Domestic Geek

I don't know what's going on with my subconscious lately. The last two nights I've been having really bad dreams involving work. Hello, these are my days off. Don't think about this stuff. They are those kind of dreams that even if you wake up from it, you go right back into it when you fall asleep again. I hate those. I even remember them vividly, which is also weird because I usually can't remember what I dream a few hours later unless I write it down.

The night before last, the company had purchased a new digital printer of some sort because a new client demanded it. Well, it didn't come with instructions or any kind of support to teach anyone how to use it. They made me go try to figure it out, but I wasn't having any success. The plant manager came and yelled at me because I couldn't make it work. I yelled back that if he was so damned smart, he could figure it out. Don't know if it got me fired or not, as Marcus' alarm woke me up at that point.

Last night, they decided to hold a company BBQ in the room where we house the digital printers. They had a George Foreman grill set up next to one of them. Never mind that there was a live job that needed to go out the door in the midst of this and the grilling burgers was splattering grease everywhere. As soon as we all ate, we went back into the prepress department to discover that all of our Macs had been replaced by tiny little netbooks and they had hired 3 more operators and crammed us all onto one tiny bench. They wouldn't give me a mouse and some kid kept kicking my chair. Turns out one of the new hires was allowed to bring his kid to work because he couldn't afford day care. I was just getting up to walk out the door when I woke up this time.

It's no secret that I don't like my job or the way things are run at the company for which I work. The sad thing is, as ludicrous as the dreams were, they're not too far off from some stuff that has been happening lately. I'm angry and frustrated at work because I don't have any input because those in power really don't care. I know things will never change. I was hoping the scare of this bad economy would help, but it hasn't. In fact, it has caused even more ridiculous things.

I came to the sad realization on Saturday that I have been putting up with this crap for almost three years. For some reason, I thought I had only been there two. I know, for my own sanity, that I either need to find a new job or start my own business. I don't want to be one of those people, like some of my coworkers, that have worked there for 10 years or better complaining about the same stuff.

From the "Just When I Think I've Heard it All at Work" file:

Our company hired a new out-of-state salesman. Since his new laptop hadn't arrived yet, he had to access company email via webmail. Unfortunately, until the company upgrades Exchange, webmail doesn't work in IE 7 or above. The woman who oversees the sales staff sent Marcus and email asking what the salesman could do. He sent back a reply that he could use any other browser, i.e. Firefox, Safari, Opera, Chrome, etc., to check webmail. She shot back another email asking if he could put that into layman's terms. Um...yeah.

I've been trying not to write about work stuff on here anymore. Mostly because it's boring, crappy news. SSDD. I need to write about this, though, because it is really bugging me.

With the "economic downturn," first we started having to pay part of our health care and then they stopped contributing to our retirement plans. Next came the mandatory week furloughs. Normally, I would understand why we have to take a week off each quarter (using vacation if you've got it, unpaid if you don't), but the management has been calling in other people to work OT to get the work done while we're still being required to take mandatory time off. How is this saving the company any money? Not to mention that it's causing morale issues amongst those that are not offered overtime. It's lame. Couple that with a cryptic note in our paychecks today that doesn't really say whether we get the 4th of July off or not, and attitudes amongst my coworkers is dropping further in the toilet.

It's looking like once Marcus and I get back from vacation, I'm going to have to find a secondary source of income. I won't have any vacation hours left and I can barely pay my bills with my bare minimum paycheck. Now that I've gone back to my old position, my opportunities to sneak in an extra hour or two of overtime a week are gone.

I know I should be grateful I have a job. There are a lot of people out there who don't have one. Still, the nonsense occurring daily is driving me insane. I get grumpy when I can't afford yarn or Tokyo Joe's.

On a related note, I'd never be this hard up for a job. Apparently, if you want to work for the city of Bozeman, MT, you have to give up user names and passwords. According to an article on cnet:

The Rocky Mountain city instructs all job applicants to divulge their user names and passwords for "any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc."

Uh, invasion of privacy anyone? Shame on them for asking and shame on those who willingly give up such information. No freaking way am I giving those up for the possibility of getting a job.I agree that they have the right to base employment decisions on what an applicant may have posted online, but demanding access to logins? Disgraceful. I really am starting to wonder what country I live in anymore.

Thanks to Google Alerts, I found another "Domestic Geek" blog. This person has found some pretty cool things to share, so go check out another Domestic Geek. (We're going to take over the world!)

Oddly enough, I'm being neither Domestic or Geeky lately. OK, still knitting and stuff, so a little domestic. I still haven't finished coding this site. My 101 Things in 1001 Days site is atrocious! I found a neat Wordpress theme that I'd like to try to make work, but don't have the energy. I bought myself a new mouse for my birthday last week that is still sitting in its box. I want to sew. I want to scrapbook. I want to draw. I want to bake. I even want to clean my house. I just don't have the energy. I blame work.

Work is literally draining the life out of me. I'm on my feet 12-14 hours a day doing manual labor. It's not even work I enjoy doing. I've lost all respect for my superiors. I was actually told my my main supervisor the other day that my standards are too high and I need to quit expecting so much out of others. Really? Is it too much that we have guidelines as to how things are supposed to be done and I expect other employees to do things right? Whatever happened to expecting more and people will rise to the challenge? It isn't like we've been particularly busy and people have more than ample time to double check their work. There is absolutely no consequences for those employees that do a half-assed job and jack stuff up. Some days I'm amazed we're still in business with all the stuff that gets screwed up. <sarcasm>I guess I'm out of line.</sarcasm> Also, I don't have time to cook healthy meals for half the week, so I end up eating crap late at night. My insomnia is back. My feet hurt so bad some days I can barely walk. I know I need to find something else to do with my life, I just don't know what yet.

OK, that's not true. I do know what I want, I just don't know how to get there.

I know I haven't posted the details here yet about the crap that went down at work. I'll do a Reader's Digest version (as my Mom used to say) soon. Anyway, normally I'd be stressing because I'd be leaving for work in about 10 minutes, but tomorrow is my first day back on day shifts. w00t! The hell of working 6pm-6am (and worse the Midnight to 6am shift on Wednesdays) is over. I'm going to be doing a different job than I was and honestly, this new job will be very stressful and boring, but it will be a welcome break to the PITA that my old job had become. This was a choice of a lesser of two evils, so I'm still keeping my eyes open for a better opportunity. It's still 12 hour shifts (7am-7pm) and the schedule will still flip flop every 4 months. I'll get the details later in the week as to what days I will be working. At least I'll get my Friday night date night back with Marcus and I'll be able to go to my knitting groups again. That said, I'd better head off to bed. I sure hope somebody told the evening supervisor that my schedule changed and nobody tries calling me after midnight to find out why I didn't come to work. LOL