Work Woes

I have breasts, therefore I'm supposed to like shopping. Actually, I usually do enjoy shopping. I find grocery shopping fun. Shoe shopping?! Heaven! Clothes shopping... yep, like that too.

Shopping as part of my job, not so much. When I first started this position and was given a company credit I thought, "Woo hoo! This is going to be great." Well, that wore off quickly, very quickly. Shopping on someone else's time with someone else's money isn't so pleasurable. It's work. It's time consuming. I go to Subway, Chronic Taco, Starbucks, Jamba Juice, Target, Wal-Mart, Ross, Best Buy, Circuit City, BJ's, Olive Garden, AV Mall, Kohl's, and other various places as needed to ensure our employees have gift cards to their favorite places. I prefer to purchase these cards online, however, some of the Supervisors NEED the gift cards RIGHT NOW and to multiple places. And they always want some that are only for $5, which most companies do not offer online.

It's a huge waste... but hey, it's my job so I deal. Well, actually I vent a lot, then deal. I've tried to limit the number of times I go out shopping to just once a week, but met much resistance. I've asked that if I do go shopping can it be for $25 or more to make the trip worthwhile. Seems silly to send me across town to purchase a single $5 gift card to Bronze Buns. No, seriously, I've done that.

I've never worked for a company that seems to live by the "We don't pay you to think" mentality. My screen saver now has this creeping by whenever it times out: WDPYTT. This is to remind me to stop saving the company money, stop working smarter, just work. It's very difficult. I don't like it. I hate being so wasteful, but that is our culture so I try to comply.

I've talked to my supervisor several times about this and other issues. I explained that the cost of my driving all over town is crazy, especially with gas prices being what they are. That I don't like having hundreds and hundreds of dollars in gift cards on me. That expenses for our quarterly celebrations are out of control. And hey while I'm on a rant, what's up with the guy sleeping on the job. Her responses:

"Well, we really need to have a variety of gift cards for our employees. I know it seems like a lot of driving, but..." I don't remember what else she said, I kind of zoned out. Talking to her is like trying to explain statistics to my dog.

"If you're worried about being mugged why not carry the gift cards in a separate bag. We can replace the gift cards and if someone tries to mug you, you can just give them the bag with the gift cards." Great idea, can't believe I didn't think of that! Then I could re-purchase all those #%!!$%@^&^@@ gift cards again the next day.

"We used to spend a lot more on our quarterly celebrations! They used to purchase T-shirts, goodie-bags full of all sorts of things, decorations, big elaborate meals, etc. Thousands and thousands of dollars. We don't spend quite that much anymore." Oh, I didn't realize we used to spend A LOT MORE. Thanks for clearing that up. I know we just closed a facility, so we may as well spend the money like we're Bill Gates, cause it'll be at least several more weeks before they close our doors. Hey, you know what else is just as relevant, I used to get an allowance, but I don't anymore and that sucks. Hey, can I have a $5 gift card to Wal-Mart?

"I know he sleeps on the job an it can't be helped. When a customer puts him on hold he usually wakes up right away. He falls asleep in my meetings all the time, but, you know, these things happen." Oh, silly me! Yes, these things do happen. I can't wait to start catching up on my cat-naps at work. What a relief knowing I don't have to spend my eights at work awake anymore. I wish HR would have covered this in Orientation.

I report to Sponge Bob Square Pants. Ugh.

I've talked to SBSP's boss, as his office is four feet from my desk. SBSP's office is in another part of the building. I see the Big Boss a lot more than I see SBSP and have a better working relationship with him due to proximity. When I mentioned my concerns to him he listened and we tried to figure out a solution. We thought maybe my counter-part and I could report to a different supervisor, but the most logical person is attendance challenged. Another logical person is heading up a big project and just is too overwhelmed right now.

In fact we used to report to a different supervisor because SBSP is so conflict adverse that my predecessors took advantage of that. Then that supervisor started working the night shift, so we got stuck with SBSP. Sigh.

Perhaps I need to shop for a new job? Maybe when I redeem my $5 gift card to Subway I could fill out an application. Did you want to make that a combo?