Work Rant

Woot!

Ok before I get into the New Year shebang, I owe you all, yet another, work rant.

Basically, what happened is that I got metaphorically shat upon. If you've been following my blog recently you'll know that I was recently moved from a pension admin team to a pension helpdesk (read: call centre), and that it is so shit that my mood has plummetted something obscene.

The week between Christmas and New Year is notoriously slow for our company. Since we deal primarily with scheme administrators, employers and financial advisers and other finance companies/pension providers, there's always less work coming in, since most of those people tend to take the week off. Hell, I would be too if I had the holiday allowance left.

So, on Tuesday when I came in, my manager mentioned that, if it was really dead, they'd probably let people go home early. Which I was all for, since my sleep patterns have been even more fucked than usual (Monday night I got to sleep at 5 and my alarm went off at 7). So, come about 1:30, one of the other managers (the area I work in is a huge team divided into 4 subteams, all doing the same work but with different managers) came over to say that they're letting a few people go home early. One person from each subteam. So, my manger asks "So who wants to be the first one to go home?" and I put my hand up but so did everyone else.

Except for one dude, who said he "wasn't bothered about going home early" and didn't mind staying until the normal closing time. To be fair, my manager decided to draw a name randomly, like a fun raffle. And in the end, dude who didn't mind staying got to go home early. Sigh.

Then an hour later, it was time for the second person in teach team to go. Except, instead of drawing names and making it fair and random, my manager just stood up, got his stuff and said "Right ok, I'm off, see you tomorrow!"

What the shit.

So, me and two others had to stay until our usual finishing time.

Then Wednesday was more of the same. One of the other two guys who had to stay to our usual time were in, along with the two who went home early the day before, and one other guy who was off on Tuesday. So I figured, to make it fair, the two of us that had to stay the night before should be the two to go if they decided to let people go early.

At 2, because it was really quiet and there weren't enough calls coming in to keep everyone sufficiently busy, they decided to do it again. Instead of doing it randomly, my manager let the other guy who'd stayed the night before, go early. Since he stayed an hour later than me (the shift I work is usually 8:30 - 4, wheras this other dude always works until 5 instead and takes a longer lunch) he should get to go home early. Which I understood, but if our manager had let me go at 2 and other dude go at 3 then we'd both be in an equal boat and leaving exactly 2 hours early.

But, whatever. So he went. And then come 3, my manager came over and I thought, awesome I get to go home! But no. The dude who hadn't been in on Tuesday "wasn't feeling very well" so he got to go at 3 and I got to stay until my usual time.

I mean, I know I'm whining about the sake of one hour, but it was the fact that, if he was sick he should have gone home / not come in regardless of whether the company was letting people go home early. If he was that bad he shouldn't have come into the office to begin with. (paired with the fact that, when asked "What's up with him?" by another of my coworkers, my manager didn't say he was sick at all, just said "Oh he's just feeling old." Right.)

What annoyed me was the fact that, of everyone in our team who worked both Tuesday and Wednesday, I was the only one who didn't get to go home early.

Yesterday I *did* get to go home two hours early though so I'm slightly less irritated about it now. I came in at 8:30 and between then and 10:45 when I was told to go home, I only took two calls, it was SO boring. Of course, this wasn't just because I was the only one who'd had to work "late" the previous two days, everyone else in the team had the option to go at the same time but chose not to because they'd already made plans to meet friends when the office closed at 1.

In the end I was really glad they let me go home early because I needed it. Even though I left at 10:45, I didn't get home until nearly 12:30, and since I'd had like two hours of sleep that night I wanted to try to get a nap in before I started getting ready to go out.

Annyway, that was just my obligatory rantpost (I mean, what would my blog BE without rambling rantings right?), I'm going to do a separate post for New Year's Things =]