Is 'rejiggered' in the non racist Webster's lexicon?

Anyway, its for the children J

Been there. Got the T-shirt.

Welcome to more Hope & Change.

I might have missed it, but how/why do you not qualify for overtime?

Some of my posts are whines too (although I label them as "Vent").

Sometimes, you just have to get it out of your system.

I had a boss once, who was a real Jekyll & Hyde personality; mercurial in the sense of "fulminate of".

With a real short fuse, he would tear you a new one over some minor screw up, and then maybe 15 minutes later, would stop by sharing some gossip as if nothing had happened; he'd blown it out of his system.

During a later period of unemployment on my part, this same guy went out of his way to help me in any way that he could, showing just how multi-dimensional some people could be.

I visited him during a later vacation, and jokingly inquired if his drastic methods of release kept him from ever developing ulcers?

He was not at all offended and agreed that was probably the case.
-

Are you entitled? Sure, but all that realization gets you is aggravated.

So, they're playing with your schedule to get six days out of you and cover for her while avoiding overtime. Are they doing anything illegal (paying off the books, carrying hours over into the next week, etc)? How about getting a commitment from them for a number of extra paid vacation weeks at the end of each year this nonsense carries on? For as long as this nonsense carries on!

BTW:do you work with elephants in the Circus? Or didn't you mean she'd been pregnant for over a year?

Been there. Some women use their kids as "Get Out of Work Free" cards.

Bah.

"I would prefer to handle this on my own, thank you."

Good luck!

Don't answer your phone when the call comes in to cover for her. When the boss asks why you didn't pick up just tell him you spent the weekend with a hot date.

Of course, any subterfuge when the employment market sucks could be risky.

Good luck!

My favorite work-related BS story: consulting for an outfit where the boss jumped up and down about something several of us had done. We replied that that was exactly what he'd directed us to do the day before. His response?

"Well, you shouldn't have listened to me."

Oh.

See, maybe it's just me because I'm kind of d***, but I don't put up with any of this BS. There's no way I take on added work, even temporarily, without some kind of increase in compensation. (In the past 16-17 months, I've taken on additional work. I asked to be compensated for it and I have been.)

Now they want you to come in on your day off? Hmmm. As only you can do, Jay Tea, diplomatically tell them to go pound sand. Or make up a white lie about multiple doctor's appointments.

Shut yer pie-hole and get to work, you capitalist pig.

Unless you are being very well compensated (10-20%) over market) Make sure your skills are current and start looking around. You write well and you can spell so you have a serious leg up on a lot of folks. Just the act of testing the market may re-invigorate you in your current job. It did jut that for me years ago. And it was a down job market then as well.

#7

Some guy I work with does too.

When I was with a Fortune 500 company some years back, my department was notorious for calling managers in from their vacations or days off. We were always compensated, but it could get very tiring after a while without adequate time to decompress.

Most of us began taking pains to advise the powers that were that we would be going out of town on our day/week off and would not be available. It usually worked. An answering machine to screen calls was a must, though.

I've never minded helping cover a female co-worker if she needed to leave early to take care of a kid problem - as long as it was a two-way street. The first time they declined to reciprocate was the end for that person.

I understand that you have already dug your hole at this job, but you are not required to keep digging.

Cry me a river, Jay Tea. I work reasonable hours unlike other in my industry, but I've worked weekends and long days when the job demands it. And as an "exempt" employee, I don't get no overtime.

I quarantee you Jay that this prego worker will either quit after the kid comes or she will be gone from work even more with a sickly child.

It's fitting that a rabid anti-unionist would get screwed by his employer.

Karma's a bitch, ain't it?

Look at it this way, Jay. It could be worse. If it weren't for unions winning rights for all workers you'd be working 60-70 hours a week without overtime, and be working every weekend.

But no, don't give thanks to the brothers and sisters who stood up to the bullies, sometimes at great peril or personal injury and won the right to unionize. Just shut up, suck it up and be a good little toadie.

If you do maybe they'll give you Christmas off!

Art W,

You will find few people (even here) who would deny that unions have contributed to improved work rules in this nation. However, you will find the vast majority of Americans also believe that unions no longer serve that purpose. The fact that unions are shrinking and finding it more and more difficult to unionize new businesses demonstrates that fact.

Unions once were important and served a purpose. They have long since ceased to do so. They do not deserve to have their existence preserved because 60 some years ago they did something that turned out good. They need to justify their existence by providing real benefit to their members. Unfortunately, many people don't see that benefit.

In states where employees have a choice of whether or not to pay union dues more often than not they don't pay. In Indiana where they passed a law ending automatic deduction of union dues from paychecks of state workers the unions saw a 60% drop in income.

"You will find few people (even here) who would deny that unions have contributed to improved work rules in this nation. However, you will find the vast majority of Americans also believe that unions no longer serve that purpose. The fact that unions are shrinking and finding it more and more difficult to unionize new businesses demonstrates that fact."

Looks to me like you're confusing cause and effect.

The majority of Americans may feel less favorable to unions, but shrinking # unions isn't proof that unions no longer serve the same purpose, or even that people think that they are less important. Public opinion doesn't determine whether a union survives or not. Put simply, unions and unions jobs have disappeared principally because of the changing nature of the industries in the US. Less hard, physical jobs, a lot fewer factories and more of a retail economy now than 20-30-40 years ago.

"Unions once were important and served a purpose. They have long since ceased to do so."

Jay's whine above proves otherwise. What we have now is more and more people who are willing to suck it up and knuckle under - and not make waves for fear of being fired. That's more to do with the backbone of the American people and the reality of two-earner households and a down economy where people just can't afford to organize and risk being fired, or to tell off their boss and be fired, or quit.

Thanks to the decline of unions, people like Jay are more powerless.

Even enlightened companies like Apple are finding their retail employees are making noises about unionizing.

And usually the noise is enough. Many non-union companies pays attention to their employee's concerns in part because they don't want to create an environment where their employees feel the need to unionize. So the give "union-lite" benefits in attempt to keep employees happy and preventing them from wishing they were in a union.

Do away with unions entirely and you'll see a further decline in working conditions in the US. The THREAT of unionizing is enough to keep some employers in line.

And those people in states where paying union dues is optional? No question many will opt to not pay. That doesn't mean they'd quit the union and accept lower wages and poorer working conditions - and if they had a grievance they'd still run to their shop steward and ask the union for help - guaranteed - but give them a choice of more take-home pay or not and many will gladly opt out of paying the dues. No surprise there.

Art W

Few have said so little while saying so much

Art W ~ I suspect giving this advice is futile, but sometimes it pays to know the whole story before venturing judgment.

Jay Tea wasn't "screwed by his employer" at all. He was ASKED about covering for this woman. He KNEW he was probably getting screwed when he agreed, but he didn't have to agree. He screwed himself.

And continues to screw himself. When they jiggle the schedule to avoid paying him overtime (presumably by keeping him under hours for the week, although spread over six days), he could step up and say, "Hey, wait just a bleeping minute here, guys! I'm doing you a favor by covering for Princess Madonna over here, and you thank me by screwing me out of a few bucks of OT here and there when I do it? That's not right. I give you 100% for less than spectacular compensation. I go the extra mile and pick up others' work because I have a strong work ethic. You know it, you see it every darned day. I don't ask for a lot in return, but a little respect and NOT jury-rigging the schedule to take money out of my pocket for being a team player would be nice."

Any boss who could sit through that, delivered sincerely (because as Bill Clinton demonstrated, if you can fake sincerity, you can really go places) and calmly, and NOT rectify the situation with at least some token of appreciation beyond a pat on the rump and an "I love you, man" is a guy you don't want to work for. You want to start shopping the job market today and even if it takes a year or two until we get rid of the idiot socialists, take the first opportunity to get away from the ungrateful bastard.

That's the free market. It works. It works better when we avoid electing Democrats, but it always works eventually.

~~~~~~

I would note that all this is predicated on what we have heard here, which is only Jay Tea's side of the story, and those parts which he chose to tell us. I've read him for years and never known him to deliberately lie, but human nature often leads us to portray our role in a narrative in the most positive light. So he might just be a slacker who spends his working day tweeting pictures of himself in his underwear to young girls, but in his own mind, he's just being hacked and is the victim here.

Jim, my acquiescence is all part of a larger picture. I'm scoring "karma points" and making it abundantly clear that I am NOT happy, but "taking one for the team" and expect that to be noted later.

Further, I'm going on two weeks' vacation right around her due date. I put in that request back in January, and I will NOT be changing it. They will have to get by without both of us for two weeks next month.

Yes, I wasn't clear about the "no overtime" thing. That's a company policy now, and I got one of my days later this week trimmed to balance out. I'm not overly happy, but I might get out in time to go catch an afternoon matinee on Saturday.

Finally, each and every time I've adjusted to cover for her (to clarify, she started abusing her "sick time" a couple of months before she got pregnant), I've made it clear just how much they're depending on me and my good will -- and occasionally said no, letting them know that I will NOT be taken for granted.

And all that's a degree of flexibility and options available for me that a union would most likely curtail, as they would insist on getting in between me and my employer to "protect my rights." No, thanks -- I'm handling this on my own to my own satisfaction.

But I still feel like whining every now and then. The only thing that would be different if I was part of a union would be that I'd have more to whine over, and a second party to whine about.

J.

Jim, I think JT may have some cheese with his whine from time to time, but no cheesecake or hot dogs.

Epidor, ...cheesecake or hot dogs."

You're right, there is no availability of cheesecake or hot dogs when the Weiner wiener is out.

I had something similar happen but what would happen is the person called in sick regularly 'just because'
Eventually they fired the person because they
saw a pattern of absentism