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.

Friday

At last......I have been sick half of this work week and have felt none too good. It's end of month - our company always pushes to get as much product out as possible, therefore the reason I didn't call in sick. Wednesday was the worst day of it and the longest work day this week as well.

Anyway, my quest for a travel trailer goes on. I have contacted another guy who wants $700 for a gutted trailer. Meaning there is nothing inside it besides the cabinets and shower I believe. Everything else has been removed. I am trying to get the guy to bring down his price - he has been advertising the thing on Craigslist for over 2 weeks now. Another guy has an RV thing he converted to an office which no-one is apparently interested in because he has been advertising it for over a month. I keep making offers, sooner or later, I'll get a positive reply.

Meanwhile, on the home front. I'm sitting in my kitchen yesterday late-afternoon when I hear a woman starting to yell loudly. Of course I got up, went outside to see what was going on. It was the big, heavy (at least 300 pounds probably closer to 400) man that lives 2 doors down, starting trouble again. The woman apparently didn't want his help on something they were doing at my neighbor's house, so she was telling him to back off.

This guy, unfortunately, is a total hot-head. I got right in that woman's face and threatened to kick her @$$. That's when I dialed 911. This guy is a troll and a bully. He tried to pull that crap on me a few weeks ago, instead of responding in kind, I simply informed him I would be calling the police if he continued. That shut him up. Anyway, this woman was visiting my neighbor, who flew off the handle, got into the big man's face - I thought they were going to get into a fight.

Fast-forward several hours. Police had come and gone, no-one was arrested but at least the situation had been calmed. My neighbor has heart problems and high blood pressure. Again, I'm sitting in my kitchen and it's now night time, I hear the fire truck and ambulance at the station a block from my house fire up their sirens - and come - to my neighbor's house. Yup, all that anger and yelling almost did him in. They carted him away in the ambulance with the explanation that his blood pressure was very high and they were unable to bring it down.

I am biding my time in the neighborhood. It is easily the worst neighborhood I have ever lived in. I can't sell the house, upside-down by at least 10k on the mortgage, I have no choice but to bear with all the nonsense until - if-ever - the housing market comes back up again. I would oh-so-ever-loving LOVE to get OUT of that neighborhood and never see it again.

Well work day approacheth, I'm outta here.