Unofficial Tex Murphy

I realized something a few weeks ago. I'm in complete and total agony. Not the kind you get from stubbing your toe, but the kind you get from being miserable and not knowing about it.

For the last four years, I have really hated my job. I mean hated it. It's given me nothing beyond a paycheck except for misery, pain, sickness, near-destroyed bodyparts, bloodloss, second degree burns, and more cuts than you can shake a racoon full of razorblades at.

I've had problems with my former bosses because of the health problems I've endured while in their employ. They didn't come right out and say it, but they strongly hinted in the direction that I was not sick at all, merely lazy and not wanting to work. Apparently doctors and their silly MRI scans are not credible as evidence. A while back I was shifted off from round-the-clock shift work to normal daytime work. According to norwegian law, if an employer intends to do this, the employee requires two weeks prior notification. I received none.

I showed up on a monday morning for the start of a new shift period, and got pulled aside after a couple of hours and told I needed to go see the head of human resources. I couldn't find him in his office, but stumbled across him coming out from a meeting. He then proceeds to tell me to wait in the cafeteria. I do so. For an hour. When he arrives, he tells me I'm now working daytime, from this point forward, because they feel the timing of my illness (at the time, my feet last summer) was poor.

The timing of my illness was poor.

When I found my new work area, my new immediate superior gave me a right chewing out for being four hours late. It seems he had known I was coming for the last three weeks. For added spice, all meetings between an employée and the head of resources are to take place in his office, with a union representative present on the behalf of the employée. And minutes are to be taken from these meetings. I got five minutes. In a cafeteria. With the lunch lady hovering about.

On top of that, my former colleagues are not the sort of people I feel I want around me to stimulate my creativity. Whenever grown men start to see eachother in a boring scenario for more than sixty hours a week, at all hours of the day, they will eventually get bored. And then hell breaks loose. It's like a highschool schoolyard. Rumors. Backtalk. Poor jokes. The occasional fight. Which again leads to people not talking to eachother, which leads to shift changes without relevant information being supplied, leading to production halts at 2 am in the morning.

Back in 2007 they had a mentally ill person employed. This person dipped a few earplugs into liquid glue holding 120 degrees celsius. That's close to 250 degrees fahrenheit. He then handed the earplugs to me, holding it so I couldn't see. He got fired. I got a pat on the back for helping them get rid of him legally. Mind you, this guy was a self-proclaimed member of the Taliban.

There are many instances and stories I could tell. From engineers who double up on the usage of a material, but neglect to order double the amount - causing the entire production to seize up at three in the morning, to how we've had four sets of bosses in three years. How I personally overheard one of the top dogs in the entire company say to another, unknowing I was close by "We have to bullsh!t the customer for as long as we can!". How I had to stop a so-called repairman from banging on a small precision instrument worth hundreds of thousands of dollars with a heavy ball-peen hammer.

I have had it. I have seriously had enough.

Today, I quit my day job.

And it felt like the weight of the world was lifted from my shoulders. My job has made me miserable enough to contemplate jumping off a bridge or going shopping for a gun. It was when I realized that, that I knew I had to change my course drastically. Or I would either spend my 30th birthday as an alcoholic or in a wooden box with a dirt roof. Neither of which are acceptable options.

It'll be a tight few months ahead. I have no new job lined up, and it takes eight weeks for any state help to kick in.

The good news is, I no longer have a job that is crippling me mentally and creatively. Not to mention physically. My soul is no longer suffering from a stubbed toe. I haven't felt this good in years. I will be focusing on my writing for a while.

Wish me luck!

-Fred

I wish you good luck Fred. I've had crappy jobs before and know the joy of no longer having my soul drained on a daily basis. We've only got one life, and it 's up to us to make it a good one.

well fred glad you are out of there as we don't want you in a box, hope you find a another job real soon.

Good luck Fred! You did the right thing, even if the short term sucks. When you wake up in the morning puking, thinking about going into work....it's time to move on.

You've got one life and one body. Take care of it.

You definitely did the right thing Fred, and congratulations on making such a bold and definitely positive move.

Very inspiring Fred.

Fred: I'm glad that you got out of that environment. It sounds like it was quite a negative one. I hope this will lift a weight off your shoulders and I hope you find inspiration in whatever you choose to do next.

Good luck to you Fred.

A bad job can indeed destory a person. You made a good call and i wish you the best in the future

I know the feeling, but I think you got me beat....

For me, it isn't the company as a whole, just my dept... and I am desperately trying to get out to no avail...
AHHHHHHHH

For me, it is the statistics...... go fast... go slow, you are making too many errors and I constantly have someone pecking away at me. And how we do is completely dependent on the type of work we get for the day..... I average out fine for the year to meeting, and they constantly look at our productivity on a daily basis.... BS!!! meanwhile my quality is at 99%, and they say that is more important, but never put the emphasis on it when it comes to our daily stat report. ERRRRRRRRRRRR!!! There is more..... but you still have me beat.

Strange, I thought Union jobs were supposed to better.

I take you don't qualify for unemployment since you quite? I heard unemployment was pretty good over there.

Oh you qualify, but you're put in an eight weeks long quarantine first.

Yesterday, I wrote for 13 straight hours. And time flew. I've never done that before.

I'm actually wondering if this is what happiness feels like. It's been so long.

-Fred

Ohh this reminds me of my old job, it started out all right, working shift with a 2friends i went to school with, as time went on however the company we were hiered out to started getting retarded, i guess when they imployed 2500 polish and brittish workers it went a bit out of hand, il tell ya it was texas, and for a long time we suffored in silence.

Then when this project was done i was reasigned to a brand new way of securety, guarding roads while there was maintenes on it, for americans and other this sounds easy because you just lock down the lane where work is being done, but unless you have ever seen the roads in (one of the richest contrys in the world) Norway you would find that there is onley two lanes, and most of the time its not even that. Now then, we were asigned to coguard a higly traficated road just next to the boat to Bergen, lets say 1000 cars an houer.

We were two guys who had done this one time before on a little strech outside ouer office, now we were guarding this loooong strech filled with cars that were late for everything. We stod there for up to 14 houeers without breaks, without the chanse to go to the toilet or anything, when we got home we dident even reseve a good work from ouer boss, i was so mad i started talking harshly to him and then for the first time (but not the last) he thretend us sayin this stupid line : do you like your job? Do you want to keep it? Sure i guess, its not that like i have another just waiting. And from there on end it got a bit better (we got one extra soul) but soon went down hill again. First of the houers was brutal, we worked day and night some times kust after the other, my longest shift was 19 houers, then we were woken at 6, (5 huers later) to conntinu the the job, while the maintenese people could go iside their cars for breaks and shelter we were on the road in heavy rain, snow and wind. We were even forced to pull a wagon that was way heavyer then ouer license allowed so if we were stoped by the police we would get fined. After doing this lousy job for two years i got fiered because there was allmost nomore projects left to do. And thnk god cause if i hadent i would probobly still be in that mess. Could you tell me Fred what company you worked with so i dont stumbel apon it?

It's a big one, and they won't be hiring people. When they go under, as I'm sure they will, I will share the name here.

-Fred