Here I am, sitting home on a Thursday night. I can't complain, it is the true shift I am supposed to be working. It is a throw back to when we were on shifts for the fab covering 24/7. When I started nights, I worked D-shift, and that was Wednesday-Friday and every other Saturday. I stayed on that shift when I started with PCAL, but at some point, they let us work OT. This started a period of non-stop OT that lasted a few years. When I joined PCAL, it had been kind of a joke. Work did not get done as it was supposed to, so at a certain time after I had been sufficiently trained I asked if working OT was a possibility. Until the financial crisis in 2008, I pretty much worked non-stop OT, nobody really seemed to care, we always had more than enough work. In 2008, all of a sudden, things changed. I ended up on furlough, which is a fancy word for working the absolute minimum to let you still be employed, but you won't get to forty hours a week. I would work two weeks, then sit at home for two weeks, but it would be in split pay periods. After that time period, I remember one of my conservative coworkers saying we will never have it like we did, with the unlimited OT, I just nodded. By the start of the following year we were at it again with the OT. We were now an independent lab and we got a big customer who could not get enough samples from us. We had too much work for the people left still doing what I do, imaging. Again, I enjoyed a bunch of OT until about last year. We started slowing down and this whole year has been lame. I have worked OT maybe a handful of weekends, mostly because others went on vacation, not because we have a lot of work. As a result, I was finally asked to cut out my extra night. I had been told about a year ago to continue working the four twelve hour shifts and then on the short week to do four ten hour shifts or a variation to stay under forty. Being greedy and hopeful like I am, I continued doing the first three nights as twelve hours and then hoping there would be enough or necessary work to keep me all night, I would come in Thursday and either fulfill the forty hour schedule or benefit from them needing the work completed and stay a full night.
From now on, I am to work the four full twelve hours shifts Monday through Thursday nights one week, and Monday through Wednesday nights the following week, unless work picks up, I added the last part, as I always do. I have always argued that it is cheaper to pay me and the others OT rather than hire someone new. I don't know if that is the reason, but what used to be a group of twelve or thirteen people doing TEM is now down to a group of three people prepping and an extra guy with a PhD who helps in imaging. If I go by history, I just have to wait, work will pick up in time, it always does, and because we have so few people doing what we do, they don't have many options but to let us work until we break. In the meantime, I have to learn to relax I guess. I did have a fine afternoon walking with my older boy at the mall and eating there, I fell asleep as soon as I sat to watch the NFL game on TV. I woke up after midnight, and here I am at 4:15am writing this. Right now, I feel great, I am even thinking I should go to work and workout in our great new gym. Nah, I need time away from that place.
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