FA+
Shop
Where the hell have I been?
13 years ago
General
This year's been a right pain in the ass. But things are looking up, finally.
After a stint of being unemployed, I was finally able to find work at Dave's security guard company, which I did for a good piece of the year. I was told at the start it might take a few months to find me a permanent site (AKA a steady paycheck) and I told them no problem. I was willing to wait it out.
Of the many places they stuck me that weren't so bad, they were fond of putting me at a place I couldn't stand at all. Gordon Trucking was an incident waiting to happen. Picture, if you will, an unarmed 5'3 female guard sitting in a giant truck lot by herself in a dark shack (before you tell me its my fault for not arming myself, we were not ALLOWED to arm ourselves. We could get fired if they found out we had a stungun, pepper spray, a knife, etc.). On one side of the shack, there is a whole lot of shadows and storage buildings potential ARMED miscreants can hide among. On the other side of the shack is a big-ass yard of trucks, many with the truckers still inside of them. Most are decent, but there's a big handful of creepy guys interspersed among them just to make it exciting. Part of my nightly patrol entailed walking up to each and every truck in this friggin lot in the dark to write down its number and make sure the lights inside were turned off. Behind the shack, there was a big open field of scrub, and I was warned not to go too near it because the coyotes were out. I WISH I WERE MAKING THIS UP.
But I put up with it and the sporadic paychecks. And I waited. And I applied for sites that had open positions just to get passed over in favor of the old guys who had more seniority than me. And then one day they called me. They had a permanent site for me! ....At Gordon Trucking! I told them politely to find another guard to fill the spot and I would keep waiting. They stuck me at a temporary spot at a specialty clinic that was currently being remodeled and needed a nightly fire watch guard, while still desperately trying to convince me Gordon Trucking was the bee's knees (ie - no one else wanted to take a pay cut to do the work of two guards in a skeevy environment either).
While I was at the specialty clinic, I made friends with a lot of the employees. The cleaning staff in particular since they were usually the only folks around overnight. A couple of them were curious about my job, and I wasn't afraid of telling them the truth about it - it was a dead-end job meant for old farts who didn't feel ready to retire yet. No room for promotions, no raises, crappy benefits, and a lot of office drama. BUT, it was better than nothing.
As my time at the clinic drew to a close, I got a call from the office telling me that they had nowhere to put me when it was done so I'd be on-call again. Translation - I'd be back to making $120 paychecks again if I was lucky. I reminded them that we were closing in on a year and I still didn't have a permanent site, and asked if they had queues anywhere they could toss me into. Nope, sorry. Oh, and by the way, they were putting a brand new hire in the permanent guard position that had just opened at the clinic no one had told me about.
I was pretty livid, and I broke down at one of the custodial staff I talked to pretty regularly about how even though I'd been working nearly a year, we weren't any better off than we were when I wasn't because my pay was so sporadic. And it was making it impossible for me and Dave to get out of the hole we'd backslid into. She calmed me down and told me that there were some openings in her branch, and I should go talk to her boss in the basement. So I did.
He didn't seem very keen on me at first and said he had enough cleaners, but I told him I preferred graveyards and was willing to work holidays and weekends, and that seemed to completely 180 his opinion. He told me to go put in an application online ASAP. I did that as soon as I got back upstairs. And, long story short, I was soon employed.
Being a medical custodian is...really not all that bad now that I've gotten used to it, even if it doesn't leave me a lot of time during the week to get anything done. Its definitely a lot of work, and a whole lot of "DO NOT WANT" sometimes, but I leave every night feeling like I've accomplished something. Group Health takes very good care of their employees as well. $14.27 an hour to start with a yearly $1 raise, a retirement plan, an excellent health package, a mandatory 12 hour turnaround between shifts to allow people time to rest (unlike NWP who would call you just as your head was hitting the pillow after finishing one shift to ask if you'd mind filling an eight hour shift in the middle of bumfuck nowhere in...oh....NOW), and a cooperative learning program where, while employed with them, they will pay for your schooling to learn to fill other positions in the clinic with the agreement that you will work for them for the next five years in exchange. Like...seriously, if you wanted to, you could decide to study to be a pharmacist while mopping floors and they'd eat most of the cost.
I brought home my first four-figure paycheck this last week, and it felt really good. I'm hoping this will finally be a turning point for things.
After a stint of being unemployed, I was finally able to find work at Dave's security guard company, which I did for a good piece of the year. I was told at the start it might take a few months to find me a permanent site (AKA a steady paycheck) and I told them no problem. I was willing to wait it out.
Of the many places they stuck me that weren't so bad, they were fond of putting me at a place I couldn't stand at all. Gordon Trucking was an incident waiting to happen. Picture, if you will, an unarmed 5'3 female guard sitting in a giant truck lot by herself in a dark shack (before you tell me its my fault for not arming myself, we were not ALLOWED to arm ourselves. We could get fired if they found out we had a stungun, pepper spray, a knife, etc.). On one side of the shack, there is a whole lot of shadows and storage buildings potential ARMED miscreants can hide among. On the other side of the shack is a big-ass yard of trucks, many with the truckers still inside of them. Most are decent, but there's a big handful of creepy guys interspersed among them just to make it exciting. Part of my nightly patrol entailed walking up to each and every truck in this friggin lot in the dark to write down its number and make sure the lights inside were turned off. Behind the shack, there was a big open field of scrub, and I was warned not to go too near it because the coyotes were out. I WISH I WERE MAKING THIS UP.
But I put up with it and the sporadic paychecks. And I waited. And I applied for sites that had open positions just to get passed over in favor of the old guys who had more seniority than me. And then one day they called me. They had a permanent site for me! ....At Gordon Trucking! I told them politely to find another guard to fill the spot and I would keep waiting. They stuck me at a temporary spot at a specialty clinic that was currently being remodeled and needed a nightly fire watch guard, while still desperately trying to convince me Gordon Trucking was the bee's knees (ie - no one else wanted to take a pay cut to do the work of two guards in a skeevy environment either).
While I was at the specialty clinic, I made friends with a lot of the employees. The cleaning staff in particular since they were usually the only folks around overnight. A couple of them were curious about my job, and I wasn't afraid of telling them the truth about it - it was a dead-end job meant for old farts who didn't feel ready to retire yet. No room for promotions, no raises, crappy benefits, and a lot of office drama. BUT, it was better than nothing.
As my time at the clinic drew to a close, I got a call from the office telling me that they had nowhere to put me when it was done so I'd be on-call again. Translation - I'd be back to making $120 paychecks again if I was lucky. I reminded them that we were closing in on a year and I still didn't have a permanent site, and asked if they had queues anywhere they could toss me into. Nope, sorry. Oh, and by the way, they were putting a brand new hire in the permanent guard position that had just opened at the clinic no one had told me about.
I was pretty livid, and I broke down at one of the custodial staff I talked to pretty regularly about how even though I'd been working nearly a year, we weren't any better off than we were when I wasn't because my pay was so sporadic. And it was making it impossible for me and Dave to get out of the hole we'd backslid into. She calmed me down and told me that there were some openings in her branch, and I should go talk to her boss in the basement. So I did.
He didn't seem very keen on me at first and said he had enough cleaners, but I told him I preferred graveyards and was willing to work holidays and weekends, and that seemed to completely 180 his opinion. He told me to go put in an application online ASAP. I did that as soon as I got back upstairs. And, long story short, I was soon employed.
Being a medical custodian is...really not all that bad now that I've gotten used to it, even if it doesn't leave me a lot of time during the week to get anything done. Its definitely a lot of work, and a whole lot of "DO NOT WANT" sometimes, but I leave every night feeling like I've accomplished something. Group Health takes very good care of their employees as well. $14.27 an hour to start with a yearly $1 raise, a retirement plan, an excellent health package, a mandatory 12 hour turnaround between shifts to allow people time to rest (unlike NWP who would call you just as your head was hitting the pillow after finishing one shift to ask if you'd mind filling an eight hour shift in the middle of bumfuck nowhere in...oh....NOW), and a cooperative learning program where, while employed with them, they will pay for your schooling to learn to fill other positions in the clinic with the agreement that you will work for them for the next five years in exchange. Like...seriously, if you wanted to, you could decide to study to be a pharmacist while mopping floors and they'd eat most of the cost.
I brought home my first four-figure paycheck this last week, and it felt really good. I'm hoping this will finally be a turning point for things.
You both take care!