I used to be the biggest money chasing "whore" at work. If there was any bit of extra work that could be done on my day off, I was basically shaking my ass at it and begging for it. For a while, back a few years ago, we had a customer who would just send us samples all the time, including weekends and then expected and demanded, at times, we get them done overnight. There were times I was working even 7 days a week, only to see my checks double in size. It becomes addicting, or I have the personality that likes making things like that addicting. That particular customer wanted/expected too much and I don't think management ever really had a good open relationship with them that eventually, we lost them. About that time, we also lost the "supervisor" that didn't ever say no to allowing me to come in to work any time I wanted it.
Things slowed down, over time, it took about a year, I would constantly be asking "is there OT this weekend?" much like a child, always wanting more. In my lame little passdowns, I would always add "I can come in if needed over the weekend." Gradually, we moved away from that mentality, then 2-3 years ago, we were even hit with that horrible pay cut. I wasn't sure I was even going to stick around, I was at a loss as to what to do. I sacrificed my truck, which I was paying close to $700 a month and luckily, we were about done paying for the RV, which saved us another $343.
I have been told that things will pick up a couple of times and I always say I am ready whenever I am needed, but uhh, I guess I have learned to enjoy/appreciate my time off. This week, again, I was told there would be a huge job coming for FIB/TEM (with 24 samples) and they even let me "practice" over there Tuesday night with a job that had 4 samples, I worked on two of them. For them to do those 24 samples within 5 days, we would have to work 24 hours a day on them because we can only prep about 2-3 a shift, things just take awhile and they can't be rushed, or you will be prepping double or triple samples. I am the only one working nights and there are only two people left who run the FIB tool during the week, the work has just diminished that much. There was a time we had about 15 people to cover FIB and TEM/SEM. Three of us moved over to chemistry to survive the layoffs, the rest were laid off or moved on.
The work didn't come in Wednesday when it was supposed to, then it didn't come in Thursday. Wife was ready to sacrifice me, saying instead of going to the renaissance festival, which is our plans for this weekend, we can move that up a weekend and you can work all weekend. I said not so fast, if the work had come in Thursday, I might have gone along with that idea, but I am not going to sacrifice our plans, my parents are supposed to drive up and join us, and then the samples don't even come in and now we lost the weekend. Of course I still love money more than the next guy, but I am not so needy of it anymore. We have been living within our means lately and I get extra money from having renters, which other than putting up with extra people and their dog, I don't have to do much for it. I told them I would go in Sunday night, if the work comes in, but even that sounds like a pain in the ass.
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