The Randian Nightmare Is Here
Recently, I've had to re-enter the "real world" and get a "real job" to keep finances afloat. This means I've had to fill out a W-2 and let the government take "their share," I've had to give up some of my independence to take orders from others, and I've had to keep a regular schedule - things I haven't done for three years.
Oh well. Don't cry for me, this is only temporary.
The thing is, this opportunity has allowed me to look at the so-called "real world" and how businesses operate in it. I'm fast seeing why I got the hell out of it and started doing my own thing to make money. Oi.
First off, I'm doing fairly heavy labor in a warehouse moving large objects on a hand truck to load and unload trucks. Pretty mindless stuff, but I'm seeing it not as a career (HA!), but as a $11/hour weight loss clinic where they pay ME the money.
Anyway...
This place has the usual crop of nincompoops and morons working there. What bothers me is the people supposedly running the joint are apparently apathetic to the idea that this place is falling apart around them.
Here's an example: the chain of command:
I'm just a chump laborer, so I rank lowest. Above me is a guy named Clayton who is the "Lead Loader" in the warehouse (he took the title with no raise, which proves my guess that his IQ is somewhere around 80). Next to Clayton is another guy named CJ, who is a lead for the actual production workers. Above Clayton and CJ is the supervisor for the warehouse, Doug. Above Doug is the Warehouse Manager/Foreman Ted. Above Ted is, of all things, a consultant for the company named Lee.
This little heirarchy only accounts for our warehouse: there are two other warehouses plus a sales floor as well. This is only one branch of several around the country for this company, which is quite large and nearly holds a monopoly on what we produce...
Anyway...back to the chain of command.
Clayton is just barely intelligent enough to do his job, but not quite smart enough to take Doug's Job. CJ is intelligent enough to do his job and could possibly, under duress, do Doug's job. Doug is just smart enough to do his job (barely), but not quite good enough to do anything but take orders from Ted. Ted is not quite educated enough to take Lee's job... You get the idea?
Right. Promote those who you know are no threat to your position. This seems to be the motto at this place. My motto at this place, since all these barely-functioning morons like to try and dump their halfassed screwups in my lap to fix them (see, I get things done, so I've become a John Galt for these people)...my motto is "N-M-P, man." (Not My Problem)
I literally do not care of the company goes under, if Doug gets a nasty email or phone call because something "wasn't done," or (worse yet) wasn't done "right," etc. I don't give a rat's patoot if Doug, Ted, Clayton and CJ get called into a meeting to be chewed a new bunghole by Lee or if Lee has to sit through a pummelling from the owner of the company. Matters not at all to me. See, I have no vested interest in the place. If they shut down tomorrow, I'll go back to the temp agency and get another job. At worst, I'm out a day's labor.
So anyway, my point is that the place is going to hell in a handbasket. Each of those in charge of whatever they're in charge of is just barely able to do the minimum to keep their area of operations running...just the minimum. Since the minimum is rarely good enough to actually keep things running smoothly, things inevitably get out of hand and royally f-ed.
To me, this means overtime. :)
Here's a scenario taken right from today's events:
4:50am: I arrive at the place and sit in my truck listening to tunes and drinking coffee.
5:00am: I walk in the front door, don my safety glasses, and find Clayton to see what I'm to do first. He assigns me and three others to start unloading one trailer. I don't object, despite the fact that I know that this is crap since we'll be falling all over each other (comon, four guys in one trailer??) in the process. What do I care?
5:45am: The trailer is nearly empty, since two of us four know how to actually move our asses around.
6:00am: The local delivery guys show up and get bent out of shape since only one of their trucks is ready to go (Clayton's responsibility). Clayton immediately recruits me to "help" him get the last delivery truck done. By "help" he generally means "do all the work quickly." So I do. The driver gives me dirty looks and I tell him, "Hey, man, not my problem. I was sent here two minutes ago to do this. Talk to Clayton." So he does. There is yelling involved, but I don't care; I just unload and reload.
7:00am: Our first break. Ten minutes of watching the sun come up and the clouds move across the sky while those with nicotine habits suck on lung sticks.
7:10am: Clayton assigns me to a full trailer and tells me to empty it and refill it, giving me the paperwork for it. It is, of course, the biggest pain-in-the-buttocks load there is to do today. Oh boy. I get going on it. Things run smoothly for the next little while.
8:30am: One of the other loaders, Steve, who is working on a trailer next to mine comes to ask me if I've seen Clayton. I say "nope" and add "Thank God," in my mind. Turns out, Clayton is supposedly "helping" Steve, which means Clayton comes in, picks up the paperwork once in a while, and disappears on an "errand" of some kind.
10:00am: Lunch break. I drink a Coke and listen to the other guys talk shit to each other. Since this is highly entertaining (for the most part), I jump in with "YER MOM!" and whatnot to keep things rolling. I love observing humans in their environment.
10:30am: Doug comes around to see the progress on the loads. He seems happy we're doing things well. He leaves again. Clayton and CJ have started some kind of rubber-band war to keep themselves occupado (as opposed to actually working). I should probably note at this point that Clayton is about ten years older than myself...
Noon: Things are starting to look bad again. I have all of the stuff I'm supposed to have loaded on the truck...at least what's available. However, the guys who produce the things I'm supposed to be putting on this truck are taking their sweet time doing it, so I'm short several items. I go home at 1:30, so they better get a move on. Eh? For the next half hour, my life consists mainly of going from one spot to another to gather things they've just completed (and not put away) so I can load them on the truck. Fun (NOT).
12:30pm: Break time again. Ten minutes of sucking down as much water as I possibly can get into my gullet while the others smoke.
1:00pm: More waiting on product. Just when I think I'm finished and put a "0" on an item (to say we don't have it instead of farting around), I get informed that so-and-so just completed that and I should go get it. This really bends me out of shape, since it's so frikkin' inefficient - especially on my feet.
1:30pm: I'm supposed to be going home now, but have just now gotten all the items I'm due on the truck. So I start the load paperwork. Overtime...
2:05pm: Paperwork finished, tallied, double-checked, etc., etc. Good to go. Hoping to avoid anyone in the warehouse, I beat it for the office to drop the paperwork before someone gets any ideas about having me "help." I get lucky and make my trip unaccosted.
2:15pm: After turning in the paperwork, giving Doug the low-down on what "took so long," and explaining the lack of arithmetic on the sheets to Nettie (who puts these into the computer - I skip the math bits on the sheets and do them in my head for the most part), I get the @#$@# out of Dodge and head for home.
That's how a fairly typical day at my new temporary job goes. I've been there a little over a month now.
This day wasn't so bad, since both Clayton and Doug basically stayed out of the way for most of the day. Generally, I would have three or four other entries in which I was pulled away from whatever I was doing and sent to do something else.
For instance, I regularly am pulled off of a trailer and sent to drive the forklift because Clayton is afraid of it (people routinely get fired for driving like morons and dropping expensive things onto the pavement, and Clayton apparently likes his job); I am regularly moved from one trailer to another in order to "help" those who are loading/unloading it "get caught up." Remember: "help" in their vocabulary means "you do it so I don't have to" and "get caught up" means "get us to where we would be if we were halfway competent."
Oh well. I'm sure they'll change my schedule again soon, since it's been almost a whole week since they did it last...
If you haven't read "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand, you need to. If you have, you'll see the paralells I'm subtly drawing here. This is a company that is quickly going to hell in a handbasket and I seem to be the only person who is getting any amusement out of it. The people who actually own and/or run the place obviously are either oblivious to what's going on or they're clueless as to how to fix it.
What do I care? I'm just a temp...NMP, man.
-----
Got comments? Email me, dammit!
Oh well. Don't cry for me, this is only temporary.
The thing is, this opportunity has allowed me to look at the so-called "real world" and how businesses operate in it. I'm fast seeing why I got the hell out of it and started doing my own thing to make money. Oi.
First off, I'm doing fairly heavy labor in a warehouse moving large objects on a hand truck to load and unload trucks. Pretty mindless stuff, but I'm seeing it not as a career (HA!), but as a $11/hour weight loss clinic where they pay ME the money.
Anyway...
This place has the usual crop of nincompoops and morons working there. What bothers me is the people supposedly running the joint are apparently apathetic to the idea that this place is falling apart around them.
Here's an example: the chain of command:
I'm just a chump laborer, so I rank lowest. Above me is a guy named Clayton who is the "Lead Loader" in the warehouse (he took the title with no raise, which proves my guess that his IQ is somewhere around 80). Next to Clayton is another guy named CJ, who is a lead for the actual production workers. Above Clayton and CJ is the supervisor for the warehouse, Doug. Above Doug is the Warehouse Manager/Foreman Ted. Above Ted is, of all things, a consultant for the company named Lee.
This little heirarchy only accounts for our warehouse: there are two other warehouses plus a sales floor as well. This is only one branch of several around the country for this company, which is quite large and nearly holds a monopoly on what we produce...
Anyway...back to the chain of command.
Clayton is just barely intelligent enough to do his job, but not quite smart enough to take Doug's Job. CJ is intelligent enough to do his job and could possibly, under duress, do Doug's job. Doug is just smart enough to do his job (barely), but not quite good enough to do anything but take orders from Ted. Ted is not quite educated enough to take Lee's job... You get the idea?
Right. Promote those who you know are no threat to your position. This seems to be the motto at this place. My motto at this place, since all these barely-functioning morons like to try and dump their halfassed screwups in my lap to fix them (see, I get things done, so I've become a John Galt for these people)...my motto is "N-M-P, man." (Not My Problem)
I literally do not care of the company goes under, if Doug gets a nasty email or phone call because something "wasn't done," or (worse yet) wasn't done "right," etc. I don't give a rat's patoot if Doug, Ted, Clayton and CJ get called into a meeting to be chewed a new bunghole by Lee or if Lee has to sit through a pummelling from the owner of the company. Matters not at all to me. See, I have no vested interest in the place. If they shut down tomorrow, I'll go back to the temp agency and get another job. At worst, I'm out a day's labor.
So anyway, my point is that the place is going to hell in a handbasket. Each of those in charge of whatever they're in charge of is just barely able to do the minimum to keep their area of operations running...just the minimum. Since the minimum is rarely good enough to actually keep things running smoothly, things inevitably get out of hand and royally f-ed.
To me, this means overtime. :)
Here's a scenario taken right from today's events:
4:50am: I arrive at the place and sit in my truck listening to tunes and drinking coffee.
5:00am: I walk in the front door, don my safety glasses, and find Clayton to see what I'm to do first. He assigns me and three others to start unloading one trailer. I don't object, despite the fact that I know that this is crap since we'll be falling all over each other (comon, four guys in one trailer??) in the process. What do I care?
5:45am: The trailer is nearly empty, since two of us four know how to actually move our asses around.
6:00am: The local delivery guys show up and get bent out of shape since only one of their trucks is ready to go (Clayton's responsibility). Clayton immediately recruits me to "help" him get the last delivery truck done. By "help" he generally means "do all the work quickly." So I do. The driver gives me dirty looks and I tell him, "Hey, man, not my problem. I was sent here two minutes ago to do this. Talk to Clayton." So he does. There is yelling involved, but I don't care; I just unload and reload.
7:00am: Our first break. Ten minutes of watching the sun come up and the clouds move across the sky while those with nicotine habits suck on lung sticks.
7:10am: Clayton assigns me to a full trailer and tells me to empty it and refill it, giving me the paperwork for it. It is, of course, the biggest pain-in-the-buttocks load there is to do today. Oh boy. I get going on it. Things run smoothly for the next little while.
8:30am: One of the other loaders, Steve, who is working on a trailer next to mine comes to ask me if I've seen Clayton. I say "nope" and add "Thank God," in my mind. Turns out, Clayton is supposedly "helping" Steve, which means Clayton comes in, picks up the paperwork once in a while, and disappears on an "errand" of some kind.
10:00am: Lunch break. I drink a Coke and listen to the other guys talk shit to each other. Since this is highly entertaining (for the most part), I jump in with "YER MOM!" and whatnot to keep things rolling. I love observing humans in their environment.
10:30am: Doug comes around to see the progress on the loads. He seems happy we're doing things well. He leaves again. Clayton and CJ have started some kind of rubber-band war to keep themselves occupado (as opposed to actually working). I should probably note at this point that Clayton is about ten years older than myself...
Noon: Things are starting to look bad again. I have all of the stuff I'm supposed to have loaded on the truck...at least what's available. However, the guys who produce the things I'm supposed to be putting on this truck are taking their sweet time doing it, so I'm short several items. I go home at 1:30, so they better get a move on. Eh? For the next half hour, my life consists mainly of going from one spot to another to gather things they've just completed (and not put away) so I can load them on the truck. Fun (NOT).
12:30pm: Break time again. Ten minutes of sucking down as much water as I possibly can get into my gullet while the others smoke.
1:00pm: More waiting on product. Just when I think I'm finished and put a "0" on an item (to say we don't have it instead of farting around), I get informed that so-and-so just completed that and I should go get it. This really bends me out of shape, since it's so frikkin' inefficient - especially on my feet.
1:30pm: I'm supposed to be going home now, but have just now gotten all the items I'm due on the truck. So I start the load paperwork. Overtime...
2:05pm: Paperwork finished, tallied, double-checked, etc., etc. Good to go. Hoping to avoid anyone in the warehouse, I beat it for the office to drop the paperwork before someone gets any ideas about having me "help." I get lucky and make my trip unaccosted.
2:15pm: After turning in the paperwork, giving Doug the low-down on what "took so long," and explaining the lack of arithmetic on the sheets to Nettie (who puts these into the computer - I skip the math bits on the sheets and do them in my head for the most part), I get the @#$@# out of Dodge and head for home.
That's how a fairly typical day at my new temporary job goes. I've been there a little over a month now.
This day wasn't so bad, since both Clayton and Doug basically stayed out of the way for most of the day. Generally, I would have three or four other entries in which I was pulled away from whatever I was doing and sent to do something else.
For instance, I regularly am pulled off of a trailer and sent to drive the forklift because Clayton is afraid of it (people routinely get fired for driving like morons and dropping expensive things onto the pavement, and Clayton apparently likes his job); I am regularly moved from one trailer to another in order to "help" those who are loading/unloading it "get caught up." Remember: "help" in their vocabulary means "you do it so I don't have to" and "get caught up" means "get us to where we would be if we were halfway competent."
Oh well. I'm sure they'll change my schedule again soon, since it's been almost a whole week since they did it last...
If you haven't read "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand, you need to. If you have, you'll see the paralells I'm subtly drawing here. This is a company that is quickly going to hell in a handbasket and I seem to be the only person who is getting any amusement out of it. The people who actually own and/or run the place obviously are either oblivious to what's going on or they're clueless as to how to fix it.
What do I care? I'm just a temp...NMP, man.
-----
Got comments? Email me, dammit!
posted by Aaron Turpen @ 5:07 PM
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