Monday, September 18, 2006

Jerk Boss

So on friday at work, I saw my team lead walking down the call floor with some paper plates and plastic cutlery, so I said, "Did you bring food, jerkboss?" and he said that if I had had perfect attendance, then I could have the food he brought. So I thought I had perfect attendance, so i looked at my hours and realized that i didn't have 40 (which is what "perfect attendance" means... not that you worked all the hours you were scheduled, but that you worked any 40 hours. So anyway, not that big a deal, except then later he was talking to a girl at work, who I will call Australia, mentioning something about when we're closed on saturdays. So apparently I've been working an hour and a half past closing on saturday nights. I mean, we're still in queue taking calls, but only 2 people are supposed to be there and I'm not one of them. So that cut another hour and a half from my schedule. So i asked jerkboss if i could talk to him about my schedule. He said, "let's talk after 8" since i'm on dap and dap closes at 8. Makes sense. So then he came by an hour later and put a piece of paper on my arm saying, "team meeting at 8". So we went to the team meeting... meaning he didn't have time to talk about my schedule. so after the team meeting, i said, "can we talk after you're done" and he said yeah. After every call i took that night (which had 3 more hours after 9:00) I walked over to his desk to ask if he had time. he kept saying no, he had to work on his report and stuff like that. One time he had another girl over there (who he had pulled off the phones to talk) and he still said no and that he had to work on his report. Then at 11:45 i got off what I thought would be my last phone call and i went over to jerkboss and I guess something had happened to make it so he couldnot talk to me... again. So I clocked out at 12 and went over to his desk and finally we talked. a couple things you have to know about jerkboss: 1: he is not good with computers, but if you try to help him then he gets offended. 2: if you ask him a question he doesn't really know the answer to, you get a round about made up answer that he then defends to the death (and these answers never make any sense and contradict eachother). 3: for the past few months, he has gotten really frustrated with me because since I cannot get a good answer to most of my questions from him (since the questions I ask him are questions he doesnt really have the answer to) I have been asking other teamleads, and every time I do that, he reprimands me afterwards. Knowing those three things should help you understand why my conversation with Jerkboss didn't start out very well. So, I ask him if there is any way to go to part time (since there are several people on the floor who are part time) and he says no way. So he tells me I have to find a way to put in a few more hours. We look at my class schedule and he wants me to ride the bus in. he says, "We've given and given and now you're going to have to give somewhere" and when I ask why they won't do part time, he says that it's just what roach wants. So I told him that it just doesn't seem very practical to tell a trained employee with an average of 97% on QAs and who has been trained in 2 specialties that they'd rather I work 0 hours than 32. And then I mention that by the state, full time doesn't necessarily mean 40 hours, anyway, that it's somewhere between 32 and 40 (I didn't know the exact numbers). Well he tells me, "NO, i was an employment law officer for years and full time is 40 hours". So to make a long story shorter, this goes around for a while and I am of course crying even though i'm trying not to, but he is just making me feel like he would rather not have me working there and that I should just leave. oh, and my favorite part was that I mentioned that convergies is all about flexible scheduling and he said that no one ever told me there was flexible scheduling. and i said, "every poster out in the lobby says convergies has flexible scheduling" and he tells me that as soon as I started working for roaches, we have never said that schedules would be flexible... which is one of my main concerns that I brought up to him the very first week I was on the floor and he always said, "we'll work with you to get you what you need" and when I brought my class schedule in and said that working full time might be too overwhelming, he said, "well let me know how you're doing when classes start" which made me think that I might be able to drop down to part time if needed. I guess I interpreted that wrong, though... so I told jerkboss that I'd just talk to Jimmy tomorrow about my schedule (which is what jerkboss had told me to do) and he said, "Jimmy's not going to be able to do anything more for you than I just did". So I said, "what did you just do for me, jerkboss?". He had nothing to say to that.


So that was quite an ordeal, and when I left, one of the 3 people left on the floor came out and told me that jerkboss was being rediculous and that I just needed to talk to one of the other teamleads. And she told me the next day that when jerkboss left, another of the two people on the floor asked if she had heard how he was treating me, so I know it wasn't just me overdramatizing the situation.


So anyway, that was friday. I went in today (my day off) so I could see what my options were. I was going to talk to the head hauncho about what id' be able to do, but i didn't see him. so I walked off the call floor and went down the hallway and saw one of the QA girls walking towards me. I asked her if she had seen head hauncho and she said no, and asked if I was ok because i looked a little upset. I told her no, and she asked if I wanted to talk. so we went outside and talked for a few minutes, and she said she could go ask jerkboss if he had a minute to take me over to HR to see what my options were. She came back out and said jerkboss wanted me to talk to him. I went in and Jerkboss said, "wait in the conference room" and left me there for about 10 minutes. I thought that everything was ok, that he wanted to make peace (I sure did, I was so uncomfortable for the 2 seconds I was on the call floor looking for head hauncho) but when he finally came in, he shut the door and started yelling at me, saying he was deeply offended and that I had no business talking to QA girl and telling her that he wouldn't make time to talk to me because he had talked to me for an hour. I reminded him of the 3 hours when he couldn't make time and that I finally had to talk to him after my shift was over. He was telling me, "not that it's any of your business but i had reports to do and i dont' have to answer to you or anyone else on the call floor in where my time goes". And I was just saying, "Jerk boss stop. I'm sorry I just want to make peace and see what my options are". and he just kept being mad. So he finally said fine and we went over to HR and he told the person at HR that we had to see about transferring me to another project. Well the HR guy came out and brought me in to a different conference room to talk and he could tell I was upset so he said, "Can I go get you some bottled water and give you a minute?" He was so nice and just kept saying reassuring things. Fortunately jerkboss was gone... but anyway, came down to the point where we decided that my class schedule is not really condusive to me starting another training class for a different project, and when the HR man found out that I am trained in 2 specialties and that I like what i do for roaches, he said it sounds like I really shouldn't be moved to a different project. We got it all figured out, and yes I will have to put in 40 hours, but we found a way to do it, and jerkboss is going to have a talk to from HR man's boss... we'll see. I didn't mean to get him in trouble or make him mad. the really ironic thing is that before this happened, I had a great deal of respect for jerkboss. I knew he wasn't the best communicator and that he really doesnt' know a lot about computers, but he has done so much in his life that really warrants respect. And I always gave it to him. But then he started treating me like crap and making me feel honestly worthless to him... and now who knows what will happen. All I know is that I won't be on his team anymore.


So that's my long story for the day. :)