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And so I no longer have a job.
7 years ago
General
Now I am not posting this journal to beg for money or anything like that, I just kind of wanna talk about it.
So for 13 years I worked as a sub contractor. My boss was the contractor with a cleaning business, so basically they (I've had 3 bosses over these years) are contracted by this hospital to clean four floors of this one specific hospital building. My particular job is to empty trash cans and deal with cardboard boxes. It's a LOT harder than you may think. =U Anyway, since we are sub contractors working for a contractor our job security is based upon the hospital wanting to keep us or not. Well on this previous Sunday my boss called and said that the preceding Friday was our last day.
I am mildly upset as it was the perfect job, less than 3 hours per night, a 15 minute walk from my house, and best of all little interaction with people like customers. =P But at the same time various things about the job were starting to get increasingly annoying.
1: The job itself.
"Hey a medium sized trash can, let's fill it to the top with old magazines." Yeah, if you can barely move the trashcan what makes you think the bag can withstand that load?
"Hey let's empty out the fridge, but let's be sure to do it on Friday!" Piecemeal it through the week? Nah.
"Let's put a recyclable cardboard box into the kitchen trashcan and THEN dump coffee grounds on top of it." Thank you, I really enjoy that.
"Man I only drank half of this large 32 oz smoothy/drink. I'll just throw it away." There was a sink mere feet away, you could have dumped it out.
2: My fellow employees.
Now not all of them were bad, in fact we were all equals in this job as we are all literally the low rung of the ladder in terms of jobs. The other employees do the general cleaning per floor. So there were 4 people, and each one has a specific floor they clean. At the end of every day they will of course have their own bags of trash which are my responsibility to take care of. Generally these bags are there for me to take of when I arrive at work the next day. The issue I have with this is they seem to NOT tie the bag closed. =U "Why didn't you tell them to stop?" Because I am a non confrontational doormat that's why. >_>
3: My boss' boss.
Now I never had to interact with my boss' boss. All three of my bosses were very kind, but their boss, the hospital employee we collectively worked for, seemed to be a "wonderful" person. Both my second boss and the current one did not speak kindly of this guy. My most recent boss especially seemed to catch hell from him. You see when my 2nd boss was looking to sell the cleaning business to someone else the hospital boss wanted one of his friends to get the cleaning business. Totally not nepotism. =P Anyway, my 2nd boss obviously did not sell the business to this friend and opted to sell it to my current boss. In my current boss' opinion the hospital boss seemed to hold a grudge over this, petty I know.
Anyway, this hospital boss seemed to create issues making it harder for us to work. For example, we obviously need supplies like trash bags, toilet paper and paper towels. Well my boss sends hospital boss an e-mail about needing supplies and if we were lucky we'd get said supplies in a week. BUT, we weren't always lucky. There were at least 3 occasions where we didn't receive supplies for AN ENTIRE MONTH!!! It is worth mentioning my boss DID send repeat e-mails informing the hospital boss that we still needed supplies, and in fact at one point my boss went to the administration of the hospital. According to my boss the hospital boss didn't like that. Boo hoo. =P
Another issue, one of the many area we cleaned at one point changed their door lock. My key still opened said door as it was a master key for all 4 floors of this building. However for the employee that cleaned floor 4 their key did NOT open this new door lock. That happened at least 2 years ago, and despite asking the hospital boss for a new key we NEVER received a new key.
One other issue is at one point the lock leading out the loading dock ramp had changed. I used the loading dock ramp for several years as I had to take my trash out back to dispose of it in the trash compactor. Now their reason for changing this lock was security reasons, according to security too many people had a key to enter the loading dock ramp and they wanted to control who had those keys. Fair enough. There was an ID card scanner out there as well so I told my boss that I needed either a new key or an ID card to scan in order to get in... So she e-mailed the hospital boss about this. >_> One month and no key nor ID card. (It's worth mentioning that if I didn't have anyone to let me back in I would have to go ALL the way around the hospital just to get back inside. >_>) Anyway, my father helped me out by talking to security personally and on the same day we both went up to the hospital to speak with security about getting me a key or ID card. Withing minutes the security officer contacted Human Resources and I was sent there, and withing 10 minutes I had an ID card. If it took minutes to do this why couldn't hospital boss do this? Good question!!! Anyway, the person at HR told me that it would take a few hours for the ID card to process which is fully understandable.
So cut to 5 hours later, I go into work, scan the card and.......... ACCESS DENIED. >_> Okay, benefit of the doubt. Next day, officially 24 hours later, ACCESS DENIED. Now I trust this person at HR, they likely give workers these contractor ID cards all the time and know that it takes "a couple hours" to process, so I took what they had said in good faith. The problem is the person to give the okay is this hospital boss! >=U 48 hours later and STILL access denied, so my father and I spoke with security once more and they said that they would get it taken care of. This was on a Friday and I was told they wouldn't be able to do anything until Monday. Monday comes, I scan the ID card and... ACCESS GRANTED. Man I could not believe it. You know if I didn't know better I would think someone was trying to make our job harder. >_>
So yeah, hospital boss seemed like a scumbag all things considered. >_>
So I am upset to no longer have this perfect job, but at the same time relieved that I don't have to put up with the crap anymore, and that my boss isn't putting up with the hospital's crap either.
So for 13 years I worked as a sub contractor. My boss was the contractor with a cleaning business, so basically they (I've had 3 bosses over these years) are contracted by this hospital to clean four floors of this one specific hospital building. My particular job is to empty trash cans and deal with cardboard boxes. It's a LOT harder than you may think. =U Anyway, since we are sub contractors working for a contractor our job security is based upon the hospital wanting to keep us or not. Well on this previous Sunday my boss called and said that the preceding Friday was our last day.
I am mildly upset as it was the perfect job, less than 3 hours per night, a 15 minute walk from my house, and best of all little interaction with people like customers. =P But at the same time various things about the job were starting to get increasingly annoying.
1: The job itself.
"Hey a medium sized trash can, let's fill it to the top with old magazines." Yeah, if you can barely move the trashcan what makes you think the bag can withstand that load?
"Hey let's empty out the fridge, but let's be sure to do it on Friday!" Piecemeal it through the week? Nah.
"Let's put a recyclable cardboard box into the kitchen trashcan and THEN dump coffee grounds on top of it." Thank you, I really enjoy that.
"Man I only drank half of this large 32 oz smoothy/drink. I'll just throw it away." There was a sink mere feet away, you could have dumped it out.
2: My fellow employees.
Now not all of them were bad, in fact we were all equals in this job as we are all literally the low rung of the ladder in terms of jobs. The other employees do the general cleaning per floor. So there were 4 people, and each one has a specific floor they clean. At the end of every day they will of course have their own bags of trash which are my responsibility to take care of. Generally these bags are there for me to take of when I arrive at work the next day. The issue I have with this is they seem to NOT tie the bag closed. =U "Why didn't you tell them to stop?" Because I am a non confrontational doormat that's why. >_>
3: My boss' boss.
Now I never had to interact with my boss' boss. All three of my bosses were very kind, but their boss, the hospital employee we collectively worked for, seemed to be a "wonderful" person. Both my second boss and the current one did not speak kindly of this guy. My most recent boss especially seemed to catch hell from him. You see when my 2nd boss was looking to sell the cleaning business to someone else the hospital boss wanted one of his friends to get the cleaning business. Totally not nepotism. =P Anyway, my 2nd boss obviously did not sell the business to this friend and opted to sell it to my current boss. In my current boss' opinion the hospital boss seemed to hold a grudge over this, petty I know.
Anyway, this hospital boss seemed to create issues making it harder for us to work. For example, we obviously need supplies like trash bags, toilet paper and paper towels. Well my boss sends hospital boss an e-mail about needing supplies and if we were lucky we'd get said supplies in a week. BUT, we weren't always lucky. There were at least 3 occasions where we didn't receive supplies for AN ENTIRE MONTH!!! It is worth mentioning my boss DID send repeat e-mails informing the hospital boss that we still needed supplies, and in fact at one point my boss went to the administration of the hospital. According to my boss the hospital boss didn't like that. Boo hoo. =P
Another issue, one of the many area we cleaned at one point changed their door lock. My key still opened said door as it was a master key for all 4 floors of this building. However for the employee that cleaned floor 4 their key did NOT open this new door lock. That happened at least 2 years ago, and despite asking the hospital boss for a new key we NEVER received a new key.
One other issue is at one point the lock leading out the loading dock ramp had changed. I used the loading dock ramp for several years as I had to take my trash out back to dispose of it in the trash compactor. Now their reason for changing this lock was security reasons, according to security too many people had a key to enter the loading dock ramp and they wanted to control who had those keys. Fair enough. There was an ID card scanner out there as well so I told my boss that I needed either a new key or an ID card to scan in order to get in... So she e-mailed the hospital boss about this. >_> One month and no key nor ID card. (It's worth mentioning that if I didn't have anyone to let me back in I would have to go ALL the way around the hospital just to get back inside. >_>) Anyway, my father helped me out by talking to security personally and on the same day we both went up to the hospital to speak with security about getting me a key or ID card. Withing minutes the security officer contacted Human Resources and I was sent there, and withing 10 minutes I had an ID card. If it took minutes to do this why couldn't hospital boss do this? Good question!!! Anyway, the person at HR told me that it would take a few hours for the ID card to process which is fully understandable.
So cut to 5 hours later, I go into work, scan the card and.......... ACCESS DENIED. >_> Okay, benefit of the doubt. Next day, officially 24 hours later, ACCESS DENIED. Now I trust this person at HR, they likely give workers these contractor ID cards all the time and know that it takes "a couple hours" to process, so I took what they had said in good faith. The problem is the person to give the okay is this hospital boss! >=U 48 hours later and STILL access denied, so my father and I spoke with security once more and they said that they would get it taken care of. This was on a Friday and I was told they wouldn't be able to do anything until Monday. Monday comes, I scan the ID card and... ACCESS GRANTED. Man I could not believe it. You know if I didn't know better I would think someone was trying to make our job harder. >_>
So yeah, hospital boss seemed like a scumbag all things considered. >_>
So I am upset to no longer have this perfect job, but at the same time relieved that I don't have to put up with the crap anymore, and that my boss isn't putting up with the hospital's crap either.
As for the rest of the journal, I do hope the best for you in the future
There are jobs out there, just not as perfect as this one.
It sounded like that hospital boss was a nightmare to deal with, and couldn't be bothered to help you do your job.
What are the chances you'll get contracted somewhere else? I doubt it'll be as convenient as your old 15 minute walk though.
As I said I can only speak on what I have heard as I never met this boss, so most of it could be hearsay.
No idea really.
Could be, if all your accounts of him are second hand, they could be embellished.
Well, one door shutting could be another door opening as they say. I hope you find something soon.
Now what are fabrications are the two key situations, and the time it took for us to receive supplies, those were 100% truth.
Indeed, I will however take December as a vacation of sorts as like my mother says most places would just be hiring for holidays and might not need someone afterwards.
This is true, there are a lot of temp jobs in holiday period, and these can sometimes be the most unpleasant. Don't take it if you don't want or need to.
I will say, looking for a new job in December might not be the best idea, since all the work you find will be seasonal. If your savings can hold up take some time to yourself, then in January jump back into job hunting.
My mother already made that suggestion.
Hope you get something new and good soon enough. Especially where you don't have to deal with annoyances like that.
1. Yeah, straight up sheets of paper are heavy. Same with plant matter and such. Recyclables in garbage and garbage in recyclables always get in the way, and drinks should be going into sinks, not garbages.
2. Yes! Absolutely, tie off your garbage bags. Especially horrible is if they just dump one out on top so that they can reuse the bag.
3. Definitely dealt with people who seemed to think that their friends deserved special treatment and to be given a positon they don't have any qualifications for.
Had a point where a lock to a door I had to use got replaced and we never got a new key, because the manager in charge at that time thought we didn't need one. We had to prop the door open, which ended up getting other managers to complain. Most of them agreed that we should get our own key, but we never did.
While some things can been seen as an oversight, it sounds like that was happening too much. Punishing you, making it harder because their friend didn't get the company, that's retaliation. Not only bad business practice, but outright illegal.
I mean.... yeah, I quit my own job this year, and have been unemployed since, but it was out of my own choice.
At least you're out of that place, and here's hoping you find new ground to stand on soon!