Most of you who have followed this blog (for what reasons I could never even try to guess) will know that last October, I was trained in Lift Truck (forklift) operation at the company where I work. You will also know that the actual certificate, and the promised raise that was supposed to accompany it, were never given by my employer. Well, today, part of that changed!
I was having one of the worst days today at work. I was truly convinced that I couldn't do anything right, and that the first and biggest mistake of my day was getting out of bed! The second, of course, was going into work. I have had a nasty headache for 6 days now, and I am firmly convinced that stress is the reason for it.
Things at work have been quite stressful of late. We keep getting emails read to us at our daily meetings which bluntly say that our best efforts aren't good enough. We are constantly being asked to work overtime. We are constantly being reminded how far behind we are in our orders, and "since we could process over 4500 orders a day before Christmas, why are we only able to average 3500/day now?" I asked if anyone had taken into consideration the large number of employees that had been transferred into a new department in January, and the other smaller, but still significant, number of employees who had left since Christmas; none of them have been replaced as of yet due to the hiring freeze. A blank look was my only response. Go figure. Things at home have also been stressful as the electricity company has decided to become the "Big Bully" now that the colder weather is here and are threatening to cut off our electricity because I'm one bill in arrears with them. This is despite the fact that back in November, we got a huge whopping bill which I immediately disputed. Turns out the 3rd party company I buy my hydro from made an error on all the bills in my town. (Never buy into a contract with a 3rd party energy marketer... since we "locked in our hydro rate", the public rate has gone down to about two thirds of what we are paying now, but since we signed a contract, we still have to pay the higher rate! The "cancellation penalty" is astronomic, to say the least!) So, the Hydro company promised to send out a corrected bill. We get it two months later, three days before the NEXT Hydro bill, which is for DOUBLE our normal usage because we "didn't pay our last bill"! There is no way on this earth I can pay a four month hydro bill on my income. I have tried to make arrangments with the hydro company but they haven't returned any of my phone calls. They just keep sending out bully letters threatening to disconnect our hydro, which, BTW, if I remember correctly, was made illegal in our province a few years ago, after a few people died of exposure in the City of Toronto after having their electricity disconnected during the winter.
Anyway, I digress from the main purpose of this post. As you can see, things have been stressful, and I get nasty headaches when under high stress. So, I was having a very bad day. At one point I was seriously considering stepping in front of a lift truck so that I would get hurt and be allowed to stay home with pay for several weeks, but then discarded that thought as the operator of the lift truck would have had to pay a $25,000 fine for hitting me! Not fair to them, now, right? But that's how angry, upset, frustrated, etc, I was.
So, about 2:45 pm, I hear a page for "All warehouse associates to the Order Desk!" "ALL WAREHOUSE associates"? I figured this meant we were in for another rant from our VP of Operations. I've talked about him before. I'm NOT one of his biggest fans, that's for sure! Sure enough, there he is, pacing around in front of the order desk while we all assembled around. There sure are a lot of us, so it takes a while! LOL! Once he started talking, he told us he had heard that morale in the warehouse was very low and wanted to make some announcements. Some of them were silly, but necessary, due to the completely juvenile behaviour of some of the staff. (Pooping on toilet SEATS and other non-flushable surfaces to name just one... ) Others were more serious and my reason for posting is one of them. (WOW! How did I ever get so far off topic???)
To shorten this post into something digestable rather than the 300 page novel it could be, LOL, let me get to the point.
One of the things our VP did was to officially hand out this to every employee who had taken Fork-lift training in the past year:
WHOOO HOOOOO! I finally have my certificate!!!! He also announced that he had been working on an review of our payscales and would have a further announcement regarding them that he thinks will make everyone happier within two weeks. So... I now have my certificate, and might soon have my raise! I just hope they make it retroactive to the date on that certificate! I mean, they'd better! It WAS promised to me when I was hired!
The other bit of good news was, we had a severe winter storm a couple of weeks ago, and a lot of people either didn't come in, or left early because they were afraid for their safety. Some conflicting information was given out by the management team regarding pay for that day, so to correct it, they paid everyone for that day whether they came in or not, or left early or not. Nice! But what about those of us who did come in and worked our entire shift? He gave each of us that had done so a $25 Canadian Tire Gift Card! SWEET! It's amazing how a little gesture like that can really change how you feel, isn't it?
Anyway, the stress is still there, my headache is still there, but I feel a little more positive than I have in the past few weeks. Thanks for hanging in there to read this entire post! I'll try to not leave so much time between posts!
P.S. My Blogger spell checker isn't working, for some reason, so if I missed any typos during my entry, BLAME BLOGGER!!!
7 comments:
yeah they passed a law in the states that they can not turn off any power that runs heat or a/c if you have children under 18 or adults over 65 in the home.
At least that helps a bit.
We had a problem with our hydro bill about 4 years ago. We owed $500 and Shawn had been laid off for weeks. I was doing day care (that, my friend, is a whole other story!) and we just couldn't make ends meet. They threatened to disconnect us, too. Since it was winter, all they did was put a box on the meter. What this did was limit the amount of hydro we could use. It would turn everything off if you used more than the allotment, and you would have to go outside and push a big red button that would turn everything back on. We could use the lamps, watch tv, and all of that. If we had the dryer on, I had to make sure that everything else was off, and the same with the stove. It was a HUGE pain in the ass, but we did have our hydro. I think, at worst that's all that they can do.
It took us about 2 months to pay our over due bill. A royal pain, but we survived.
Yay on the certificate! I hope that you do get the raise. I hate when you do everything that is asked of you, and then some, but the big boss doesn't come through for you.
I'm glad to see you back. I was wondering where you were :)
Hello Steve (if that is your real name). Hooray for your certificate. I'm crossing all my fingers and toes that you and the others get your raise retroactive. Take a copy just in case it gets wrecked or lost.
I also think your headaches are stress-related. I'm going to write a post about this but for now I'll just say that every one of my physical and mental problems are caused by stress or made worse by stress. I'm a stress magnet.
There are many things one can do that really work well. For your headaches I suspect your neck is causing them. Your neck and surrounding area such as shoulders tense up when you have stress which interferes with your Qi (pronounced chee) also called life force or energy flow. Check it out.
Meanwhile do gentle neck and shoulder exercises. GENTLE AND SLOW but do often during the day. Do you have a Magic Bag? It feels good on the neck and shoulders - relaxing.
I've had many sleepless nights over bills. I don't manage money very well so I won't even try to offer my advice (not that you even asked for it) LOL
Mercury is in retrograde right now which explains that troublesome Hydro bill and the delay in getting your certificate and raise. Mercury goes direct on Feb 19. Things will smooth out for all of us after that at least until it happens again in a couple of months.
You said your post was long-winded. HA My comment is long-winded too.
First...wtg on getting the certificate and hope the raise comes soon...
Second...I believe you are right that it IS illegal for them to cut off power...but they still did it to a neighbour of mine last winter and all her pipes froze and burst..nice eh???
Third...ughhhhh on the headache...hope it gets better soon.
Burfica - We don't have any age restrictions, just can't during the winter months.
Biddie - Our utility companies are such bullies... because the government allows them to be. Guelph Hydro makes a HUGE profit every year, and we pay the highest rates in the area, but they still like to beat on the little guy.
Babzy - Yes, my real name is Steve. I have 3rd Stage Sublaxation in my cervical spine, which causes most of my headaches. When I get tense, the muscle tension in my neck causes the nerves looping through the cervical vertebrae back into the brain to become pinched, which causes no end of problems for me. I've never been a believer of horoscopes, astrology or any of the Eastern mysticisms, but if things suddenly get a whole lot better, I might have to reconsider! LOL!
Flake - 1st - Thanks! 2nd - typical Ontario Hydro bullies... and 3rd - I so agree! Thanks!
hey hey hey congrats! i love certificates. it makes everything a little more official.
have you seen a doc about these headaches? ;) i won't try to diagnose you, but take care of yourself, ok?
Cinn - Yeah, I've seen my doc about them. He finally acknowledged that I do get migraines (after 3+years of declaring that men don't get migraines) and gave me meds for those, and for the tension headaches, he has no solution except "Take 2 Advil, Tylenol, whatever and learn how to relax!" I am also seeing a chiropractor and once my medical benefits kick in at work (March 17) I'm going to look into physiotherapy and ART (Active Release Techniques) Massage Therapy. Hopefully something works!
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