As some of you will know, I'm leaving my job in a few weeks. This has been a very stressful place to work. In fact, we only recently had a payrise to 22k a year. Compared to another transport job I had with the same salary - the workload at this job is a lot more.
There's 3 teams in the office who work on tail lifts. One takes calls and logs/allocates breakdowns, services and providing completion details. The other does, purchase orders, invoicing and admin. A third team handles breakdowns that need further work or workshop repairs, estimates etc. So why is it, that our team has to all 3 of their teams work for our trailer breakdowns/customers? THREE? For the same salary as them? How is that fair?
Then they fire Graham and I inherit his customers and workload. Eventually all the unpaid overtime led to burnout. I'm surprised Carolyn is able to keep up her 2+ hours overtime each day. She even said to me she'll have to work on the weekend too. 10+ hours unpaid overtime a week for a 22k a year job?
For a while now my manager has said the woman who is being trained to be my replacement is learning really quickly etc. No offence, but I've met all the people he interviewed and hired before - he's not a great judge of character in my opinion. Within moments of meeting her, I could tell she was already frazzled.
Throughout the day I helped show her various things. There is a lot to learn in this job. Funny that, when you're doing 3 people's jobs and ontop of that, your customer base grows to the point of 2 workloads. 2x6=? Certainly not job satisfaction when earning F all per year. Maybe if you were on 30k+ and paid overtime. Anyway, I try to reassure her, as does Carolyn - that whilst it seems like a lot to learn, it does eventually click.
As the day goes by I can tell she's getting more and more flustered, until I realise she's a fan of self-depracating humour - so it starts to become a release for the frustration. At the end of the day, as she's walking to her car, I said that I'm willing to work extra days in the office if she feels like she needs more training.
I'll be honest - ever since I handed in my notice, I was feeling sorry for whoever took over from me. It's a poison chalice. Now, it took over 12 months for them to realise Carolyn needed help, and they saw that she's doing 2 people's workloads. Never happened to me though. "The machine" as I've been called in most jobs, when people see how quickly I can type, navigate programmes, data input etc.
Me and Carolyn both told our manager multiple times that we needed more help. Then they fired Graham and we got told they couldn't "justify" a 4 person team, because we were doing so well as a 3 person team. No, we were overworked because Graham was off all the time due to fibromyalgia, and we had to divide another person's work between us. Who am I kidding, between us. Tom just gave me all of Graham's work.
Well, the "machine" will eventually break down - which happened last November. I've refused to do overtime since, and now each day we get people chasing stuff. 2nd, 3rd, 4th. Sometimes even 6th time. My boss keeps chasing me, sending me caustic emails, pointing out my mistakes almost daily.
There's no incentive to get caught up - because that's a myth. It's the sort of job where you could never be caught up.
Anyway, back to today. We met in the car park after work and after I offered to do more days training, I asked her to be honest with me. I said "what do you think about this job, really?"
She told me that she's spoken with her agency today, and told them it was too much. Personally, I've had a gut feeling about so many people in the office, and they've all left. In fact, 6 people have now left in under 60 days since we moved to this hell hole they called a "purpose built office". One of the 2 directors was in our old office 90% of the time. Carolyn said she's seen him a couple of times since we've moved. Says it all really doesn't it?
So I was honest with Klinta, my replacement. I told her that it's 2 people's work, and it is. So I said that on Tuesday me, her and Tom will have a meeting and we'll be honest - you need to hire another person. I'll even sweeten the deal and offer to stay on a few extra weeks, or a month and help train, but you've got 2 people's workload here, and you can't expect anyone to want to stay in this job.
Who knows what will happen. But I don't have anything to lose from being candid.
Something I noticed today was a growing confidence. I chatted with 3 people that I've barely said more than "hello" to in several years of working with. Joining in with numerous conversations and actually feeling happier in myself. It's not to say every day would be like that, but being away from the office for months has done me the world of good.
On the plus side, my replacement is very cute. Towards the end of the shift we actually just talked, rather than it being about work. I noticed we clicked rather quickly. Once I started talking about my intentions after I leave this job, I saw her face light up. Funny really, I worked in a company for 2.5 years with nobody attractive, and then as I have one foot out the door, the only attractive woman joins and she's my replacement.
Ed
There's 3 teams in the office who work on tail lifts. One takes calls and logs/allocates breakdowns, services and providing completion details. The other does, purchase orders, invoicing and admin. A third team handles breakdowns that need further work or workshop repairs, estimates etc. So why is it, that our team has to all 3 of their teams work for our trailer breakdowns/customers? THREE? For the same salary as them? How is that fair?
Then they fire Graham and I inherit his customers and workload. Eventually all the unpaid overtime led to burnout. I'm surprised Carolyn is able to keep up her 2+ hours overtime each day. She even said to me she'll have to work on the weekend too. 10+ hours unpaid overtime a week for a 22k a year job?
For a while now my manager has said the woman who is being trained to be my replacement is learning really quickly etc. No offence, but I've met all the people he interviewed and hired before - he's not a great judge of character in my opinion. Within moments of meeting her, I could tell she was already frazzled.
Throughout the day I helped show her various things. There is a lot to learn in this job. Funny that, when you're doing 3 people's jobs and ontop of that, your customer base grows to the point of 2 workloads. 2x6=? Certainly not job satisfaction when earning F all per year. Maybe if you were on 30k+ and paid overtime. Anyway, I try to reassure her, as does Carolyn - that whilst it seems like a lot to learn, it does eventually click.
As the day goes by I can tell she's getting more and more flustered, until I realise she's a fan of self-depracating humour - so it starts to become a release for the frustration. At the end of the day, as she's walking to her car, I said that I'm willing to work extra days in the office if she feels like she needs more training.
I'll be honest - ever since I handed in my notice, I was feeling sorry for whoever took over from me. It's a poison chalice. Now, it took over 12 months for them to realise Carolyn needed help, and they saw that she's doing 2 people's workloads. Never happened to me though. "The machine" as I've been called in most jobs, when people see how quickly I can type, navigate programmes, data input etc.
Me and Carolyn both told our manager multiple times that we needed more help. Then they fired Graham and we got told they couldn't "justify" a 4 person team, because we were doing so well as a 3 person team. No, we were overworked because Graham was off all the time due to fibromyalgia, and we had to divide another person's work between us. Who am I kidding, between us. Tom just gave me all of Graham's work.
Well, the "machine" will eventually break down - which happened last November. I've refused to do overtime since, and now each day we get people chasing stuff. 2nd, 3rd, 4th. Sometimes even 6th time. My boss keeps chasing me, sending me caustic emails, pointing out my mistakes almost daily.
There's no incentive to get caught up - because that's a myth. It's the sort of job where you could never be caught up.
Anyway, back to today. We met in the car park after work and after I offered to do more days training, I asked her to be honest with me. I said "what do you think about this job, really?"
She told me that she's spoken with her agency today, and told them it was too much. Personally, I've had a gut feeling about so many people in the office, and they've all left. In fact, 6 people have now left in under 60 days since we moved to this hell hole they called a "purpose built office". One of the 2 directors was in our old office 90% of the time. Carolyn said she's seen him a couple of times since we've moved. Says it all really doesn't it?
So I was honest with Klinta, my replacement. I told her that it's 2 people's work, and it is. So I said that on Tuesday me, her and Tom will have a meeting and we'll be honest - you need to hire another person. I'll even sweeten the deal and offer to stay on a few extra weeks, or a month and help train, but you've got 2 people's workload here, and you can't expect anyone to want to stay in this job.
Who knows what will happen. But I don't have anything to lose from being candid.
Something I noticed today was a growing confidence. I chatted with 3 people that I've barely said more than "hello" to in several years of working with. Joining in with numerous conversations and actually feeling happier in myself. It's not to say every day would be like that, but being away from the office for months has done me the world of good.
On the plus side, my replacement is very cute. Towards the end of the shift we actually just talked, rather than it being about work. I noticed we clicked rather quickly. Once I started talking about my intentions after I leave this job, I saw her face light up. Funny really, I worked in a company for 2.5 years with nobody attractive, and then as I have one foot out the door, the only attractive woman joins and she's my replacement.
Ed
