Friday OT #2 - Get A Job

[throwittoblythe]

It was the sharing of the hotel rooms right .

But on a more serious note, did it have to do with your colleague who was struggling, but you knowing that he was on the chopping block when you shouldn't have?

Honestly, the sharing of the hotel rooms was the beginning of the end. Not a deal-breaker by itself, but just a sign of a poor culture. It was the straw that caused me to start looking elsewhere. (PS - I never did have to share a room with anyone.) The company has transitioned from a small family firm to being owned by a private capital firm on Wall Street. The company changed in the blink of an eye. No longer worried about helping people or solving client problems, the focus is on "growth" and "top line margin" and all the other corporate BS that I didn't sign up for.

This is probably a discussion for another thread, but I was more honest with others about how I was doing that I've ever been at any other job. I even went so far as to say (to a company leader) "I'm struggling to see how I'm ever going to be successful at this company. I just can't see what the future could possibly hold for me here. I want to find a way to fix it and be successful here, but I'm struggling to find it." His response? "welp, hang in there!" As a leader, when someone says that to you, you need to give them reason for hope. A vision of how things will get better. And a commitment that you'll do everything you can to help that person (assuming they are worth keeping and I am).

I heard a quote on a podcast this morning that nailed how I feel about this company. "If we can see the promise, we are willing to pay the price." This job was freaking hard. I put 40,000 miles on my company truck last year. Probably spent 50-60 nights away from home. The "promise" was that there were huge financial gains on the back side of all that. Once I realized those were all a mirage, I was done.

 

[SCNCY]

Honestly, the sharing of the hotel rooms was the beginning of the end. Not a deal-breaker by itself, but just a sign of a poor culture. It was the straw that caused me to start looking elsewhere. (PS - I never did have to share a room with anyone.) The company has transitioned from a small family firm to being owned by a private capital firm on Wall Street. The company changed in the blink of an eye. No longer worried about helping people or solving client problems, the focus is on "growth" and "top line margin" and all the other corporate BS that I didn't sign up for.

This is probably a discussion for another thread, but I was more honest with others about how I was doing that I've ever been at any other job. I even went so far as to say (to a company leader) "I'm struggling to see how I'm ever going to be successful at this company. I just can't see what the future could possibly hold for me here. I want to find a way to fix it and be successful here, but I'm struggling to find it." His response? "welp, hang in there!" As a leader, when someone says that to you, you need to give them reason for hope. A vision of how things will get better. And a commitment that you'll do everything you can to help that person (assuming they are worth keeping and I am).

I heard a quote on a podcast this morning that nailed how I feel about this company. "If we can see the promise, we are willing to pay the price." This job was freaking hard. I put 40,000 miles on my company truck last year. Probably spent 50-60 nights away from home. The "promise" was that there were huge financial gains on the back side of all that. Once I realized those were all a mirage, I was done.

Yeah, I could see the venture capital (vulture capital, as a professor told my class in college) firm being the problem. All they want to do is squeeze as much margin out of the business so they can sell it a couple years down the road. They don't care about the long term health of the company, just the short term.

 

[Clonedogg]

I had worked in retail for quite a while, did the manager bit for a few years, then I was just tired (literally) of the adjusting schedule. Morning, evenings, overnights, just all over the place. So I wanted out, and bad, I took a job slinging beverages for a major local distributor. I would load orders onto a half-pallet and put them in the truck, for the delivery drivers the next morning. It was second shift, not ideal, but a consistent schedule. I HATED it, I sweat my @$$ off every day one summer. I was also about 10-15 years to old for the job, most of the crew was in their early 20s, I was early 30s. I had dreams that first month about the new job, we wore headsets that would tell you what to pick, and you could speak commands back to it too. I know I was talking a lot in my sleep that month, nightmare.

I toughed it out for 4-6 months until I finally got a job doing what I went to school for.

 

[somecyguy]

In HS, I worked for a small corporate farm each summer, but as a soon to be senior, I didn't want to work outside again, so I applied and got a job at the University Motel on Duff doing housekeeping. No idea if it's still there, but it was not the nicest place to stay, I'll leave it at that.

I'm a fairly organized person even as a kid, but it took one morning for me to realize, I couldn't keep up with what was needed to turn a room over. And once the complaints started coming in, I knew one day was all I was going to last.

On the upside, my parents left on vacation the day before, so I threw a huge rager at my house that week.

 

[coolerifyoudid]

About 20 years ago, we had an employee that went out for a smoke break and never came back. Left pictures of his kids on the desk and some other personal effects. He was an *******, so nobody was upset or even reached out to him about it. Hindsight, someone could have abducted him and we'd have never known.

 

[Sigmapolis]

My first job was the mother of all stupid. I had fun, but there isn't a company run worse in the world.

Just one example --

After I left, a young man from Ohio was hired there. He worked there for two years to general success and, during the height of the COVID pandemic, he was promoted.

Only they didn't raise his salary more than a token 2% or so.

He was concerned with this, and went back to the powers-that-be and said he didn't want the promotion and responsibility that came with it without a commensurate increase in his salary.

So they... fired him. For "not being a team player."

I heard about this and hired him myself. Had him a year and promoted him once and he's making a run at being promoted again in the second year. Their loss was my gain.

 

[throwittoblythe]

In HS, I worked for a small corporate farm each summer, but as a soon to be senior, I didn't want to work outside again, so I applied and got a job at the University Motel on Duff doing housekeeping. No idea if it's still there, but it was not the nicest place to stay, I'll leave it at that.

I'm a fairly organized person even as a kid, but it took one morning for me to realize, I couldn't keep up with what was needed to turn a room over. And once the complaints started coming in, I knew one day was all I was going to last.

On the upside, my parents left on vacation the day before, so I threw a huge rager at my house that week.

One of my friends BFs worked at that hotel as the night desk person during our days at ISU. She used to visit him during his working hours and they'd go "enjoy each others company" in one of the rooms. Of course, housekeeping could never be told, so the room would never get cleaned ahead of the next person renting it.

 

[VeloClone]

Since I do our hiring, I have a thousand stories, but none of them particularly interesting.

I'm continually amazed at how many people set up interviews and never show up, how many accept jobs and never show up, and how many come to work for a day or two and then are never heard from again (I kinda get the last one, as we do flooring installation, and it's not for everyone (though I'd never personally leave a job without explanation)).

Right now, it's 50/50 on showing up for interviews, maybe 10% that never show up at all once hired.

This is right on target with my experience. Generally when they accept the job and never show up we count it up to the fact that we have pre-employment drug screening. I have had one guy get up and walk out of the room after we have given him a conditional offer and he accepted it then we told him about the drug screening. He said, "Yeah, that isn't going to work." and walked out. We appreciated his honesty so we didn't have to waste time doing paperwork and waiting for someone who would never show up.

 

[Bipolarcy]

I've got several a couple about me and one about someone I replaced.

My first full-time job in my chosen newspaper profession, I didn't get the job. They hired someone else whose resume said he was the editor of his college paper and had extensive experience in the journalism field, including as a photographer. I found out later from the editor, who wanted to hire me, that I didn't get the job because, while I had studied journalism in college for several years and been a sports stringer for four years, the publisher didn't want me because I hadn't actually graduated ... yet. So they hired the other guy with the fancy resume.

They should have been clued in when on his first day on the job as he was being given a tour of the shop, he pointed to a waxer and asked, what's that? Anyone who had even sniffed a newspaper shop knew what a waxer was back in those days. A waxer used to be an integral part of putting together a paper. The newsprint comes out of developer, is cut to size and you run it through the waxer so it's sticky on the back so it will stick to the tabloid sheet when you're laying out the paper. This process has all been taken over by computer now and the pages are built that way. But back in that day, that was the way we did it. Hell, I even knew what a waxer was and I had only been a stringer, who had no experience at laying out pages.

They let that massive hint slide right by, however, but when he started turning in copy that was barely literate, they fired him after a week. The only thing he COULD do was take pictures, which is good for a sports editor, but not if you can't write, especially on a one-man sports staff. You're that one man. They hired me the next day.

This guy sued the paper because he had uprooted his family and moved to Iowa only to be fired a week later. I think they settled for $5,000, even though he'd lied on his resume. They later found out (they should have checked before they hired him) that the college he graduated from (some place in Louisiana that I'd never heard of before) didn't even have a school newspaper that his resume claimed he was the editor of.

Since this got so long, I'll post the other ones later ... or not

 

[dahliaclone]

Years and years ago I met with a known 'media' member in Iowa along with his also known business partner to discuss working with them on Cyclone-related content. It took all of 30 seconds to want out of that meeting. I walked out of the meeting and never looked back or spoke to them again.

 

[carvers4math]

I worked a variety of waitress jobs in college and grad school. Usually two at the same time. Took a job as a hostess at a place where you seated people both in the bar and the restaurant part. They told me to wear a dress. So I show up the first night in a pretty normal black dress. They told me I needed to wear something more “hot.” So the next time I work, I showed up in a dress that was pretty short and fairly snug but had a modest neckline. Not good enough. So they tell me to just come to work and they have some old dresses the cocktail waitresses used to wear, they will have me wear that. So I show up and they give me this ugly metallic thing that is a size 9 and I wear either a 3 or a 5 at the time. The halter cut down to my waist and was so loose it flapped around in the breeze. Told them I could not wear that, they said I had to, and I walked out the door. Don’t think I need to look like a solid gold dancer to hand people menus and walk them to a table.

 

[SCNCY]

I worked a variety of waitress jobs in college and grad school. Usually two at the same time. Took a job as a hostess at a place where you seated people both in the bar and the restaurant part. They told me to wear a dress. So I show up the first night in a pretty normal black dress. They told me I needed to wear something more “hot.” So the next time I work, I showed up in a dress that was pretty short and fairly snug but had a modest neckline. Not good enough. So they tell me to just come to work and they have some old dresses the cocktail waitresses used to wear, they will have me wear that. So I show up and they give me this ugly metallic thing that is a size 9 and I wear either a 3 or a 5 at the time. The halter cut down to my waist and was so loose it flapped around in the breeze. Told them I could not wear that, they said I had to, and I walked out the door. Don’t think I need to look like a solid gold dancer to hand people menus and walk them to a table.

Just reading this gives me the vibes of working at Maudes in Ames, or a similar steak house. Some kind of old school establishment where old men go and have business dinners.

 

[Bipolarcy]

I took a job one summer on a roofing crew. it was a massive crew with about 30 people working on the job. They were reroofing a huge industrial building. The roof of this place had steel hills and valleys, sort of like a ruffles potato chip, only made of steel. The hills were about 2-3 feet tall and the valleys were v-shaped at the bottom, not flat. There was no flat spot to walk on. You had to walk on the sides of these hills and valleys. We were putting a cap on the roof so it would be flat when we were done. I spent the morning hauling the cap material over acres and acres of uneven roof to the site where they were installing it. I made it to lunch break, where I ate in my car, but when I got out of the car, I almost passed out from the pain in my feet from walking with my feet at an angle all day. I had blisters on my blisters in my work boots. I hopped back in the car and drove off without telling anyone and never came back.

 

[cyclones500]

Often, you only have to schedule an interview in order to show you are "trying" and can keep collecting unemployment.

I had someone ask for a letter stating "not hiring now" so she could give to her case worker to show she was "trying" and keep her benefits coming.

Don't forget using someone else's phone number (or just randomly putting one down). My wife has been subject of someone using her number a lot this year. "I applied but they never called"

 

[Bipolarcy]

My very first real job, not including being a newspaper delivery boy (I had both a daily route delivering the Des Moines Register and a weekly route, delivering Grit, a tabloid magazine) was at a turkey hatchery. My aunt worked there and got me the job. I was 16. The first day, they handed me a bucket of white paint and a paint brush and told me to paint some outdoor cages. This was very early in the morning and there was lots of dew on everything.

So I start painting the cages, and it's not going well. The dew is making the paint not want to stick to the wood of these cages. This is not immediately apparent as you are so close to the work as to not be able to tell the difference, especially for an inexperienced painter. I continue doing the job and through the morning, the dew starts evaporating and the paint starts going on thicker. By the time I get done with the row of cages, and step back to look at it, I immediately see the problem, the first few cages look like they've barely been painted, but start getting whiter and whiter the farther along the line I went. I tell this to my boss and say they'll need another coat of paint. He tells me to forget it for now and to start painting the main building, a quonset hut.

I never signed up to be a painter, but, OK. I only need to paint the front and back of the building, so I get started, painting the lowest parts I can reach without a ladder. So I've got both sides of the door painted as far as I can reach when the boss comes up with a ladder. Now I tried, I really tried, but I am deathly afraid of heights. I just couldn't bring myself to climb that ladder very high. I did what I could, but I wasn't getting anywhere near the peak of this building. I told my boss, and he said to forget it for now and had me do some other menial tasks for the rest of the day and he finished painting. I was told not to come back the next day.

 

[throwittoblythe]

Years and years ago I met with a known 'media' member in Iowa along with his also known business partner to discuss working with them on Cyclone-related content. It took all of 30 seconds to want out of that meeting. I walked out of the meeting and never looked back or spoke to them again.

My sophomore year at ISU, I get a call from someone who went to my HS. This is not a person I knew well, but it was a small HS where you kind of know everyone, at least a little bit. She was 3 years ahead of me or so and also a student at ISU.

She says "So, I've heard really good things about you and the work you're doing in your engineering program. I work for this really cool company. I've done their internship program for the last two summers and made about $8,000 each summer. I'd really love if you'd come interview for one of our summer positions."

$8,000 was about double what I'd make in an engineering internship. I was also very naïve, so I was excited to interview for the job.

I met her and her "boss" at the MU. He pulls out a binder that is laminated pages from a powerpoint presentation. He starts walking me through what they do, which is sell kids educational material door-to-door. That's right, it was an MLM and the girl from my school would be my up-line. I didn't even know what MLMs were, but I got skeptical fast.

"We'll move you to Texas for the summer. Doesn't that sound fun?"
"How will I get there?"
"We'll pay your airfare to get down there and give you $250 to live on for the first month. You'll be making so much in commissions that you'll have enough for a sweet apartment and a first class ticket at the end of the summer!"

"What if I don't make any sales? How will I get home?"
"Well, that's not gonna happen. But yeah, if it doesn't work out, it's on you to get back to Iowa."

I filled out the application with a bunch of false contact information GTFO.

 

[dahliaclone]

You aren't in the cave anymore...

Totally my bad and removed

 

[VeloClone]

Totally my bad and removed

No worries, I just thought you would want to know.

 

[BCClone]

Had a hired worker miss his drug test. Was in the hospital because he ODd on a masking agent.

One woman started at 6:30 am. Kept her coat and purse with her on the production floor. Needed to use the restroom, which you had to cross the warehouse for. There were bright yellow lines to stay in that took you there. She wanted a short cut I guess so she tried to go between these rows of three high stacked pallets full of product. I think I stacked those and they had maybe 6-8” of space. I told HR something was off. HR told me she admitted to being drunk from last night. She was celebrating her new job. She was fired by 9.

I had to let someone go because they stunk so bad, no one would work with them.

 

[Sousaclone]

Was on a project doing a steel truss retrofit. At the time we were rivet busting, which is hard, dirty, work. Probably saw a dozen guys come in (lots of them with "show" muscles) spend the first day with the foreman and most of them didn't show up the second day. Some left at lunch, and at least one of them didn't even make it half way up the stair tower to the bridge.

I mean, who signs up for a job working on a bridge 150' in the air and then decides that they are scared of heights?