Why I Hate My Job!

I'm sure I can break this down into three episodes" Part one, The Co-workers. Part Two, The Job I do, and Part Three The Company.

Today's episode the Co-workers!

So it's a Monday which is massive suckage to begin with, but it also sucks even more because for the first 2 hours of anybody shift, it is filled with the overpowering buzz of my co-workers bragging, sharing, and prattling on about their weekend. A majority of the people I work with are well diverse, they all like and do different things, they only seem to congregate in herds when discussing Television, Managment and other co-workers.

After six years of studying the species I've dubbed, Oldus Unionus Overwieghtus Womanus, I've come to notice a couple of things, in my office there are two types of people, the "Minimals" and the "Load Bearers".

Spotting The Minimal is easy, in an 8 hour workday, they do what is at least expected of them, and they only do what instructed to do i.e. You say "Hey put these 10 boxes on top of each other" they say "Sure!" and they do. But problems occur when the stack of boxes gets to high for them to stack the last 3, so they sit there and wait 15 mins for you to come back and tell them to use a ladder and stack the last 3. After they're done stacking the 10 boxes they will sit and engage in idle chat until you come back and give them another task.

They also have another quark, if you give them a set amount of work they must get done in an 8 hour day, they will do one of two things (which gets broken down even further, I'll explain in a bit) First if they feel the work is too much for them to accomplish in an 8 hour period (stack 50 boxes) they will complain, unionize, and next thing you know you're asking them to stack 25 boxes in an 7 hour period (you now have to give them a 30 min lunch and two 15 min breaks). That's number one, the second park of the quark is, if the work you give them is acceptable and they agree (25 boxes in an 7 hour period) they will (here's where it gets tricky) either take the full 7 hours to stack the 25 boxes or they will stack the 25 boxes in 1 hour (which is what it would normally take) and spend the rest of the 6 hours in idle chat or consuming. That is how The Minimal works. Their attributes are, they are normally overwieght, loud, complain loudly about anything, enjoy thier milk and honey job, and refer to people below them as "Idiots"

Explaining The Load Bearer is easy, and can be done with one sentence. The Load Bearer gets to make up the work that minimal doesn't do. The Load Bearer does this by choice only. They are not forced to do it, they have the same pay scale, hours, union as The Minimal, but they feel it is thier duty and job to go above and beyond what the job is. The Load Bearer can usually be spotted by thier contempt for thier co-workers, constant complaining about their job, refering to EVERYBODY as idiots, and red circles around the temple area of the head from constant rubbing.

I am a Load Bearer, I will stack 80 boxes in a day (I don't really stack boxes for a living, but it's just as mind numbing) make the same amount of money as a 25 box stacker. I get yelled at and told to get back to work when I take the last 15 mins of my shift to sit idle and talk with the only other guy in my office who isn't a Minimal. He's not really a Load Bearer, but a half-breed, He's a Minimal Load Bearer. He's one of those people who does the work of a Minimal but has the attributes of a Load Bearer. Stacks 30 boxes instead of 25, pretends he's stacked 100, engages in idle chit chat, but complains about the people who engage in idle chit chat.

My office is pretty much 90% Minimal and 10% Load Bearer, so it makes for some tense times when I'm told I need to pick up the pace becuase we have 1200 boxes that need to be stacked in an 8 hour day.


Stay tuned for the next installment Part 2, My mind numbing job.