowed to wear trousers - my employer frowns on it.
There are four regular people in the office: myself; the Master, Edward Greene; the Registrar (deputy head) Nick Weller; and Nick Stannard, who is mid-twenties and has worked there before in holidays. Nick S. is doing a range of jobs; he started off by compiling the summer exam timetable (a job I had been told was mine, and was rather looking forward to, before I got swamped in a tsunami of filing). More recently, he's been given various responsibilities relating to exam candidates which do not involve sitting at a desk. On top of this, he does not seem to have to adhere to a dress code (despote the fact that right now he has far more contact with outside students, etc., than I do) and has been equipped with a far fancier computer than mine, complete with net connection.
He's a very nice chap; I just get the feeling he's getting slightly preferential treatment.
Anyway, last week, as I have previously ranted, I was feeling very ill. I was off work for three days of five, and late the other two. Yesterday morning I was called into Edward's office and told I was being given a pay cut, because I was not reliable; I'd be getting £6 an hour rather than £7.50, and I would be counted as a casual worker. Nick Stannard would be upgraded from 6 to 7.50 an hour. I can't help being ill. Fair enough, they wanted reliability and I haven't provided it - so cut my pay. But why give Nick S. a raise in consequence? Review at the end of June, assuming I stay that long.
Right now, I just can't face going back. It's like picking up a really horribly heavy suitcase and knowing that you can't put it down. I'm sick of the filing, sick of Edward's idiocy over technology, mad perfectionism (I'd like to see him photocopy eight different tables to exactly the right size into a booklet of A3, keeping everything straight and not making the margins too wide. I spent four hours doing that one day, and when I handed him a near-perfect end product, he said 'Oh, that margin is a little off-centre, do you see? Do you see?'. Idiot.) and religious bigotry (Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, which does not allow women to hold any office; and Trinitarian Bible Society council member. He gave me one of their diaries, which contained an astonishingly vicious paragraph about the evilness of Roman Catholics, one of which, of course, I happen to be.) I like Nick and Nick, and Huan the housekeeper, and Sophia and Constantin and Mergen and Sergey, some of the pupils, and lots of the tutors, but Edward is really hard to work with, and he's in charge.
But no matter what other job I apply for, I'm still going to have problems with punctuality. And the chance of finding a job I can do that is not primarily about routine office tasks is close to zero. But I must get a job; I have to learn these skills, and I have to earn money. How do I do this?
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no subject
Date: Tuesday, 21 May 2002 03:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: Tuesday, 28 May 2002 05:53 am (UTC)Actually, I deliberately picked a morning job; if I had an afternoon job I just wouldn;t get out of bed at all, and so wouldn't catch up on my college work or get counselling or any of the other stuff I ought to be doing.
And as for retail, yeah, I'd go for it, but I can't hear, and I'm afraid it would be a big problem in a noisy shop. *sigh*
Till I get my degree, office work looks like the best available.
Surely not...
Date: Thursday, 23 May 2002 09:01 am (UTC)http://www.freepres.org/paisley.asp?paisley
http://www.armageddonbooks.com/51antichrist.html
http://www.cwnews.com/Browse/1999/08/10869.htm
Now you just need to imagine you live where there are a hundred thousand of them all in the same area, imagine that every serious employer feels the same way. Any job you leave because of it, you have to ask one of your former boss's friends to get a new one. Oh, and they are in charge of deciding who gets housing, and overseeing the police, elections, and education.
You might get some idea of why a little local province developed a civil rights movement.
jdcxxx