Day 3 of daily blogging here. It was a hard push to get to the computer to sit down. I worked 3-11 last night and then 7-3 today. It’s 4 pm now. Much like my workouts, I have to just do it when I say I’m going to do it or it won’t get done. I said I was going to blog when I got home from work today, so here we are.
I decided today that I guess I don’t hate my job. When I first started, I really liked it, but as most jobs go, there is always that one person who has been there longer than everyone, doesn’t like change, thinks they are always right, and speaks down to people. I’ve worked at LOTS of different places and when I say lots, I mean DOZENS over the course of my 31 years in the workforce. It’s one of the reasons I don’t keep a clock in/ clock out job that long. And this place is no different. We definitely have a guy who is a natural at being awful. I don’t even think he knows he’s doing it half the time.
My first two weeks of training with him, instead of explaining how to do things when I asked him “is this how I do (insert problem here)?” He would give me a condescending stare followed by an equally condescending “NO!” with a raised voice. And if there was a guest in front of me (I’m working at a timeshare/hotel/resort type place), he would go from condescending to sarcastic malice trying to be “funny” in front of the guest.
It took about 2 times of that happening before I followed him into the back office and told him very politely yet firmly that if he didn’t want to do the job of training me, I would clock my happy ass out and go home and let management train me. That calmed him down for the evening, but by the next time we worked together, I had to give him more than one gentle reminder to back off. I eventually went to management and told them that I was not trying to ruffle any feathers because I know he’s been there for six years, but I was definitely not getting paid enough to deal with his abuse. At first their answer was dismissive because after I got done training, I only had to see him in passing. So they said, “just ignore him.” But every single time he would work a shift after mine, he would go back through all the emails that I had sent to guests and he would print stuff out and highlight stuff that he thought was wrong, even though, I had actually run everything by real management before sending or doing because I am new and even though certain things just make sense, that doesn’t mean that is the way things actually get done.
After a few days of finding hidden notes to management about my invisible mistakes, I’d had enough. So I had a talk with the main manager who assured me that the office bully was going to be getting a write up and would be told to leave me alone.
And I gotta say, that alone alleviated a ton of anxiety. I was having panic attacks just about every day I had to work and sometimes even on my off days. I have not been on anxiety meds for YEARS, so for a job that is barely paying a liveable wage, it wasn’t really feeling like it was in my best interest to stay. However, after having the chat with my manager and after seeing the result of his meeting with the office bully, I started to relax a bit. The office bully is usually late by a couple minutes which means I can clock out as soon as he gets there and not have to sit and chat for any reason. In my opinion, if he needs to know what’s going on, he should get there early enough to find out. I’m not going to stay over to fill him in because he can’t manage to get to work on time. Which is ironic because he is always talking shit about all of his co-workers at his other job being on “Jamaican time.” I assumed they are black and he is racist. He confirmed both of these facts later on. But that’s a moot point now because I’m pretty sure he got fired from that job right before he got the “talkin to” at our place. Maybe that’s why he was being such a bully. I’m not sure and I don’t have to know because it’s not my job to figure out why people behave the way they do. It’s just my job to show up on time and do what I was taught to do. Which is what I’ve been doing.
And, whaddya know? By having minimal interactions with him and not having everything I do nitpicked to death, my panic attacks have gone back to the bare minimum. I did have a small one today right before he came in, but that may have been more about lack of sleep than having to deal with him for 3 minutes. But, he got there right at 3 so I didn’t even have to deal with him for that long. Also, by knowing that I don’t really have to interact with him or acknowledge his bullyish existence, I have really started to enjoy my job.
Lots of the people who check in have been coming to the same spot for years. They usually stay for a week or two so you see them everyday. You get to talk to them and have conversations with them. It’s a real family type environment versus a hotel where you just see people coming and going. These people stop at the front desk, hang out, want to talk, they offer you dinner. They are all so nice. And they are from all over; from Canada to California to Massachusetts. You name it, we’ve got someone from there. And three out of the four or five days I work, I’m working alone.
So I guess as far as jobs go, if I HAVE to have one, which I do right now, I could definitely have a worse job. So I guess I do like my job after all.
Who woulda thought?
RouletteWeekend 