skippy the bush kangaroo: working for a living

Friday, December 31, 2010

working for a living

I was moved to a different department at the place I work back in March. Originally, it was a 30-day trial. It's been nine months, and I'm still in that department. But that's mainly because my newest supervisor likes the way I work, and I turned out to be a pretty good fit there.

This is not a complaint -- I prefer what I'm doing now during the day to the nine years I spent in the pressroom from 6:30 PM to 6:30AM three, four, occasionally five nights a week. The thing is, I spend more time at work now than I ever have, and it's gotten to the point where all I do these days is work on the job Monday through Friday and just stay at home away from the rest of the world during the weekends. I'm supposed to have tomorrow off, but I'll be clocking in for a few hours Friday afternoon because some of the work I didn't feel like staying until midnight to do still needs to be done. That's just the sort of penance I do for having escaped running a press for a living.

Thing is, I've been working for this company for eleven years now. The powers that be there seem to think they have me by the balls. Yeah, whatever -- ask my immediate family members what they thought of that load o' bull before I up and left everyone behind and settled in Virginia back in '98...

I've stayed at this print shop as long as I have in large part because I didn't consider it a drain on my private life. Now it is.

Basically, the clock is ticking. It's not that I want to stop doing what I'm doing. It's that, sooner or later, I ain't gonna have a choice -- which, come to think of it, is a big part of the reason I ended up moving to Virginia.

You try to do your best. If your best turns out to be not good enough, most of the time you can find a way to man up and accept responsibility for your failure. But when you're faced with a case where nothing you can do will measure up... well...

I know someday I'll find the key. If there's only one thing in this life I excel at, it's finding the key. Again, ask my immediate relatives...

Labels: life, music

posted by Jim Yeager at 12:12 AM |

4 Comments:

Just don't be in too big a hurry to jump ship unless you have another ship to which to jump.

commented by

Len, 2:50 PM PST

My advice is to follow your bliss.

commented by

mahakal, 3:43 PM PST

* :)

commented by

mahakal, 3:44 PM PST

Truth be known, there is not a whole lot of bliss to be found in the work world these days.
My workplace is a classic example.
They understaff big time, meaning we have long holds for internal business, but then they give us a low ranking in reviews because of their crappy staffing.
They get away with this shit because they know the job market sucks. So we always have the hammer over our heads, but co workers along the line got the same rash of shit- this "needs improvement" bullshit, when it is in part the company's fault for understaffing AND for unrealistic expectations. Another tactic is the "dumping".... they keep loading us up w more & more work for no more $.

It really sucks & it is rampant in many workplaces. Pushing it & us to the limits.
As soon as there is an opportunity to jump ship, I look forward to the day I can tell them to piss off & what I REALLY think. In the meantime, I smile, nod & collect paycheck.

My coping mechanism is to not take it too seriously. But it sucks & they are taking full advantage of employees everywhere I turn-- they know it is an employers market.

commented by

Fran, 6:47 PM PST

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