The Complain About Work Thread

[Gustav 6,428]

Please drop your stories in here. I don't remember the last time I got absolutely zero respect in a day at work and I have a borderline surreal one for you. This is going to sound fake, and the worst part is--it's not.

 

Most grocery stores, at least in my area, have their own departments. In general, I take care of food that isn't refrigerated. This often gets mixed up by customers (and people who work up front and don't know any better) with what we call "vendor items", or product filled by a company independently. For example, Coca-Cola uses their own employees to keep up with the Coke products. Pepsi does the same thing. Frito-Lay does the same thing. As does Nabisco. Beer is actually filled by distributors, or third-party companies that sign contracts with a handful of brands and stock their own half (or so) of the beer we carry. 99% of the time, I have nothing to do with this stuff, because there are other people, who don't work for the store, who show up and fill it.

 

The 1% of the time when I do generally comes around on days when everyone and their grandmother is buying beer and snacks. I've had to fill this stuff on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, and the like. And I've never had any problem doing so--it's busy, the vendors can't be everywhere at once, and I get that we should have some product on the shelf. Today happens to be one of those days, with my favorite football team (and everyone's favorite in the area) playing in the evening. I hear through my department manager that one of the (somewhat more unhinged) store managers wants my coworker and me to fill the vendor stuff. Most vendors were just in the store an hour or two ago, and the store isn't even super busy yet, but whatever. I get that it's a busy day and we should have as much out there as possible. No problem.

 

I'm slightly annoyed when practically none of the beer goes on the shelf, as does practically none of the chips and practically none of the pop (yes, I say pop). But I did what I was asked to do and I go back to what I was doing in the first place. 

 

Not even 20 minutes later, I walk into the back room to find Department Manager working on the same chips I just did. He's fully aware that I just did them. But Store Manager says they're getting "hit hard" (they're not) and that the shelf is empty (yes and no--there are empty spaces on the shelf, but that's what's straight-up out of stock. Everything in stock is full). He's just doing it to keep Store Manager happy. So at this point it's weird, but it escalates.

 

Store Manager comes in the back right after this and yells at both of us for not filling a certain kind of chips. Which we don't have in the back. We learn that those do exist on a display, which was put up this morning by the vendor, in a part of the store where none of us ever have a reason to be. And we're berated for not knowing that. One coworker volunteers to do it, and I've had enough so I take my lunch.

 

I come back from lunch to find two other coworkers doing the chips AGAIN. I talk to one of them. Absolutely nothing is going up to the shelf, because everything has been done multiple times, and Store Manager is acting like the world is coming to an end if they don't get it done immediately. 

 

I'm then told that I need to fill the pop. Again. It's been filled twice already. I also hear double-indirectly (from my coworker, who allegedly heard it from Department Manager, so I don't know how things have or have not been twisted around there) that Store Manager doesn't want us to work together and made some insinuation that it's (somehow) going to make people think we're gay. So, uh...extra not cool at this point? But also at this point, I rationalize that a) it's Store Manager's fault if nothing ends up being done in our own department, and b) if someone tries to get me in trouble for not doing anything in my own department, I'm just going to walk out the door and find a better job somewhere else. So I do the pop. And nothing goes up to the shelf. Because I did it already. Surprise.

 

And then I'm told that the beer is empty. And I need to fill it. Again, indirectly through Department Manager, who's just as fed up with the absolute bullshit we've been subjected to today as I am. I look at the beer and it is not empty. I take a cart of beer out in case I'm being watched, and once again confirm that it is not empty by being able to fit practically none of it on the shelf. It's absolutely confirmed at this point that Store Manager is not even looking at the shelf--just going on a power trip. I take a too-long break and leave, because I've had it. I've had good days, I've had bad days, and there are times when it's clear the company does not care about me--but this is the first time in a long time that I have been directly treated like absolute garbage by someone other than a customer and it's also the first time in a long time that one shift makes me seriously consider never coming back.

 

TL;DR: Store Manager is probably having a bad day and decides to ruin everyone else's day as a consequence. 

[Enorama 2,038]

4 minutes ago, GustavMattias said:

TL;DR: Store Manager is probably having a bad day and decides to ruin everyone else's day as a consequence. 

 

962 words, claiming for week ending 01/23, too bad I couldn't squeak another 38 words in  

[Gustav 6,428]

Just now, Enorama said:

962 words, claiming for week ending 01/23, too bad I couldn't squeak another 38 words in  

 

You should be used to it at this point 

[Beketov 9,026]

1 hour ago, GustavMattias said:

TL;DR: Store Manager is probably having a bad day and decides to ruin everyone else's day as a consequence. 

Straight facts if I’ve ever seen it. Shit rolls downhill and sadly you appear to be at the bottom so when the manager is having a shit day EVERYONE is stuck having a shit day.

 

I definitely feel for you with the power tripping managers though. When I worked at Shoppers I actually found that store management (who were actually great) intentionally made sure I was never booked when corporate was coming to visit because I had pissed corporate off once. Basically we had 5 registers at the store, 1 of which I think I only saw used 4 times in 6 years and 1 that was reserved for the supervisor. Well on this day when the corporate suits were in we were pretty busy and it was a super hot day with our AC not working great. So the suits decided that we needed to take one of the fans for sale out of the box and set it up for the customers in line (the lines were not long really but whatever). They enlisted the floor manager to do this which shouldn’t have taken long but this fan was stupid complicated to put together and she had to empty a full end shelf to access the plug to use it. So anyway, she’s busy doing this and I was the only other one working stock that day which again, was busy, so I was swamped trying to keep everything stocked. One of the suits decides to come up to me and asks if I can run a cash. I say I know how (I did) but it’s not my job (it wasn’t) and also that the cashes weren’t busy enough to need it. He disagreed and said they were completely overloaded. I looked at the front of the store and saw 4 cashes running with lines of 3 people each. Company policy was lines shouldn’t hit 4 people or else you call backup but again, they weren’t that long and we basically NEVER opened cash 5 to the point that it was covered in extra stock that would need to all be moved. Anyway, I respectfully (or as respectfully as I could) told Mr. Suit that the cashes were not overloaded by company standard and that nothing would get stocked if I put a cash in since he had my manager re-shuffling an entire end display. He stormed off and went and complained to the store manager I guess even though she fully agreed with me.

 

Anyway, very long story to say retail sucks and people with authority shouldn’t be assholes. I’m so thankful that my managers at Shoppers were all reasonable people that stood by their employees but I know most retail managers, sadly, aren’t that way.

 

Also, as an aside, all our vendors would flip shit it we touched their stuff. We were allowed to stock the 2L bottles of pop if they were empty but that was it. We didn’t touch chips or the cooler unless we wanted to get in an argument.

[Frank 5,212]

 

[fishy 1,757]

When I was working in retail, sometimes the only thing that got me through the shift was lying to customers about shit. Inconsequential things, but it was amusing, and nobody could tell me to stop because it wasn't hurting anyone.

 

I also enjoy being a dick to people without them realizing that I'm being a dick. I started a new job in late October working customer service, and most of my customer interactions are via email. Sometimes when people are being fucking stupid, I'll literally just copy my last email and paste it into the new one as a reply. I love pulling out the "per my last email." Just passive aggressive shit that nobody can get me in trouble for because it's not my fault that people are idiots and don't read

Edited January 24, 2022 by fishy

[samx 1,173]

I worked at McDonalds for a bit and we always had 2 people with a headset on Incase one person was busy or couldnt hear etc. I have two stories revolving this.

 

 

One day me and my coworker were at first window where you take cash etc. We both had headsets on but she was taking orders but I could hear everything. Anyways this guy was getting mad cause we couldn't quite understand him and started giving us a bunch of sass. He pulls up to first window and he's complaining to us about the cost and we are both just like uhhhh okay. And then he goes on to apologize which like cool thanks dude. Then continues to talk to us about the McDonalds movie and if we had seen it. And we were both like no. Hoping he would finally leave cause at this point he is holding up the line. And then he starts asking us if he can go buy us anything and we are both just sick of him and we are like no we are good thanks. Finally he leaves. We both just look at each other like wtf.

 

 

The other story is so if you talk loud we can hear you. whether it's intended for us or not. This one time this lady was asking the people in her car what they wanted (mid lunch rush line around the building, probably like 10+ cars behind her. I could hear her talking but it wasn't quite loud enough and thinking she was finally ordering I say "I'm sorry I couldn't understand that can you please repeat yourself" this lady gets so mad because she was still talking to the people in her car not me. As if I'm supposed to know lol as you are saying items on the menu. Like this lady is now holding up the line for a good 5 minutes and is pissed that I asked her to repeat herself. My manager happened to be the other one with a headset on also getting mad cause this lady is taking forever and we can see the line getting longer and longer as it's now past our store at this point.

 

 

Let's just say I don't miss it there and I will gladly never go back.

[nurx 914]

So I used to work full time over summers at a high school photography company as a photo editor/reviewer. I would basically spend my entire day sitting in a room at a computer cropping photos and making sure nobody was flashing gang signs or anything inappropriate. I also had the role of answering phone calls because we were a small company if about 15 and everyone had to do their jobs so I was the most available. I did wear headphones and listened to music while I did this, but the headphones were also connected to the phone (this is important for one of the stories. I have probably 3.

 

This one day I was in the office with only one other coworker who was a salesperson. She was in lunch and I was also in lunch so we were sitting in the lobby eating. All the other people were out getting food or something similar. Now this was office hours and people did occasionally come in to pick up pictures or something similar, so it wasn't a surprise when a man walked into the room. The guy walks in and my coworker who is deals with costumers more often gets up and tried to talk to the guy who immediately says, "No I want to talk to him." Now I later found out that this guy truly believed that my female coworker was incapable of helping his problem, but I do occasionally work with certain people who have requests like removing acne and that sort of stuff so that's what I thought was happening. I ask him what the problem was and he immediately yells, "I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO GET MY SINS BASEBALL PICTURES FOR THE PAST WEEK. WHERE ARE THEY?" The company had taken baseball pictures for one high school, but they were only taken two weeks ago. If we were to rush an order we could have them back in two weeks during that season, but with how many pictures we had to process (about 3000) a week we had just ordered the baseball pictures three days ago. This guy was so incensed that he didn't have his photos of his son yet that he was told would take three-four weeks that he came in and yelled at a 18 year old thinking that would solve the problem. Funny thing is after his photos arrived and he came back he actually never paid for them and as far as I'm concerned never has so still does not have the photos.

 

 

Seconds story is actually a coworker that worked with me for two weeks. This guy was the worst. I would work Wednesday, Thursday, Friday because those were the days that I could process the most photos, but because he worked M-F he believed he was better than me. The company had two PCs one that was used for photo editing and one that was used for scheduling. Now when there was no one editing people used the photo editing PC because it was significantly faster and you could get the work done much faster. I walked in after lunch one day and this guy was doing scheduling and I asked him how soon he was going to be done. He said about 10 minutes. I think ok that is fine. So I sit down and start setting up my headset so I can listen to music. Fairly soon after I get this setup a phone call comes in and I start talking to this person. I don't know if my coworker didn't know that's how it worked but he tried to ask me a question or something. I sort of cover my microphone and whisper "write it down" because I was trying to talk to this person on the phone. This really made my coworker upset who decided to get out of the room and get my boss. Who sees I am on the phone and waits a few minutes until I was done. I get done and my boss says "are you on the phone with friends instead of editing photos?" I explain the situation and my coworker makes up a story that really doesn't even make sense and contradicted his previous story so my boss just said "Work it out I have to get back to work" and left. I tell him I have to get to work and he should be doing the same as a dressing room had just been done being used. The next day I get to work and see that this guy was eating the bosses lunch. Now I am not sure if this was the last straw but my boss walks in see this and fired him on the spot. This guy had caused problems before in the past.

 

 

This final story kind of funny TBH. We also did Santa photos during December and I would work as an elf along with 5 other people all around my age. We were sort in charge of building up the scene of Santa because instead of a big line we would take people into waiting rooms where the elves would keep people busy. The main thing with this is it made people think they weren't sitting in line as long because in reality we would often have about 45 minute waits on busy nights. This night we were completely swamped and had 38 families in line which if we rushed and didn't have higher standards than most Santa places it would of took about 45 minutes but it took us an hour and 20 minutes. Now this group was bug they had 4 adults and 8 children. So they were in a room alone with an elf (me). After they left I was really tired because we'll I had to entertain 8 6 year olds for an hour and 20 minutes. So I took a short break (like 10 minutes) I went down to the lobby area to grab a Gatorade and as I was done there the group was leaving. I asked them how their trip was and the kids were happy and most of the adults were happy but one lady was really mad. She went over to the cashier lady who isn't in charge but it kind of a "manager". During Christmas we upped our staff to 30. This lady was in charge of all the people who directed people and helped move families around. This lady that was mad started yelling at the cashier and the cashier being a really kind older woman says please wait and gets the person 2nd in charge. In charge of pretty much everything besides pictures. He comes down and tells her for a minutes and the lady asks to talk to his manager and so he obliges and bring down the boss. Who mind you is in charge of taking the actual pictures. So her doing this is stopping whole process. He comes down talks to her for a few minutes and she asks for his manager and he says he owns the business and she says well there has to be someone higher than you. To which my boss who I truly believe is the best person on this planet says "Who God?" Now this probably wasn't the best response but really this lady was being ridiculous she thought that I was in charge of moving families and that I was holding their family back because I had some personal grudge against her. I later found out that me asking them how they enjoyed this time is what made her believe this so  she was mad that someone who works there and dealt with her children for an hour and 20 minutes while she sat and played on her phone was taking a short break before going back to work.

[nurx 914]

all things considered I would work for that company again if they were to ask me too. One of the best experiences of my life.

[Beketov 9,026]

1 hour ago, fishy said:

When I was working in retail, sometimes the only thing that got me through the shift was lying to customers about shit

I loved doing that. At Shoppers I had supervisor cash numbers which meant I could basically override anything to get the cash to do whatever I wanted. Open the till without a sale, change the return payment method, etc. Most of these things we weren't SUPPOSED to do but we could bend the rules if we wished. If customers were reasonable I would usually bend the rules I disagreed with (like how the returns had to go back on the same tender they came off on). However if customers were assholes I would straight up refuse to cut them any slack and would lie out my ass that the computer wouldn't allow me to do it; knowing full well that if I typed my password in I could get whatever I wanted.

 

Don't be a dick to the people serving you, you won't get what you want haha

[Banackock 8,052]

last day off, 10 days on coming up. yay

[Gustav 6,428]

3 hours ago, Beketov said:

Also, as an aside, all our vendors would flip shit it we touched their stuff. We were allowed to stock the 2L bottles of pop if they were empty but that was it. We didn’t touch chips or the cooler unless we wanted to get in an argument.

 

That brings me to a story about the time I came into work and immediately was taken aside by a different department manager and yelled at about how a different store manager would have fired me that day if we weren't understaffed. The reason? I had knocked over a pallet of Coke product the night before and didn't pick it up.

 

I did not knock over said pallet and had no idea what he was talking about. Apparently, the vendor went right to the store manager and blamed whichever one of us (me) had closed the night before despite the fact that multiple departments, including all the night shift workers, use the back room. Nobody ever believed me and management used it as an excuse to "crack down" on my department.

[Beketov 9,026]

8 minutes ago, GustavMattias said:

Nobody ever believed me and management used it as an excuse to "crack down" on my department.

Despite definitely having surveillance video proving it wasn’t you. What dicks.

[Gustav 6,428]

22 minutes ago, Beketov said:

Despite definitely having surveillance video proving it wasn’t you. What dicks.

 

I could go ON about just how backwards the store and the company both are. The amount of unethical, unempathetic, and sometimes straight-up illegal stuff I've seen there is unreal.

 

Spoiler

For instance, my friend's brother got scammed out of his job.

 

There's apparently a "probationary period" for new hires where they're not kept around if they miss a certain number of days in the first however many weeks. He'd missed a couple, but wasn't over the limit. One day he gets a call from a store manager different from either of the other two I've mentioned, and said manager tells him they have enough people for that day and he doesn't have to come in. His next shift, the same thing happens.

 

He's then fired for missing too many days.

 

I've done everything I can to try to get this kid to call the union on these assholes, but he's 16 and doesn't understand how messed up it is (I'd do it myself but I don't think I'm allowed to file a grievance on behalf of someone else, let alone on the basis of something that didn't even happen to me and that I have no evidence for aside from his story). All this in the middle of a labor shortage where I'm being asked to do other people's jobs because "we don't have enough workers".

 

And this is only one story out of many.

 

I still have the job because (on most days) I've gained enough respect to be mostly left alone and able to do my own thing, and they do respect my availability during school...but when I'm out I'm thinking about writing up a giant list of things I've seen and sending it straight to any third party who would care. 

[diamond_ace 3,112]

So this is going to be kind of good and kind of bad at the same time, and admittedly even the bad parts are just annoying and nowhere near to the level of retail stories. I'm sure I've had retail stories in the past but I've been out of it for a little over 6 years so I genuinely don't remember any of them.

 

Anyway, so I'm "central admissions" for a group of 25 hospitals, largely centralized around the Pittsburgh area but one is in Erie, one is in western NY, 4 are out near the Poconos, etc. There's about 40 of us, and directly above us are 5 "IOTs" who are our immediate bosses. My favorite IOT is leaving shortly to become manager of the whole registration department at one of the hospitals (or "Patient Access" as they like to call it - basically she'll be in charge of the people in the ER as well as the people in Outpatient). Now I'd been informed of this a little in advance, but on the day it was officially announced, THAT VERY SAME DAY one of the other IOTs asked me if I was going to put in for it, and after I said I had no interest, continued to push. On one hand, it's nice to be one of the go to people when something like this comes up, but the position would have hours that would be different times on different days, sometimes with short turnarounds between shifts, and get stuck with overtime fairly often. Additionally, being in my position, I know the type of calls we tend to escalate to IOTs and I don't want to be on the receiving end. The paint wasn't even dry on the other one leaving, and even now the position has yet to be posted, and she's pushing me to do a thing that I've vehemently refused to do. 

 

Now if it was just this position on just this occasion, fair enough, but the same one that's been pushing me to put in for IOT has tried in the past to push me to do several other jobs I haven't wanted - ER supervisor at one of the sites (I'm not going back into an actual hospital job unless I'm compensated very well to do so, now that I'm comfortable at home); as well as a position that was created about a year ago that's kind of halfway between my role and an IOT role (this wouldn't have been terrible, except it again had the different shifts on different days, and 3 of the 5 days I'd have been working directly under my least favorite IOT, which actually is not this one, and additionally I'd have had to go into the office about half the time). Yet when I find something I actually do want, she complains about it. Just last week I found a job that's still at home, would be at minimum about $3 more an hour than I'm currently making, does not have calls, and is consistently 8-4 weekdays (I hate mornings, but would put up with it for the rest of the positives of the job). It's still in the same company, it's still considered a promotion from where I currently am, and I really can't find any drawbacks to it other than the shift, which I'm sure I'd get used to. I mentioned it to her, and her response was to tell me I would have to do math (ok, but I like math, so how is that an issue) and try to redirect again to the open IOT spot. 

 

Again, I realize it's still a pretty good position to be in a job where I'm seen as someone that would be viable to promote out, but to have someone who claims to be looking out for me consistently push things that are a terrible fit for me and downplay things that would be much better, it's annoying to have to deal with.

[Shindigs 1,771]

More of a funny story than a rage inducing one. Unless you're really into work safety, I guess?

 

This is an old story from when I was 18. There was this very popular music festival in Sweden at the time where my sister worked during the summer. So through absolutely no nepotism what-so-ever. I managed to land a summer job there. Basically a lot of shit had to get done, and they didn't really have the upfront cash to pay for it. So if you worked 24 hours for them doing literally anything that came to mind. You got to attend the festival for "free". Pretty sweet deal, and you had to really get in there early to have a shot at getting one of the jobs. Even if you were connected.

 

So slight background on Sweden things. We have incredibly stringent labor laws and work safety regulations in general. And very, very strong unions. So basically everything we did working there was very much illegal. They are out of business now (because they couldn't insure safety on their grounds during festivals, surprising). So this is all water under bridge at this point.

 

It started out with the work hour regulation. There are rules stating that you are not under any circumstances allowed to work more than a certain number of hours a day. Overtime or no overtime. I can't tell you the exact number off the top off my head. But since we worked about 16 hours a day. I'm pretty sure we smashed whatever the actual limit was. But needs must right? It was only over 2 days for me, since I speedran my 24 hours in 1½ day to get free entry. But my sister and her coworkers worked 16 hours a day 7 days a week leading up to the festival. Resulting in some pretty hilarious sleep deprivation moments. One of the Graphics artists was supposed to make a Tee with the slogan "Go love, or Go home" but was too tired and ended up making it read "make love, or leave". Which was really funny at midnight on a Thursday. But I digress.

 

Let's instead talk about the actual work. We didn't have work cars, cause no money. But we still needed cars, so we got stuck with an ancient Audi that someone must have been bribed a pretty healthy sum to make pass inspection. Because it was physically impossible to open the passenger door 90% of the time. The door handle was not attached, the e-brake did not work. 1st gear did not work and the safety on the towing thing (can't remember the English word) was mysteriously missing. Which was kind of an issue, because we were supposed to use this car to lug around a sky-lift and put up festival banners on facades all over town. We'll get to that becoming an issue later.

 

So there we were, a random 21 year old guy with a drivers license (though not one that allows you to tow a sky-lift), a random 17 year old girl and me. How many of us had training in how to use a sky-lift? None. How many had any of the required safety equipment to operate a sky-lift? None. But damn it we had work to do, so off we went. Things started off pretty smooth, as banner #1 went up just fine. Banner #2 we accidentally put the wrong way around. But all that meant was that we got to have even more unsupervised work in a sky-lift without safety equipment. So all in a day's work, really.

 

The real problem arose later that day when we needed to drive the car down a pedestrian road to reach the final location where a banner had to be put up. Because the lack of 1st gear and tow safety meant that after a less than smooth start from our not professional, professional, driver. We heard a weird noise followed by the car rocking, and the somewhat unsettling sight of being passed...by our own sky-lift. Now I was on the passenger side, with the door that doesn't open. And the sky-lift was passing us on the passenger side heading towards a storefront (all glass, ofc). The stress levels were slightly intense at that point, especially as my sister was just walking towards us to check in and see how we were doing. To which the answer was very clearly "not great".

 

However this just so happened to be one of only a few times where that damn passenger door opened, letting me get out just in time to stop the sky-lift before it sailed past us into a very likely lawsuit (as much of a meme as those are in Sweden). Which would have probably ended very poorly for that festival, considering the work safety conditions.

 

To this day my sister and I have no idea how that festival survived as long as it did, got as big as it did and that no one got badly injured (from working there, at least). Because really that was just being lucky, at that point. I think in those 16 hours we probably broke every single work safety law that exists, as well as probably creating grounds for needing to write some new ones. Then we came back for 8 hours the next day to do it all again. Except we never got passed by the sky-lift on day two. So that's gotta count for something, right?

[N0HBDY 1,119]

18 hours ago, nurx said:

all things considered I would work for that company again if they were to ask me too. One of the best experiences of my life.

I want to work for them lol

[a_Ferk 766]

lol imagine being employed am I right

[Daniel Janser 2,171]

On 1/24/2022 at 2:49 AM, Beketov said:

Don't be a dick to the people serving you, you won't get what you want haha

And especially be not a dick to the people who serve you/cook your food... 

[frescoelmo 1,276]

The only thing I really have to complain about at work is old people yelling at me about freight and logistics, which you largely cannot control.  And weather.

[Ricer13 2,796]

I like my job. It isn’t always perfect and my only biggest drawback is working in the elements. 
 

I get to learn new things every day and the company I work for has treated me like gold. They’ve done so many good things for me and my family over the years. I would eventually like to become part of the ownership group but I still a lot to learn before I get to that point.

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

21 hours ago, Shindigs said:

More of a funny story than a rage inducing one. Unless you're really into work safety, I guess?

 

This is an old story from when I was 18. There was this very popular music festival in Sweden at the time where my sister worked during the summer. So through absolutely no nepotism what-so-ever. I managed to land a summer job there. Basically a lot of shit had to get done, and they didn't really have the upfront cash to pay for it. So if you worked 24 hours for them doing literally anything that came to mind. You got to attend the festival for "free". Pretty sweet deal, and you had to really get in there early to have a shot at getting one of the jobs. Even if you were connected.

 

So slight background on Sweden things. We have incredibly stringent labor laws and work safety regulations in general. And very, very strong unions. So basically everything we did working there was very much illegal. They are out of business now (because they couldn't insure safety on their grounds during festivals, surprising). So this is all water under bridge at this point.

 

It started out with the work hour regulation. There are rules stating that you are not under any circumstances allowed to work more than a certain number of hours a day. Overtime or no overtime. I can't tell you the exact number off the top off my head. But since we worked about 16 hours a day. I'm pretty sure we smashed whatever the actual limit was. But needs must right? It was only over 2 days for me, since I speedran my 24 hours in 1½ day to get free entry. But my sister and her coworkers worked 16 hours a day 7 days a week leading up to the festival. Resulting in some pretty hilarious sleep deprivation moments. One of the Graphics artists was supposed to make a Tee with the slogan "Go love, or Go home" but was too tired and ended up making it read "make love, or leave". Which was really funny at midnight on a Thursday. But I digress.

 

Let's instead talk about the actual work. We didn't have work cars, cause no money. But we still needed cars, so we got stuck with an ancient Audi that someone must have been bribed a pretty healthy sum to make pass inspection. Because it was physically impossible to open the passenger door 90% of the time. The door handle was not attached, the e-brake did not work. 1st gear did not work and the safety on the towing thing (can't remember the English word) was mysteriously missing. Which was kind of an issue, because we were supposed to use this car to lug around a sky-lift and put up festival banners on facades all over town. We'll get to that becoming an issue later.

 

So there we were, a random 21 year old guy with a drivers license (though not one that allows you to tow a sky-lift), a random 17 year old girl and me. How many of us had training in how to use a sky-lift? None. How many had any of the required safety equipment to operate a sky-lift? None. But damn it we had work to do, so off we went. Things started off pretty smooth, as banner #1 went up just fine. Banner #2 we accidentally put the wrong way around. But all that meant was that we got to have even more unsupervised work in a sky-lift without safety equipment. So all in a day's work, really.

 

The real problem arose later that day when we needed to drive the car down a pedestrian road to reach the final location where a banner had to be put up. Because the lack of 1st gear and tow safety meant that after a less than smooth start from our not professional, professional, driver. We heard a weird noise followed by the car rocking, and the somewhat unsettling sight of being passed...by our own sky-lift. Now I was on the passenger side, with the door that doesn't open. And the sky-lift was passing us on the passenger side heading towards a storefront (all glass, ofc). The stress levels were slightly intense at that point, especially as my sister was just walking towards us to check in and see how we were doing. To which the answer was very clearly "not great".

 

However this just so happened to be one of only a few times where that damn passenger door opened, letting me get out just in time to stop the sky-lift before it sailed past us into a very likely lawsuit (as much of a meme as those are in Sweden). Which would have probably ended very poorly for that festival, considering the work safety conditions.

 

To this day my sister and I have no idea how that festival survived as long as it did, got as big as it did and that no one got badly injured (from working there, at least). Because really that was just being lucky, at that point. I think in those 16 hours we probably broke every single work safety law that exists, as well as probably creating grounds for needing to write some new ones. Then we came back for 8 hours the next day to do it all again. Except we never got passed by the sky-lift on day two. So that's gotta count for something, right?

 

As someone who works in commercial insurance, you have no idea how much all of this is making me cringe.

[Shindigs 1,771]

31 minutes ago, Fire Fletcher said:

 

As someone who works in commercial insurance, you have no idea how much all of this is making me cringe.

I could hazard a guess. If something went wrong, I could picture how happy their insurance company would have been.

[BarzalGoat 728]

2 hours ago, frescoelmo said:

The only thing I really have to complain about at work is old people yelling at me about freight and logistics, which you largely cannot control.  And weather.

https://tenor.com/view/cant-control-the-weather-damn-jackie-well-damn-jackie-gif-15307983

 

Edited January 25, 2022 by BarzalGoat
bad at embedding gifs i guess