Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Mission Monitor Board The Moaning, Groaning, I just want to Vent thread

Yeah... Jeez. Didn't they teach how to ditch all that quaint, old-fashioned thinking when you were in law school, Quis?

While some may see it that way, I think, in general, it's better to err on the side of compassion.

BTW, wayyyy back on 6/12, I vented in this thread about going on another job interview.

On Thursday, I heard back from the agency that sent me (after they'd ducked my calls for ages) saying basically: The woman who interviewed you liked you. She was overruled by a superior, but the person the superior liked didn't work out. So now that superior has relented and we want you to report to work on Monday.

I'd like to rejoice, honestly, but I'm too jaded and stressed from being jerked around by these places as many times as I have been. Plus, it feels wrong to be excited when some other poor slob, possibly through little/no fault of their own, had to be canned so I could get a crack at this job. (Which is still only part-time and temporary, though the hourly wage is enough to make it worth doing-- for reasons beyond just keeping Unemployment off my tail.)

:rolleyes:

This is good news, cleome!

Please, do rejoice! Don't let your past experiences cloud your expectations of this job. It could be a blessing in disguise.

Also, don't feel too sorry for the other person, as you'll likely never know what truly happened. It's just as possible that he or she didn't show up for work, didn't do the job, or had a lousy attitude.

So, go crack open a bottle of wine, already!

cleome,

I would say that it being a part time temp job, it would more likely than not have to be the employee's fault for getting fired rather than to give you an opportunity to do the job. Or she/he could have quit.

Hopefully, you'll be reporting to the woman who liked you and wanted you in the first plac.

Okay. I put up with a guy at work who is basically Andrew Dice Clay Jr. Same hairstyle (does the comb thing...really), talks like him with the same accent. I just have not heard the nursery rhymes from him yet.

Anywho...Last Thursday, he bring me some things that need to be tested. They are not fully done (another in a string of things that his group has not completely finished before giving it to me, of which I have sent most back lately to be completed). The ground wires are not there from the door of the box to the box itself to the panel mounted in the box.

He looks at me and says...seriously, he sauid this..."yer jus gonna have to bite the bullet on this one and do em."

Now, I would normally have done what I am about to do anyway, but this sent my brain into a migraine immediately. I let myself calm down until Friday, while I got the ground wires ready, and completed the two boxes I had with me and gave the rest of them to the woman wiring the other boxes and she put those on for me.

Now, Mr. (If I can talk louder than you I am right and you will do as I say) was in the back of the shop getting a pop (soda) when I had to go back and grab some terminal jumpers for the remainder of the boxes from this group, because all of them were missing them. So I see him and roll (remember, I'm on a scooter) over to him. I get uncomfortably close to him on purpose (about half a foot from his face) and I say in a low tone "Blahblah, between you and me...I'd appreciate it if you never ever said that I need to bite the bullet and do something that your group forgot to do ever again." I open my hand and show him the terminal jumpers. There are 6 in my hand which need to be cut in half and both halves installed. "See these?" I say, "I'm going to be installing these because your group didn't again. I do this kind of s#!t for you all the time, and I do not need you to F'ing tell me what to do."

With that, I turned around and scooted away to continue my work. I left him standing there with his mouth hanging open like someone told him his puppy just died.

Then, Saturday...he was really really nice to me all day.

Point Dev.

Good for you, Dev!

Thanks, Guys. (HWW & Quis)

Originally when I went on the interview, I literally knew nothing about the job other than where it was and the name of the interviewer and her company. The agency hadn't bothered to tell me anything else, no matter how many times I contacted them asking for details.

I didn't know the hours, the wage, the type of work I'd be doing. I was trying to have my game face on, and the whole time, I felt like a complete fool. Then the agency wouldn't talk to me post-game. I figured this meant they'd never seriously thought I was good enough to do the work, but they had some quota to fill and they knew I couldn't refuse an interview no matter what their agenda was.

I was so furious that I was happy to avoid them for a couple of weeks in favor of one of their competitors-- even though the competing agency paid lower wages and sent me to overall crappier jobs. (Yogurt squeezer/Wal-Mart flunkie, anyone? :rolleyes: )

So this could be some kind of miracle or it could just be the prelude to one more clusterf*ck. But there's no way to find out without actually reporting to work.

Yes, wine is called for. Maybe in an hour or so after it's had time to chill.

Just as I think it's better to err on the side of compassion, so, too, do I prefer to err on the side of miracle.

Hi cleome and Dev and Quis. I'm following your stories and hoping the best for you and applauding your efforts and successes. I'd add more but, hey, HWW is saying it all so well! :-)

My turn to vent (though this is not even on the radar screen of problems, compared to some vented here) . . .

Several months ago, a filmmaker asked to interview me for a documentary he's making on comic book fans. Since I'm an adjunct professor, he thought "the academic perspective" on comics would add something to the film.

I agreed to the interview, and even obtained permission from my dean to film in a classroom, but the filmmaker's schedule and mine did not coincide. I heard nothing more from him for six months.

Then, last month, he emailed me and said he was making a longer version of the documentary and still wanted to interview me. I said yes and gave him the contact info for my dean so we could reserve a classroom. I heard nothing more for about a month.

Then his director of photography emailed me to set up the interview. As I'm currently teaching on a different campus, I had to get permission from the administrator here. No big deal. We set up the interview for last Tuesday.

The guy didn't show up.

I got an email from him saying he was on his way to interview me when his car broke down. Okay, that's understandable. He wanted to reschedule the interview for today. I agreed.

Guess what.

Still no show.

I'm sitting here waiting when I could be at a coffee shop, drinking coffee and writing the next chapter in my novel-in-progress. (I could start writing it here, but I'd hate to get in the groove and have to stop, should he show up.)

Minor annoyance? Yes. My life won't end if this interview does not take place. Still, it would have been a fun and novel experience, and perhaps a chance to promote myself as a writer (maybe even show on film the comic book I published and still sell).

Looks like Tom Cruise is going to have to wait another day for the rivalry of my film debut.

HWW, are you being docu-punked? Maybe he's there and you don't know it....

;-)

Thanks, LT. You're a doll.

(Though at this point, if anyone gives me any grief, I'll just call in Dev.)

[snip]

So, stood you up twice? And not even an explanation the second time?

I thought we here on the Left Coast had the market cornered on that level of flakiness.

Docu-punked? I've never heard of that before.

If it was a Candid Camera-type thing, I'm afraid I disappointed him. All I did was sit at a computer and visit Legion World.

The first time, he emailed me after a couple of hours to explain that his car had broken down.

This time, as of five minutes ago, nada, zip.

Be glad to be of assistance.

Dev: Legion World's enforcer.

If need be. Thing is, if you have a 300 lb frame...might as well use it once and a while.

Well, I spoke to my roommate a couple of days ago. Since then, he has been keeping up with the dishes and has stopped with the silent treatment.

That's good news, Quis. Hope he continues to progress in his behavior.

cleome, I really hope the job situation resolves itself soon. I've been temping at the same place for over a year and I'm about at my wit's end. I have a 2nd meeting with my boss about getting on full time. I don't think they realize how grueling it is to have no job security or benefits but be expected to function the same as a regular employee. Good luck!

Oh, I'm sure they realize it. They either 1) don't care, or 2) feel bound by the "system" in which they themselves have achieved some measure of success (if success is defined as a full-time position, a decent salary, and benefits).

As an adjunct professor, I face a similar situation. I have no benefits, no health insurance, etc. (though, now that Obama's law has been upheld, I wonder how I will afford this mandatory "tax"). I also have no guarantee that I will be employed from semester to semester. Our college recently went through changes which have resulted in a domino effect, meaning fewer class offerings for adjuncts. I'm lucky--because of my seniority, I'm on board for two classes next spring. Six or seven adjuncts who came after me may simply have no classes. (No classes=no paycheck.)

Even being "on board" is no guarantee. Should a full-time professor's class get cancelled, guess whose class they will be given to fulfill their teaching load? That's right: an adjunct's. This has happened me in the past.

I always try to balance this situation against the positives: I love to teach, and my college treats adjuncts fairly well (unlike certain other colleges I've taught at, where adjuncts were regarded as a necessary evil, like employing undocumented workers to do the jobs you think you're too important to do.) I genuinely love teaching, and I love the college where I teach, but the system itself is inherently unfair.

(The assistant dean who hired me, since retired, admitted during the job interview that the system was exploitative. This, in my experience, has been true of most jobs.)

Bottom line, I guess, is that the people who make these decisions have their own concerns, their own jobs to do, and their own bosses to please. It is not their job, they may argue, to do what we may think is fair. That's why the government makes so many regulations--and we all know how that works.

The answer, I guess, is that we can't rely on any employer to do what we think is right. The old model from my grandfather's day of working for the same company for 30 or 40 years and then retiring is, plain and simply, obsolete. Somehow, we've got to think outside the box to get what we want in life.

What LT said And to HWW, too.

Dev, good for you telling that guy off. He sure sounded condescending.

Cleome, I hear ya. If only all interviewers would give feedback to the applicants who pass through them.

HWW, that sounds plain rude of that guy. If he's going to flake he should at least let ya know.

Quis, thank goodness your roommate was mature enough to listen to you.

Re employers - I agree, employment is more of a stepping stone in today's world. Job security ain't all it's cut out to be now, nor is it reliable. And employing companies are mostly run by people who are, themselves, employees - which doesn't give them the best of motivations for caring about employee welfare.

Simply awesome. Metaphorical punch to the nuggets. Good for you.