Workplace Horror Stories!

All the summer students on my crew have now quit. The last two walked out last shift. Looks like my machine will be running with just two operators for the foreseeable future and I'm not killing myself to make any big numbers. Company should have thought of that when they fired the guy I used to work with who showed up every day and did his job.
Company has known for four years that they would be losing a large chunk of their workforce through upcoming retirements and that it takes about three years for a trainee to become comfortable working on these machines.

Now all these old retired guys are getting called about coming back to work as contractors because the company can't fill all the spots. Twenty years ago, hell even ten years ago when I started, people were lined up outside applying to get in. But the company hasn't kept up with inflation, and it's not like they can't afford to. This is one of the world's leading brand names recognized in every country on the planet. No reason they should be pulling this penny pinching now when for the first time in decades they can't keep enough workforce in the plant due to wages. Those salary guys sure haven't had their purse strings tightened like the labor guys have. They've flagrantly wasted millions of dollars on nonsense none of the employees want and act like they did us a big favor when they should have just invested those resources into wages. I'm hoping the new plant manager we just got doesn't make the same mistakes the other guy did.

They're also giving away new jackets for the anniversary of the plant. I declined a fitting since I just ended up burning the last one they gave me.

I think the heat in the plant is driving people crazy. Today we had four mechanics and a prep guy all quit, we had one of the cafeteria employees have a freak out and get taken from the building by security and considering what he was saying to his coworkers on the way out the door I think it's safe to say he's getting fired. We also had one of our "special" workers follow a female employee into the women's washroom today. Now in his defense, she looks pretty much identical to a 26 years old Jaime Pressly, but when he went to break I saw two plant higher ups waiting for him and I strongly suspect he'll get his walking papers. Also four guys who have their time in said enough of this and put in their retirement papers today. And this was only the first shift of our three shift weekend.

There were more issues with the B team and one seemed to start talking about leaving again. Kind of numb to it now.


Somebody else might have fucked up big enough to put themselves in jeopardy. I'm very disappointed but she stopped listening to me a long time ago anyway.

70 hiring spots open in the plant and only 20 applications. We still have people who have been here for years now looking to leave. Another guy on my crew who took the team player initiative and got shit on for it has a new job interview this week. I warned him he would get burned and he did.
Company has decided they want to run through the labor day holiday and asked for volunteers. I declined and I am high enough on the seniority list now that they have a lot more people to run through before I get volun-told I have to work. I highly suspect they are going to be taking Christmas away from us this year so I am going to take my holidays while I can get them.

Poor Dan. I actually know Dan as we went to Junior High School together. Dan's fairly new to my shop but he's worked in the plant for four years in other shops. Last week he loaded a product on our machine and ended up building five tires before he scanned the product ID ticket into the computer so the computer could confirm it was the right product. It was the wrong product. Forklift driver had brought us the wrong stuff. Immediately shut everything down, call the quality control guy, five tires get pulled and Dan gets written up.

Yesterday at work, Dan did the exact same thing again. Forklift brought the exact same wrong product to the machine, Dan loaded it and this time I was the one operating the computer end of the machine. Normally I would have noticed the wrong ticket before I had even built anything because even though we're not technically supposed to, I scan product tickets early to verify any problems with the product before we build anything with it so if there is a problem we can fix it before anything gets built and no one gets in trouble.
But I had two tech guys up on my computer so I didn't get to scan the ticket until I had built at least three tires before I scanned it and got the big red warning screen of death. Immediately stopped the machine, called quality tech guy and let him know we have some bad tires coming down the line. Even though technically they are perfectly fine tires they will be scrapped as non conforming.

We're now on our holiday weekend so I imagine it's completely ruined for Dan as he won't find out what happens to him until next Friday day shift, and he even volunteered to work Monday labor day. This will be his third strike on his file and the third shop he was moved to. I told him what might save him is the company being so understaffed at the moment they may just let him off with a warning if too many tires didn't go down the line. Also, dumbass forklift driver who continued to bring the wrong stuff to the machine will also be getting written up again.

It's a fairly easy mistake to make and everyone does it at least a couple times over their career. The product codes are incoherent strings of numbers and letters like 407129AOH and Dan loaded something like 319129ABH. You just glance at the ticket and see enough similar letters and numbers you think you have the right stuff.
I've done it. I think the last time I did it was at least four or five years ago though and I did get written up for it. But doing it a couple times is what makes you paranoid enough to double check that what you're loading is the right stuff. Fortunately a lot of builders in the shop are in the habit of scanning tickets early because while you're not supposed to, it saves a lot of problems and people's jobs. There are some builders that won't scan a ticket until twenty or thirty tires have been built only to realize the wrong stuff is in it. When I work with those people, I will scan the ticket myself just to confirm the product rather than wait for them to do it.

So Dan is where I was last September, having his holiday weekend ruined wondering what is going to happen to him. This is the anniversary month of me getting written up and Jeremy getting fired because we took 3 breaks instead of 4 to get the green board we were told to have. Everyone in the plant knows the unofficial reason being the company wanted to retaliate against Jeremy for going to Human Resources on our old bully shop steward who had called Jeremy a little idiot over something that he turned out to be wrong about and Jeremy getting him transferred out of our shop; and I just happened to be collateral damage.

So that gets taken off my file this month at least. I also hear that now retired shop steward is going through his third bout of cancer. I'm not even joking when I say there is a waiting list of people at the plant looking forward to pissing on this guy's grave.

In other news, the company hired on a new shop manager for us and in continuance with the company being oblivious, he was hired from a brewery and knows nothing about anything but continues to try and micromanage us. He recently gave me a lecture on forklift safety when I had just finished a load and the forklift driver pulled up next to me asking me to verify a product number to bring to the machine. Said I was standing too close to the forklift. Firstly, I drove a forklift for three years at the fertilizer plant and am well aware of their blind spots and secondly, I've worked around our forklifts for nine years (this month) and know where the walking safe zones around my machine are, and thirdly, the forklift driver knew I was there because he pulled up to me and was talking to me. For fuck sake.

This guy has already rubbed a lot of people the wrong way including getting hilariously called out in a morning meeting by one of the old guys in the shop. The guy asked him if he had ever done any real work in his life? Boss is probably only in his late thirties and says of course. Guy asks, no, I mean have you ever worked a single day of manual labor in your life? Boss is silent for a second and says No. Big fucking surprise. He's a guy who looks soft and used to the desk life, but he's going to tell us how to do our jobs.

The funny thing at our plant is that all these new managers who've never worked the production side of things are getting overwhelmed as employees are refusing to take on what we call 'Spoke' roles. A Spoke is an employee who volunteers essentially to take on additional managerial duties but they receive no additional compensation. The company says to think of a Spoke duty as a stepping stone in the company. One of the Spoke duties is becoming a trainer. We've had people who have been trainers for years now giving up the position because they don't want to deal with management anymore. A couple trainers in our shop are literally new employees who just got trained. Usually you had to be working in a shop at least five years to qualify for a training position.

I got asked to be a Delivery Spoke once. A Delivery Spoke is someone who is in charge of micromanaging all the products in the shop and coordinating with the prep shop to make sure they are building the right products our shop is running to make sure the machines always have stock to build with. Does this come with a pay bump? Nope. Not interested I said. "But think of it as a stepping stone..." No, I've been working since I was 13. Do you know how many times I have heard that "Stepping Stone" nonsense? It's basically handing down jobs managers are supposed to be doing so they can have a lighter workload. And in the 9 years I've been there I've seen so many people thinking they are going to "Play the company game" and move up from the production line to management positions completely spit on by the company that will hire people off the street into management positions as opposed to people who actually put their time in.
In fact the best way to get yourself an office job is to get yourself hurt. Then you get yourself a nice paperwork job while the guy who has been busting his ass doing Spoke duties for the last five years gets ignored, because that would mean if you promoted him you will have to try and fill that Spoke role again.

So a lot of our Spokes are now going 'fuck this' and turning in their Spoke duties. Another guy I work with recently got pulled into an office and asked to be a Spoke and he even got the same stepping stone lecture. He said almost the same thing I said. I'm not looking for a stepping stone to a better position. People like us don't get those jobs because we show up every shift and work. You haven't and you're not going to promote people who actually show up and work every shift because that means you're stuck with trainees and habitual sick day workers. I'm not looking for a desk job. I'm looking to show up, build tires for 12 hours at a time, put my time in and get the fuck out of here. I don't do favors anymore and I don't do uncompensated work anymore.

It's bad enough our shop has three different pay tiers all for people doing the exact same job. Just before I got hired on, the company restructured its wages, but all the guys who were working there before the restructuring got to keep their pay scale, but guys like me who were hired on after the restructuring are making $5 less an hour. But when I've been there almost a decade, with only one sick day under my belt and you won't pay me the same as those other guys for doing the exact same job in the exact same shop, stop expecting me to volunteer to work overtime and take on additional spoke duties and come in and work holidays and not show up to my on-calls four hours late into a shift. If I'm getting called in on an on-call, it's going to be an 8 hour shift for me, not a 12 hour one.

Every January we get a GI (General Increase) on our wages, which is usually only a few cents, but last January for the first time in my 9 years there we didn't get one despite the company having profits in the billions.
Finally with all our new employees and summer students walking out in unprecedented numbers after a few months, the company decided to boost the starting pay by a dollar for new employees and giving the rest of us our general increase of 25 cents in October. It's better than nothing, but it's also a general increase we should have got in January. Getting it in October guarantees we won't be getting another one this January.

Our big excitement at work now is when we all gather in the break room to scan our lottery tickets through our phone apps to see if anyone will be lucky enough to walk out that day. Every time I scan my tickets I tell everyone in the room to prepare to hoist me up on their shoulders and parade me through the plant up to the head office so I can quit. They kinda cringe because I go about 6'3" at 250lbs at the moment, but I assure them they will be compensated. So far nothing won but free tickets and a few dollars here and there.