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July 17, 2009

So Much To Tell

Where to start? First of all, I should've stayed in the Ripley store. PERIOD. This move has got to be one of the worst career moves I've ever made. Frustration to the max! But I'm trying to hang in there. Honestly, I was talking to one of the interim managers and jokingly asked if I could go back to Ripley and my eyes filled with water. I think I could have just bawled right there in the aisle. I haven't experienced such frustration since my days at the Nat. Geo. My 40-cent raise is going into the gas tank; I drive an hour or more daily and wind up with this?

The tale of wrongs is too long to go into. You know that it is bad when the former occupant of my seat comes in, takes a look around, and calls the HR manager. So there is to be another meeting. The first one with the acting manager was a farce...he was in and out of the room and heard very little of the back and forth. Doesn't have the power to effect change anyway. I tried explaining to the young lady that I have no problem with her handling personnel issues but that I needed to know what was being done, the response, etc. If a problem arises, I'm the one on the line...not her.

It seems that this is her very first office job. Graduated from one of the local technical schools with a certificate in something office related. Good for her. Explains why she is hell-bent on looking efficient. And, as stated before, she did a heroic job in holding down the fort for the 3 weeks prior to my arrival. Her daughter is 12 (she doesn't look much older) and is engaged to a trucker who is, I've been told, 21 years older than she. Can't speak to a person of the opposite sex. Wellll...you pay the cost to be the boss...what can I say.

So we get to this week. It is drop dead time for this record retention program, meaning everything has to be reboxed and ready for shipment to off-site storage within a two-week period. Our new boxes, all 50 of them, started showing last week--a week behind everyone else. So I decided we'd come in on Sunday to work when there would be few interruptions. Everybody had a hand in this pie and I'm just following along. What a fiasco! And, at the end, my problem. Can't work off the clock; can't get overtime. While I'm at lunch yesterday (Thursday), I'm told that they have to be completed and ready to go by 3 p.m. Excuse me...it's almost 1 p.m...why wasn't this info passed along in the early hours? Can you stop the phone calls, drop-ins? Call for the pick-up info and lo and behold, I'm not on the authorized list. Sheez! Won't be processed before 4 p.m. and I have to be off the clock at 4. Well, he rushed it through. Then I have to call a trucking company. Okay. It's 3:45 and everything is not labeled, signed, or checked; the pallet is not shrink-wrapped. Talking about a disaster! AND, I have to be off today (Friday) to avoid overtime, so I can't even go in and make sure everything is right before the scheduled pick-up. The managers, having no choice, decided they would pitch in to make it work. I can see fines and costs coming our way, big time. Needless to say, I drug out of the store feeling awful. Came in, had a hefty drink, and crashed. It was badly needed.

I'm picking up this tale of woe in the next post. In the meantime, looky here! My fair city of Ripley made Newsmax's list of 25 Uniquely American Cities and Towns, Ripley. The photo is of how the town square SHOULD look when they've completed renovation. Impressive, isn't it? I am not sure that I would have ranked the town so high in many of the categories, but what do I know?

I'm off to get a haircut. I've looked like something that the dog drug in for the entire time I've been in Brownsville. Terrible impressions all the way around. Pray for me.

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