Saturday, July 19, 2014

Back In the Working World

Two days into the working world and I'm already getting bored.  Lets be honest, the new guy gets one of three paths in the world:

A) Avoid him.  Make him stand around.  Pretend he isn't really there because, its a new guy and we miss the old guy.  And the new guy is likely worthless any how.

B) Treat the new guy like he's in kindergarten.  Read documents to him like he's retarded.  Seriously; split your words in to syllables for even more dramatic reason, because he's new here... he must be new to english too.

C) Forget he's new; pretend he's the guy that worked there for 32 years and knows everything already. If the new [old] guy dares ask a question, brow beat the fuck out of him.  If there is a second question to clarify, proceed back to step B) [kindergarten].

For the most part, I'm in category A).  For reasons I don't understand people avoid me.  Conversations flow through me --- but right past me.  It's implied I'm so sufficiently incompetent I can't pick parts orders, and as a driver, I probably don't know how to drive either.  I guess I walk the 8 miles to work each day... who knows.  There are some brief glimpses of category B).  "This is an inventory screen.  IN- ven-TOR eee.  Its how we see what parts we have on hand today."   Not kidding.  Its refreshing to see how little they train me and how bad they will berate me.  I'm certain I have the only college degree in the building.  Most definitely the only one who wants to pursue post-graduate work.  I have more experience in handling parts, customers, inventory concerns, purchase order issues than they do.  Not to mention I have 10 years experience as a manager, running facilities larger than this, with more employees, that did more business.  But it's so much simpler to pretend I'm not there.

I had one quick glimpse of category C) the other day.  It had to do with letter codes on picking tickets using proprietary short hand for their antiquated computer system and how to file them.  I had yet to hold or read over a picking ticket when I was dumped on.   Naturally, I was mean-mugged, and reduced to category A) again.

All in all its going about how I thought it would.   As a driver I haven't touched a steering wheel in 2 days.  I've been sitting in the passenger seat for some screw up deliveries, and left to count dusty parts bins in a sweltering warehouse.  It isn't so bad.  If the pay was higher, I'd enjoy it! I really don't want to complain because I know they'll figure me out soon enough.  So in the meantime, being back to work is a great feeling.... even in the classic American Federation of Labor-market Training Academy.   Its just 3 short steps to success!


S.

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