I swear, some people are dumber than shit. I worked with a guy that started off as a tech at a very well known semi-conductor company. He worked his way up to being a manager. During that journey his pay went from $40k a year to well over $120K a year. His problem is that he didn't know how to manage money. He was great at handling people but money went through his fingers like water.
I had not seen him in over a year but we had talked on the phone. We no longer work together and he is still at the same place, I think for 20+ years now. He told me that he has to sell his house because he could no longer pay the $3K a month mortgage!! Wait, at $3K a month that is only $24K a year which is about 20% of his pay. There must be more to the story, and there was. He and his wife are up to their eyeballs in credit card debt. They also declared bankruptcy which I found odd since he earned so much money. The story sounded strange because if he declared bankruptcy then he could now afford to pay for the house.
To put the icing on his bitter cake, he also told me that he might quit his job and start over somewhere else!! The poor sap is going to walk away from a $120K a year job!!
Dumb shits and money - give them more money and they will always be dumb.
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How to quit your job, let me count the ways
I just quit my good for a small paycheck, high stress job. The feeling is wonderful. I can't seem to get this darn smile off my face.
The last time I quit a job was back in 1989 when I literally walked out in the middle of the day, or was it morning...oh well, that does not matter, what mattered was the fact that I got fed up enough to walk. At the time it was due to an indifferent boss who would not acknowledge my supervisor role and pay me for it. It was only after denying me a promotion (discrimination was the cause, found out later) and demanding I do job duties that only managers did I walked. Of course I stewed for about a week before taking those final steps.
In those days it was common to give a 2 weeks notice of your intent to leave. They could hold that last paycheck for up to 2 weeks if they wanted to. In my case I got my check within 4 hours because I threatened to turn them in to OSHA for violations.
Nowadays employment can be "at will" meaning they can fire or lay you off without warning, so the same can apply to you. You can quit on the spot without cause or warning. Most well respected companies are not "at will" employers but small shady operations are and I have worked for some of them.
While I did not walk out this time on my employer, I called in to quit. The manager was sorry to see me go but understood my reasons. I was the one chosen to send home when there was a lack of work, one time for 3 months!! That was last year and this year it was turning out to be the same way. This time I found a higher paying job with more stability. The manager was also thinking about leaving and almost walked out on several occasions.
Due to new technology there are now several ways to quit your job:
I have no intention of going back to that place and hope it goes under due to the way it treats and uses up its faithful employees.
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The last time I quit a job was back in 1989 when I literally walked out in the middle of the day, or was it morning...oh well, that does not matter, what mattered was the fact that I got fed up enough to walk. At the time it was due to an indifferent boss who would not acknowledge my supervisor role and pay me for it. It was only after denying me a promotion (discrimination was the cause, found out later) and demanding I do job duties that only managers did I walked. Of course I stewed for about a week before taking those final steps.
In those days it was common to give a 2 weeks notice of your intent to leave. They could hold that last paycheck for up to 2 weeks if they wanted to. In my case I got my check within 4 hours because I threatened to turn them in to OSHA for violations.
Nowadays employment can be "at will" meaning they can fire or lay you off without warning, so the same can apply to you. You can quit on the spot without cause or warning. Most well respected companies are not "at will" employers but small shady operations are and I have worked for some of them.
While I did not walk out this time on my employer, I called in to quit. The manager was sorry to see me go but understood my reasons. I was the one chosen to send home when there was a lack of work, one time for 3 months!! That was last year and this year it was turning out to be the same way. This time I found a higher paying job with more stability. The manager was also thinking about leaving and almost walked out on several occasions.
Due to new technology there are now several ways to quit your job:
- don't call in for a few days and let the company assume you have quit
- call in and just quit - like I just did
- send an email to your boss. Be polite but official, giving the date of your last day, instructions on what to do with your last paycheck (send it, wait for you to pick it up, etc) and lastly how to handle any personal stuff left at work.
- send a text message to your boss, keep it short and simple and follow up with an email
I have no intention of going back to that place and hope it goes under due to the way it treats and uses up its faithful employees.
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Being physically sick of the place you work at
I think most of us have had headaches develop during the day at a work place we just couldn't stand to be at anymore. But how many of you have ulcers, high blood pressure and other ailments due to work place stress?
The place I work at right now use to be a low stress work place, I said "use to be." As of the last few months the stress level has gone through the roof. Let me just highlight the several causes of that:
After the production lead got fired I saw many people change who they hung out with during breaks. One guy who wanted to be the lead (but did not get the job) is now hanging out with Queen Bee. He probably thinks he can get her to help him get the production lead job. I don't have the heart to tell him that Queen Bee has always disliked him because he makes too many mistakes.
Yes the soap opera goes on, but unlike a soap opera this one will end.
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The place I work at right now use to be a low stress work place, I said "use to be." As of the last few months the stress level has gone through the roof. Let me just highlight the several causes of that:
- hired new production boss who has no previous experience of being a manager or knows anything about production. He was hired because he is a friend of the owner.
- production boss fires lead production person and promotes a dip shit from off of the assembly line to run things. Dip shit has no leadership qualities and has no idea how to run a production line.
- Vice-president does not like new production boss, mainly because she did not hire him
- Vice-president tries to run production as well - driving all of us bonkers
- Queen Bee as we call her is in charge of QA and enjoys stirring the pot of emotions on the production floor. She is tight with the VP so she can get people fired, in trouble or what ever she sees fit for herself.
- time studies are being done all the time. As production workers we are timed for every little part of a unit down to how long did it take to tighten a screw - to the second. This has been going on for almost 2 years now but the last few months it has gotten worse.
After the production lead got fired I saw many people change who they hung out with during breaks. One guy who wanted to be the lead (but did not get the job) is now hanging out with Queen Bee. He probably thinks he can get her to help him get the production lead job. I don't have the heart to tell him that Queen Bee has always disliked him because he makes too many mistakes.
Yes the soap opera goes on, but unlike a soap opera this one will end.
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Unfair overtime laws
Don't you just hate it when a company takes full advantage of that states' overtime laws and uses them to short change their employees? Case in point - Last weekend was the Memorial Day weekend. The four days following that weekend was MANDATORY 10 hour days. Normally we the workers would be paid overtime for the 2 hours over the 8 hours each day but not this time since the state only requires that employers pay 1.5 times the pay for anything over 40 WORKED hours. Just PAID hours does not count. All worked hours in those 4 days were all paid as straight time. In California the state law is overtime is paid after 8 hours each day. They tried the over 40 hour rule for about a year and then the law got changed back to the over 8 hour rule. I miss living in CA.
So of course this coming week there is no overtime scheduled. The company had that planned ahead of time. Damned cheapskate company..............I have got to find another job but the economy has not improved enough to create more jobs yet - so I wait............and wait..............and look..............and wait some more.
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So of course this coming week there is no overtime scheduled. The company had that planned ahead of time. Damned cheapskate company..............I have got to find another job but the economy has not improved enough to create more jobs yet - so I wait............and wait..............and look..............and wait some more.
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When does having a lower paid job make sense?
There are times when having a lower paid job than you have now will make sense. For example I am currently paying about $80 a week just in gasoline to get to and from work. I could take a job that pays $80 a week less than I am paid now, be closer to home and break almost even on income.
Another very good example is to get away from a high stress job due to the people you work with. I find that most of the work place stress is not from the actual job but the people who are in charge of you. Recently I was assigned a complicated job that lacked proper documentation, was a prototype, and I had no experience with the type of product. Added on top of that the fact that the dumb ass sales person promised a 24 hour turn around for the customer, just to get the job..............WTF!!!!! So I had less than 5 hours to put 6 of these things together which some of it involved soldering under a microscope. I was interrupted at least 5 times by various supervisors, managers and that dumb ass sales person to ask me when it would be done.
Did the job get done? Yes it did but not without a whole lot of stress put on me for no good reason at all.
I can't wait to find another job.
Get The Dumb Shits I Work With on your Kindle. Click on the link for a free 14 day trial today.
Another very good example is to get away from a high stress job due to the people you work with. I find that most of the work place stress is not from the actual job but the people who are in charge of you. Recently I was assigned a complicated job that lacked proper documentation, was a prototype, and I had no experience with the type of product. Added on top of that the fact that the dumb ass sales person promised a 24 hour turn around for the customer, just to get the job..............WTF!!!!! So I had less than 5 hours to put 6 of these things together which some of it involved soldering under a microscope. I was interrupted at least 5 times by various supervisors, managers and that dumb ass sales person to ask me when it would be done.
Did the job get done? Yes it did but not without a whole lot of stress put on me for no good reason at all.
I can't wait to find another job.
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The high gas prices promote rumors of job quiting
The local price of gasoline is just at the $4 mark. It now costs me close to $75 a week to get to and from work. The co-workers I have spoken to are paying about the same or more for their commute. Several have mentioned that they have started to look for a job closer to home even if it pays less than what they are now earning because they would save money in the long run on the cost of the commute.
As it is now, I have to work about 1.5 hours a day to pay for gasoline and the taxes they take out of my paycheck. So out of an 8 hour day I get to keep only 6.5 hours of pay. I only get $11 an hour so working for $71+ a day (after gas and taxes) is about a poverty level wage. Lets do the math - at $71 X 5 = 355 a week X 52 weeks = $18460 a year. That is about the same wage as a fast food clerk working full time. I am a highly skilled electronics tech who has taken on a low paying electronics assembly job at a job shop because all the electronics jobs have been out sourced to China. New technology has been very slow to develop otherwise I would have moved easily into those career fields.
Have I gone back to college? You bet I did - but the college courses were not geared towards todays job markets. I took several computer classes to get certified as an IT specialist but I knew more than the teachers and the material was outdated. I even tried a career change and found out that everyone else tired that same career change and the market was saturated with job seekers like me.
I am getting nowhere fast and just holding on until the economy improves and I can find a job with decent pay that I can actually live on rather than just barely surviving on - knocking on wood that nothing breaks or needs to be repaired or I don't get sick.
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As it is now, I have to work about 1.5 hours a day to pay for gasoline and the taxes they take out of my paycheck. So out of an 8 hour day I get to keep only 6.5 hours of pay. I only get $11 an hour so working for $71+ a day (after gas and taxes) is about a poverty level wage. Lets do the math - at $71 X 5 = 355 a week X 52 weeks = $18460 a year. That is about the same wage as a fast food clerk working full time. I am a highly skilled electronics tech who has taken on a low paying electronics assembly job at a job shop because all the electronics jobs have been out sourced to China. New technology has been very slow to develop otherwise I would have moved easily into those career fields.
Have I gone back to college? You bet I did - but the college courses were not geared towards todays job markets. I took several computer classes to get certified as an IT specialist but I knew more than the teachers and the material was outdated. I even tried a career change and found out that everyone else tired that same career change and the market was saturated with job seekers like me.
I am getting nowhere fast and just holding on until the economy improves and I can find a job with decent pay that I can actually live on rather than just barely surviving on - knocking on wood that nothing breaks or needs to be repaired or I don't get sick.
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Dumb ass boss on the internet all day
Nothing ticks me off more than having a boss that plays on the internet all f#@#ing day then has the gull to ask you how fast can you make something or put together a unit. Damn overpaid nut job is what that man is.
I had to say that. My work bench is facing his back and I get a full view of his computer screen all day long. I wish I had time to burn like that. NOOOOOO, I have to work as fast as I can to keep the production line going at damn near poverty level wages. He even showed off his iPhone and how he could download todays basketball game live. I can't afford that and neither can any of my co-workers.
Go get f***ed boss man. I hope to hell that upper management cans your ass soon, real soon.
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I had to say that. My work bench is facing his back and I get a full view of his computer screen all day long. I wish I had time to burn like that. NOOOOOO, I have to work as fast as I can to keep the production line going at damn near poverty level wages. He even showed off his iPhone and how he could download todays basketball game live. I can't afford that and neither can any of my co-workers.
Go get f***ed boss man. I hope to hell that upper management cans your ass soon, real soon.
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The unprepared dumb shit I worked with
Most of us plan ahead for crisis situations in our lives, most of us that is except for the dumb shits I work with.
I use to work in a state where the state paid you if you became temporarily disabled due to pregnancy, non-work related injury or if you had to go into the hospital for surgery. It is called state disability. Not all states have it. The state I work in now does not have that coverage. If you become disabled and cannot work, you cannot collect unemployment because you have to be able to work to get it.
Now that you have a bit of background on the subject here is what one idiot I work with did.
I worked with Mr. K for about 2 years and during that time he ballooned to a hefty 350+ lbs. He became diabetic and developed other health problems. When his doctor had to run some tests he was not concerned about it as he should have. The tests showed he needed major surgery on his heart valves. Instead of him finding out how long he would need to recuperate (he thought he would be only out for 2 weeks) he just went with the flow of what the doctors said. Then it came time for his major surgery.
He was in the hospital for a week, yep major, major surgery. He was under restrictions after he got home. He was not to drive a car for 4 weeks and go on a liquid diet for a week. He lived alone and had no other income coming in. It then sunk in, he was told by the doctor that he could not return to work for 3 months.
Now panic stricken he was now selling his personal items to his Facebook "friends."
He survived his crisis but those 3 months were stress filled and his credit rating went down the tubes as well as almost losing his apartment. He did not do his homework before his operation to find out the actual length of time he would be out. The odd thing was that most of us at work had someone in their family or knew someone that had undergone the same procedure that he did. We all tried to tell him that he would be out for at least 2 months. He ignored us and thought he would be back in a few weeks at the most.
Be prepared and don't be a dumb shit.
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I use to work in a state where the state paid you if you became temporarily disabled due to pregnancy, non-work related injury or if you had to go into the hospital for surgery. It is called state disability. Not all states have it. The state I work in now does not have that coverage. If you become disabled and cannot work, you cannot collect unemployment because you have to be able to work to get it.
Now that you have a bit of background on the subject here is what one idiot I work with did.
I worked with Mr. K for about 2 years and during that time he ballooned to a hefty 350+ lbs. He became diabetic and developed other health problems. When his doctor had to run some tests he was not concerned about it as he should have. The tests showed he needed major surgery on his heart valves. Instead of him finding out how long he would need to recuperate (he thought he would be only out for 2 weeks) he just went with the flow of what the doctors said. Then it came time for his major surgery.
He was in the hospital for a week, yep major, major surgery. He was under restrictions after he got home. He was not to drive a car for 4 weeks and go on a liquid diet for a week. He lived alone and had no other income coming in. It then sunk in, he was told by the doctor that he could not return to work for 3 months.
Now panic stricken he was now selling his personal items to his Facebook "friends."
He survived his crisis but those 3 months were stress filled and his credit rating went down the tubes as well as almost losing his apartment. He did not do his homework before his operation to find out the actual length of time he would be out. The odd thing was that most of us at work had someone in their family or knew someone that had undergone the same procedure that he did. We all tried to tell him that he would be out for at least 2 months. He ignored us and thought he would be back in a few weeks at the most.
Be prepared and don't be a dumb shit.
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Upper management in a failing company
I will never understand the mentality of upper management or ownership in a small and shrinking company.
Take for example one of the places I worked at. They lost 3 contracts one year due to mistakes on PCBs or so they told us all in a meeting that amounted to the 3rd degree. They (upper management) never got into how many boards or what the mistakes were. They just didn't want to lose more customers so they came down hard on production. They wanted us not to talk or be distracted in anyway and if we made mistakes we were to be written up and if that happened 3 times, we were to be shown the door. I know of no one that has not made mistakes, They wanted robots and they were not going to get any. Over the next few months the better production members found better jobs.
What they failed to do was practice what they put on their website and have processes in place to prevent mistakes and to have teams and use teamwork to proactively improve the process. The customers thought that what they read on the website was how things were done but in reality it was nothing more than a sweat shop that gave
Take for example one of the places I worked at. They lost 3 contracts one year due to mistakes on PCBs or so they told us all in a meeting that amounted to the 3rd degree. They (upper management) never got into how many boards or what the mistakes were. They just didn't want to lose more customers so they came down hard on production. They wanted us not to talk or be distracted in anyway and if we made mistakes we were to be written up and if that happened 3 times, we were to be shown the door. I know of no one that has not made mistakes, They wanted robots and they were not going to get any. Over the next few months the better production members found better jobs.
What they failed to do was practice what they put on their website and have processes in place to prevent mistakes and to have teams and use teamwork to proactively improve the process. The customers thought that what they read on the website was how things were done but in reality it was nothing more than a sweat shop that gave
There should be an IQ test
When you apply for a job you have to submit (at least most of the time) to certain tests. Almost all companies require a drug test but that is only after a position has been offered. Other tests might include typing speed, reading schematics, soldering, or a multitude of skill related tests, but they never ask for an intelligence test....and maybe they should.
I have worked with people that I swear never competed high school or even got past 4th grade for that matter. I was having a conversation with a co-worker about the massive floods in Australia last year and another person near us asked, "what part of Europe is that?" I guess I could be thankful that they knew about Europe.
The last dumb announcement was just a few months ago when another co-worker mentioned he saw the moon this morning after sunrise. He asked almost everyone was there going to be a major calamity take place because the moon was visible during the day time. Someone finally had to explain the orbit of the moon and the meaning of waxing and waning. Apparently the dumb cluck never looked up during daylight hours to see the moon. For those readers out there who are totally dumbfounded the moon is visible during daylight hours at least once a month.
Intelligence tests maybe not what would be required as much as a common sense test. How many of you know or work with an engineer or scientist that lack common sense? I have and even though they could design a computer they could not find their car in the parking lot if they parked it in a different place due to parking lot maintenance (yep, seen that first hand and I couldn't stop laughing).
Then again if a common sense test was required to get a job then think about all those dangerous jobs like miners and oil riggers that would go unfilled. I am not saying those workers are dumb, but who in their right mind would put their life in danger for a paycheck?
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I have worked with people that I swear never competed high school or even got past 4th grade for that matter. I was having a conversation with a co-worker about the massive floods in Australia last year and another person near us asked, "what part of Europe is that?" I guess I could be thankful that they knew about Europe.
The last dumb announcement was just a few months ago when another co-worker mentioned he saw the moon this morning after sunrise. He asked almost everyone was there going to be a major calamity take place because the moon was visible during the day time. Someone finally had to explain the orbit of the moon and the meaning of waxing and waning. Apparently the dumb cluck never looked up during daylight hours to see the moon. For those readers out there who are totally dumbfounded the moon is visible during daylight hours at least once a month.
Intelligence tests maybe not what would be required as much as a common sense test. How many of you know or work with an engineer or scientist that lack common sense? I have and even though they could design a computer they could not find their car in the parking lot if they parked it in a different place due to parking lot maintenance (yep, seen that first hand and I couldn't stop laughing).
Then again if a common sense test was required to get a job then think about all those dangerous jobs like miners and oil riggers that would go unfilled. I am not saying those workers are dumb, but who in their right mind would put their life in danger for a paycheck?
Get The Dumb Shits I Work With on your Kindle. Click on the link for a free 14 day trial today.
Don't you just hate people who judge others by the way they look?
I am not going to get into a blog post about race or obesity no this post is something more subtle than that. I am talking about someone judging another because of the look on their face.
I worked at a company for about 8 years and then walked out. I always wondered why I was treated like shit there, until I found out one day. My brother in law also worked there in the test department. About a year after I quit he was over for a birthday party and we started to talk about the company. It was during the conversation that he confessed that everyone (meaning the people he worked with) thought I was always
I worked at a company for about 8 years and then walked out. I always wondered why I was treated like shit there, until I found out one day. My brother in law also worked there in the test department. About a year after I quit he was over for a birthday party and we started to talk about the company. It was during the conversation that he confessed that everyone (meaning the people he worked with) thought I was always
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