Have I told you all everything going on at work? Ya know, because things haven't been crazy enough in the past.
Last April, our department had 22 positions, with 2 of them open at the time. Now we are down to 17 positions, with one of those people out for a long term illness. Another person has bid out to the production department, and just waiting until they let them move over. Then someone quit last month. So we were informed that instead of backfilling 2 positions (the quitter and the person going to production), that 3 of our positions and their associated duties are being moved over to the packing department. So the 2 people left would be training the packing employees and then the last person left would become a floater position for the department.
Then we had a plant wide meeting on a Tuesday. We already have plans to run every other weekend through the end of the year; that's what we've been doing all year currently. They said sales are up, up, up! This is pretty ridiculous, they are 15-20% higher than sales last year. Why?? The holidays are already the busy season for the company and we haven't even seen that spike in sales yet. So corporate is asking the plants to try and add a third weekend to the schedules. "We don't know how we would even do that, there's not really a way"
Then Thursday rolls around. "WE'RE DOING IT AND WE'RE DOING IT THIS WAY."
So my manager writes this
really bad chaotic schedule through mid-October. Like, I looked at this thing and thought, you've never written a schedule before. We're also told that basically they're now afraid to give the packing department the news about taking over those positions and duties, so it's being put on the back burner and we have to cover. Then the next Tuesday comes. We're still doing it, but we're doing it this way instead (which honestly makes a million times more sense than the first way but still sucks). So she tries to redo it. I go down and express my extreme displeasure with the schedule. Major beef is why do we have 2 floater positions already, who were supposed to help with coverage in the department, working 40hrs/5 days a week while the rest of us are on here 60-72hrs and 12 days in a row, etc. Manager adds floaters in a bit to 'help' but also makes things even more weird/chaotic and overall it's not a huge change for the entire 6ish week period.
So then manager wants us to do the schedule the rest of the year, together. Honestly I am all gung ho to take a crack at it, because at this point I am 99% sure I am the only one in the department who's had to write a schedule before. So I did this past weekend... knocked out like 80% of it in an hour. Looked at the big picture, started with everyone's normal hours and only moved them to cover PTO. What's left is making sure people stay under the max hours/days rules, and some days where several people could cover and I feel like they should work out between themselves who's doing it to make it fair. I know some people want lots of these hours, and some don't (like me - I have no desire to work over 60 hours a week, let's be honest, I'd like to work 40... but can understand the need if we are very thin due to people's PTO, and that's how everyone in my boat feels). And we've basically got 7, 8hr shifts, work every day the plant runs positions to fill, plus the floaters 'also have other duties now' so we'll say 2, 8hr 5 day work week positions to fill. That's a total of 472 hours a week when the plant runs the weekend, and we have 8 people to cover them.
I skipped the first two weeks of that schedule period, because someone had tried to start it... it's going to be crazy no matter what because we have someone out on paternity leave.
Yesterday I sent an email asking some questions like how many hours people want, and what is the max they'd like stay under, that kind of thing. I wanted everyone to have input because that is NOT what happened the first time around with our manager. The schedule I had started was public, and I had seen that someone had kept going after the first two crazy weeks, and at a quick glance it looked like they mainly moved what I had in there.
But apparently, no, I got an email back from this person that the mysterious 'majority' had agreed on it and feels they are more reasonable hours, no one feels overworked, etc...
EXCEPT THAT 1. THE
MAJORITY OF PEOPLE I HAVE BEEN TALKING TO SINCE THE WEEKEND DID NOT KNOW THIS EXISTED, AND 2. THERE ARE MULTIPLE INSTANCES OF PEOPLE BREAKING THE MAX HOURS/DAYS RULE AND ALSO PEOPLE STILL ON THE SCHEDULE WHO HAVE APPROVED PTO THOSE DAYS
So I don't know who this mysterious majority consists of... and this person did put themselves on there for 72hrs most of the time, because they are one of the people wanting them... well, bully for them, I didn't really want all of the hours I had for myself so far on what I'd done, and they gave me more. I just don't see a reason that the people who feel as I do have to work 200 hours more than the 'floaters' over the period, when they are available to chip in.
And at the very end of the day, this whole thing is a giant house of cards. The department really can't handle another person leaving right now, especially in my area with the crazy schedule.
So not only is this why I worked on my resume/linkedin all weekend, and am writing cover letters today... (and yes, I care about this even though I am also job hunting, because it's currently just an added stress and if I'm not pushing to finalize they'll wait/be changing things up into the first week of the period it covers)
And last night I told DH that, I may not be the first person to quit, but I **** well sure will be the second, because I'm not hanging around to deal with that nonsense.
