If your boss is an S.O.B tell him to S.H.O.V.E the J.O.B - new job thrad

[bethany_m]

Nick, that sounds super hard.

I do not have a drive-thru window at my job, though I was working at Tim Hortons for extra cash when I first relocated to Canada.  I gave my two week notice and left in a respectful manner, though climbing through the drive-thru and flipping everyone the bird would have been much more fun/satisfying.

Now i work from home for a start up company that is growing too fast for it's own good.  In some ways it should be a great job, it is portable, I am very familiar with the client base we are selling to, I can build some skills.  But in reality, I have to talk to pissed off clients everyday, I can't fix their issues, no one will teach me how to fix their issues and I can't get anyone to fix their issues.  This is week is especially bad since some of our far flung staff are almost entirely unavailable.  I am also moving at the end of the month, so certainly the stress in my life is coming from multiple sources, but seriously, this is getting unbearable.

[Nick Ink]

Nick, that sounds super hard.

Thanks. It's not so bad, I'm just being a bit self-indulgent. Have to be grateful to have a job these days.

I hope you get a bit more support with that, it sounds like you've been abandoned there.

[hannah]

perhaps davy and RavingLunatic will enjoy this: http://www.themorningnews.org/article/the-day-borders-got-the-wobblies

'tis a good read!

[DCDave]

My company won a competition for entry on a trade mission to the UK and free airfare on Virgin for x flights based on an entry I led/put in. Feeling psyched and a little drunk after dinner at the Consul'a office.

[Ignatius]

perhaps davy and RavingLunatic will enjoy this: http://www.themorningnews.org/article/the-day-borders-got-the-wobblies

'tis a good read!

Hey! I worked there too!

[hannah]

Maybe I didn't think you'd enjoy it. Eh? Eh? Did you think of that?

...OK, OK, OK, I totally used to know that and I forgot. If it had been a piece about CVS, though, maybe I'd've sent it yer way. (You did work at CVS, right?)

[peacocks]

I had a stressful second half of my day. Didn't get home from work til 10pm because I had to drive an hour and a half away to go to a community meeting that was held in an abandoned school in the middle of a very small town that is mostly tree farms and graze land. I got lost. My phone died. I finally found the place. I wrote, put together, and printed 50 newsletters for the meeting over the course of a few months and I forgot them. The meeting went well. I am going to fed ex them tomorrow and when I got back to the office tonight I scanned and emailed copies to the EPA people and the project manager but sheesh. Everything hurts.

[Ignatius]

CVS is the main thing of my retail existence, yes. I've had so many jobs since, sometimes I don't remember where I worked myself.

RL & davy were much more serious and long-term employees of Borders, though. It would be wrong to class me with them.

Pretty good piece, though. I could probably read for days about the disappointments of young, idealistic retail workers.

[Nick Ink]

I don't normally talk about my work too much here, but in light of my last post, I thought I'd better just mention that, in time-honoured fashion, today was another day, and a considerably better one at that.

Of the two (new) classes that had pissed me off yesterday, one all showed up on time to a (wo)man and responded really well to what I'd tried yesterday to pitch as a constructive discussion about lateness/attendance/attitude.

he other class had been the bigger problem, and certain students in that one are just quite immature and not used to being communicative or cooperative with either their teachers or classmates, I suppose. Anyway, I tried to go into that lesson (only my second with them) in a positive frame of mind today, but also with lots of student-centred strategies, and putting the onus on them to work together to solve problems and achieve aims. There was still the odd moment where I, and other students had to wait out some silliness, but it went 10 times better than yesterday.

Maybe I don't have to apply for that postman job just yet.

[RavingLunatic]

perhaps davy and RavingLunatic will enjoy this: http://www.themorningnews.org/article/the-day-borders-got-the-wobblies

'tis a good read!

They got 15-minute breaks! We got "tens." I actually rarely took them because I felt irrationally guilty when I did so.

Yeah, a good article. Thanks for posting it, Hannah. I think if people could take a look at detailed case studies of battles for union recognition and see all the dastardly ploys used by businesses and their union-busting law firms, very few people would object to a card check law.

Can't believe those guys got a personal letter of support from Chomsky--and still lost the vote. I'd heard the basic outline of that story before though. There used to be a Borders Union website, but it was dead before I started working there.

The long-time Borders employees I'd talked to agreed with what the guy said: Borders used to be a lot better. I never heard anybody attribute it to the K-Mart/Bill Ackman purchase of the company, but it's not too hard to figure out. Also pretty inevitable. Amazingly, the company managed to make the store a far worse place to work and shop even during the couple years that I worked there. No one should feel bad about the demise of that company.

Used book stores are where it's at anyhow.  

[RavingLunatic]

I don't normally talk about my work too much here, but in light of my last post, I thought I'd better just mention that, in time-honoured fashion, today was another day, and a considerably better one at that.

What age do you teach, Nick?

I'm trying to finish up an education degree for middle school science & social studies. Lately, I've been reading some books about education methods and stuff. Have you ever read anything by Alfie Kohn? I feel like I want to try to search out an alternative school of some sort to teach at if possible, which I suppose it probably won't be. I'm not sure how education is in the UK, but it's a rather autocratic affair in the US. I'm sort of ashamed at the way I do things when I substitute, but I don't really know better ways of doing things. The kids like me more simply because I'm not an asshole and don't boss them around (and I suppose because I talk their language more or less), but if I get this degree out of the way, I don't want my classroom to be anything like a normal one.

[Nick Ink]

I don't normally talk about my work too much here, but in light of my last post, I thought I'd better just mention that, in time-honoured fashion, today was another day, and a considerably better one at that.

What age do you teach, Nick?

I'm trying to finish up an education degree for middle school science & social studies. Lately, I've been reading some books about education methods and stuff. Have you ever read anything by Alfie Kohn? I feel like I want to try to search out an alternative school of some sort to teach at if possible, which I suppose it probably won't be. I'm not sure how education is in the UK, but it's a rather autocratic affair in the US. I'm sort of ashamed at the way I do things when I substitute, but I don't really know better ways of doing things. The kids like me more simply because I'm not an asshole and don't boss them around (and I suppose because I talk their language more or less), but if I get this degree out of the way, I don't want my classroom to be anything like a normal one.

I teach English as a Foreign Language, these days only to adult students, although during the summer that means predominantly 18-20 year-olds, and the extent to which they satisfy my definition of 'adult' can vary. The other part of my job is Teacher Training, mostly to native Brits, but sometimes to non-native speakers, or English Teachers abroad - that's how I ended up in Moscow last year.

[RavingLunatic]

Cool. There's a possibility my brother, who just graduated from Oberlin College, will teach English as a second language in South Korea. His #1 choice, though, is a job working for some environmentalist group.

[elpollodiablo]

Last night I got to live a small, pathetic and long-held dream. A guy was throwing a fit because something didn't go his way, and I said, basically, "This is my last night at this job and I don't need the reference. I don't care about your problem. Go away."

[peacocks]

That must be the best feeling, pollo. I would do something like that with kids I taught in the after school nature programs. If they were being little buttheads I would just stop teaching and stare at them, or start packing up my stuff. If they said something like "what are you doing?" I would say "this is supposed to be fun and I'm not having fun anymore, bye" and leave. Their counselors would get so pissed and the next time I went to that center they'd be perfect angels and everyone would have a good time. That only happened like twice during the 2 years I had that job though. It must suck to actually be responsible for the children you are teaching and have to see the same ones every day. Wow I really come off as if I hate kids. I really don't! I liked teaching a lot! I can just imagine how hard it is to be a ~real~ teacher and sympathize with Nick up there.

[bethany_m]

I told my coworker today that i was thinking about quitting and she said that if I quit, she would quit, which probably isn't true, but it did make me feel nice.  I really need to go easier on myself and work on the lines of communication and the systems and my skill base and give it time.  And build in some self care, I haven't been exercising and or eating and all kinds of other stupid self defeating behaviors.

But blah, what an awful couple weeks, with the next two looking pretty crappy as well.

[davy]

They got 15-minute breaks! We got "tens." I actually rarely took them because I felt irrationally guilty when I did so.

Ha! Same here. What's up with that. I think it's because you had to actually *ask* a supervisor for a break. And I always felt like I was putting them out.

Then again, I've never taken short breaks, at any of my jobs. I've always been told I could have them, but I've never felt they were worth the trouble.

[Ignatius]

They are for smokers. There's no other reason I'd ever want to stop what I was doing for ten minutes when I've only been on the floor for two hours or whatever. It's funny how they always force you to take the unpaid breaks and don't really notice if you miss your paid breaks, though, eh?

[C of heartbreak]

I am getting really sick of my job. Which is sort of bad, because it's about as good a job as I could ask for. I basically go in, do whatever I want for ten hours, then go home and have a 3-day weekend. This gets me really down about my employment future, because if I can't stand a "good" job I hate to think how I'd handle a bad one. I mean, some things just grate on me. I'm tired of everybody complaining to me about things that I don't have anything to do with and don't care about. There's this one guy who comes in every morning and cries about how he's sad because he does all the work around here (He doesn't. Standing in the office crying is not what he gets paid for.) And how I'm under this like really blunt sword of damocles where management is constantly watching over me looking for ways to make my job more inconvenient. And some of these people I work with are idiots. Today someone told me he was going to homeschool his son to keep him away from the Marxists and evolutionists in public schools.

On paid breaks: Everyone around here puts their time together with unpaid break so they can take an hour off.

[Ignatius]

H'm. I have definitely never been allowed to do that. My current job, though low-paying, has a pretty neat lunch break policy - if you don't need to get in a car to get your food, you don't need to punch out. Since we're dead in the middle of the town's commercial center, there is never any need to get in a car unless you desperately want McDonald's.

[C of heartbreak]

It's total anarchy around here, by comparison. Some people just don't take a break and leave an hour early. I'm fairly certain that's not actually allowed, but eh.

[RavingLunatic]

it's about as good a job as I could ask for....management is constantly watching over me looking for ways to make my job more inconvenient. And some of these people I work with are idiots.

Any job with those last two features cannot possibly be as good a job as anyone could ask for. There is nothing worse than a boss looking over your shoulder all the time. And the people you work with are everything.

[Ignatius]

There is also money and convenience though.

[RavingLunatic]

You see, when I say "everything," what I really mean is "not everything." I like to abuse language that way.

[C of heartbreak]

Well despite the barrage of inconveniences, my supervisors are never actually around when I'm here, so it's not a job where I have someone looking over my shoulder, which is actually pretty important to me. It's more that every now and then someone up at the Ministry of Love gets a bug up their ass and decides there's this new arbitrary guideline we have to follow, which results in a lot of meetings and hassle and having to tell people to do things that I know they won't actually do. The good thing is that that last part works both ways, and if I ignore what management tell me to do, eventually they go away until next time. But it's still not a process I like to deal with day in and day out.