That particular quit, along with a building-wide staffing shortage, has had a cascading effect on our work. Everyone who is left (or left behind, depending on your point-of-view) has to pick up the slack of all the work that needs to be done. Moreover, the work that doesn't have to be done still needs to be done, so for that stuff my bosses have erected an incentive plan: Work so many hours a week on these things and you'll receive a bonus. I wish I could do that, but I'm too busy coming into work to fill in for people who have quit and do the work that needs to be done on a daily basis to do the work that doesn't need to be done on a daily basis and make even more money than the overtime I'm pulling now.
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This have-to-do work has forced all the keyers to stay later than their allotted eight hours a day. That stuff needs to get done regardless, and so for the past ... shoot, I don't know, month, maybe less, they've had to stay over. It was 15 minutes, then I saw half an hour, then I saw those guys punch out an hour after they should have.
I joined them out there on Friday. Stayed an hour beyond normal. The work that needs to be pushed out we usually get done well before our day is over. That work has pushed up to end-of-shift, and now has regularly gone past end-of-shift, and that unprecedentedness has led to a tension that I felt when we weren't finishing up the work at the time it usually gets done.
It was around the end of our day on Friday, as we finally got around to winding down, when I asked about this person who put in her two weeks and then suddenly quit last week because she wanted to finish up the paperwork for her new job instead. One of the people who stayed behind -- whom I also sorta don't get along with (and whom I've also blog posted about before) -- followed up by saying, after another co-worker spilled the tea on her terms of quitting, "Yeah, I can understand that." And I thought that was a little rude considering this person didn't stay too long and said fuck it, I'm not coming back.
But then Saturday came around. On Friday, my main boss asked if I could help out to key on Saturday because they were severely short-staffed; not only did this person bail, but I think three people who usually work that day had the day off. Without me, there would be four people and one of my bosses doing the work. And we usually have about 2,000 forms that need to be entered into our system before we can leave, no exceptions, so they would probably be against the wall even with me. (And that doesn't take into account what I believe is a shortage on the lab side. With fewer people in there, the work doesn't get out as early as it usually does, so for the past month or so data entry has been assailed with a crush of work that is passed through in the last hour or so of a typical shift.) Because of that, I didn't think I could pull in a full day knowing that I would most certainly stay beyond eight hours. I would lose my mind, especially after the stress I felt on Friday. So I woke up around 9:30 (which scuttled my plan of watching EPL), washed the dishes, ate at Subway and sauntered into work a bit before 1.
I didn't get out of there until a bit before 7. I honestly thought we'd stay there an extra hour, until 5:30. Didn't think we'd be there until 7, for God's sake. I want to think that if we had that three people who should've been there, we would've gotten out well before 7, but I don't really know. What I remember, however, is that seeing all these folders of forms we needed to do really, really pissed me off. That list was never-ending, and as we were busting past 5 o'clock, 5:30, 6 o'clock, etc., I felt my blood pressure rise and my patience shorten. I was willing to do six hours max because at that point, you are supposed to take a lunch break. I didn't think we would get close -- that's why I sauntered in around 1 -- but I think I clocked out just four minutes before six hours, and that is goddamned ridiculous. And I had it good; the others who worked all day were there for 10 1/2 hours! Jesus fucking Christ, that would make me consider unionizing the place. And now I don't think it's that rude at all to tell these guys to take this job and shove it, or to sympathize with people telling the company (and my bosses) to take this job and shove it.
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My boss says he hired two new people for data entry. But if they're like any of the others who have come through, one of them will no-show and the other will leave for a better-paying job six weeks from now. Meanwhile, I am in the middle of working 13 straight days there. Sure, I might be racking up the overtime, but 1) it's not that incentive-laden task that's being offered and 2) I am more alienated by the inability and/or refusal of this company to retain employees by, I don't know, paying them more. The work, and asking a dwindling number people to expend so many exhaustive hours to do so much work, is unsustainable. You're going to lose more people if you don't get them more help. But I don't know if the cavalry's coming, or if the higher-ups even care that it might not be coming.
In the meantime I struck upon a revelation that has floored me. On Friday and Saturday, while I was doing nothing but typing information into a system hour after hour, all I could think of was heading out for a drink after all the shit was over. I usually feel that way after working in The Fourth Department (where I will be working today/Monday). But honestly, on Friday and Saturday, I felt way more stress just keying than I have recently in The Fourth Department. I have gone from thinking I need to splurge on alcohol after calling people and dealing with odd questions to thinking I need to splurge on alcohol after typing a lot more than I thought I would. Data entry is more stressful. Can't fucking believe it.
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