Friday, January 29, 2010

Friday - Internet At Work

I take great pride in my offerings at work. I work my @$$ off, I try to do the best job I can of not making mistakes. I am a safe driver and endeavor to avoid accidents at all costs. I almost always have a good attitude - maybe this week I was a wee bit grumpy because I was working when I should have been home, in bed, getting rest to get over this illness.

So, when a manager accuses me of "spending a good deal of time" surfing the internet, well, I'm pissed to say the least.

The story:
Wednesday morning. Raining. I'm sick. I don't feel well. It's the end-of-month time and the company always wants to push out as much material as possible to get our numbers up as high as possible. So, I go out in the rain, yes, it was raining and it was raining enough to get me nicely wetted in a short period of time - pull the transfer orders. They are simply orders for material we have that they either need for a delivery at another branch or need for stock material.

I come back in, sit down at my computer and was looking at an order that was supposed to go, that I suspected probably would not be going out. Rain usually shuts most job-sites down. So, I am contacting the inside-salesman for the account via instant messenger while looking up Mapquest - on the internet yes, but totally work related - to see how to get to another delivery out in the far east valley.

A "higher-level" manager comes walking through and asks me if I'm surfing the internet again. I thought he was joking, but I responded that I was attempting to find out whether an order was going to go or not due to the rain. He goes over to the water cooler and then comes walking back by me, looks down at me and says: "You spend a good deal of time on the internet". I was floored by this statement.

When a manager says something like that to you, you figure he's thinking you're sluffing off at work, wasting time doing nothing. I'm 100% opposite of that mindset. I have been working since I was 10 years old and before that I was doing odd jobs for money. I have the old-school work ethic - work your @$$ off and you will be rewarded for it. I don't LIKE being at work doing nothing, it's boring, I don't feel like I'm earning my pay and I would rather be out in the warehouse pushing a broom if there's nothing to do than sit around doing nothing.

This man did not wait around for an answer or an explanation, he told me he had come to this conclusion because he had been sitting at my computer when we had inventory last week and saw all the sites I was visiting - and then walked off. I mean, without even giving me the benefit of a doubt, this guy is my judge, jury and executioner. I went to get a cup of coffee and saw him standing in the main room of the building, I verbalized that I do get on the internet - when I come in early before clocking in - every single day. He got a foul look on his face while ignoring me.

I became suspicious that this guy was telling other managers about this situation - we are a 2-man crew at the branch I work at, I guess if we wanted to slouch off, we could get away with it - or could we? NOT. There is too much work to do - we hit $260,000 worth of sales out of branch - most of that comes from the deliveries I make in the semi truck - this month. If I were sitting around F****** off, looking at the internet, there is NO WAY that kind of sales revenues would ever be generated.

I wrote an email to the general manager. If this kind of stuff gets back to him - well - what's going to happen to my job? Buh-bye, nobody wants slouchers in a recessed economy where there are 1,000 workers for every job that is available. Even if it were a GREAT economy, I would NEVER sit around screwing off. I wrote about the incident and the fact that I often-times do not even get a break during the day - losing 1/2 hour of time that is automatically deducted from my hours whether I take the break or not - and that I had worked 10-1/2 hours the day before, sick and getting NO break at all. It was not a whiny letter, more of an information event, I'm covering my @$$. People are going to talk shit about me behind my back, all well and fine, but if I find out about it, I'm going to do whatever I can to rectify the situation.

I re-read my letter before sending it - is it communicating what I want to say? Yes, definitely, I hit the send field on the screen and that was that. Come to find out, yes, this man has said something to both the general and ops manager about this and gave the message that the internet, apparently, should be shut off at our store. UNBELIEVABLE. Without even ASKING my manager, at the very least, about what's going on, without attempting to find out if there's a LEGITIMATE REASON for the usage of the internet, he simply makes a carpet-sweep judgment and then broadcasts it to the world.

I would like to say here that this man is not my manager, he's not my manager's manager and he's not the manager's manager's manager - who would be the General Manager - a person I have come to respect and admire as well - and really, at least from my standpoint - has absolutely no business whatsoever interjecting himself into a situation of which he has no knowledge at all. A person should at least VERIFY the 'facts' before going around spouting them off to everyone.

So, yes, I'm pissed. This is personal - the statement being made is that I'm a sloucher, which is total BULLSHIT. Should I be writing this on the World Wide Web? I don't care. I pay the price to receive my paycheck, I do it willingly and with a good attitude, I have NOTHING to hide here. My manager and I work our asses off, there is nothing else to say about it.

The man actually had the audacity to ask my manager why I hadn't left yet, the day he showed up at our branch. He has NO CLUE what's going on, yet is starting all kinds of shit. Again, there is nothing that will rise my ire more than baseless accusations - ESPECIALLY something that concerns my work ethic. It just FRIES me.

I must move onto some other subject, because this subject is causing me small amounts of irritation and even anger.

The weekend is here. I have no idea what I am going to do this weekend because, all day long, my mind has been consumed with this manager's SHIT statements.

I'm just going to end this one, I cannot get off the subject and hopefully a couple of beers and relaxation - and YES - SURFING THE FREAKING INTERNET - will help me calm down.

Venting session over, and yes, it does feel better.

5 comments:

Fin said...

If I had looked here first, I'd have made my comments here rather than on the other site.

If you had permission to use the net before you go on duty and after you are through, it is a non-issue once they figure out the times of access.

If they were not well aware of your work ethic, you would likely have been let go before some of the less expensive drivers.

BenB said...

My immediate managers have known for years now that I engage in such. Actual, verbal permission was not necessary as far as I was concerned, the computers are already running anyway, so no power usage beyond what's already being used. The situation is all about me, allegedly surfing the internet while I'm supposed to be working, not doing so while I'm off the clock.
My company hs access to every keystroke of every computer in the entire system. That means they can see EVERYTHING you are doing online, on the Trilogy software, whatever you are doing. I am WELL aware of that but I have done nothing unethical or immoral. There is video surveillance of the counter I work off of - they can SEE when I come into work and verify my internet usage versus when I am actually signed in - if they wanted to, and if this thing is pushed, that is what I am going to back up against, actual, real-time video footage of what I am doing at what times, verified by the company's Time Management System. Whatever the case, I would love to have a sit-down discussion about this with the manager-in-question; my immediate manager; the Ops manager and the General manager. I have doubts it will ever need to come to that, but I am fully prepared for it if it does.

Fin said...

A clear conscience is a wonderful thing.

Anonymous said...

Yes, indeed it is.

becomingkate said...

That's terrible! I hope the mouthy guy figures out where he's wrong.

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