Don't threaten me with a good time

I had a supervisor, Frank, come into my office (while I am in the middle of payroll) and tell me that half his crew is getting ready to quit. Morale is terrible.

Ok.

I'm not sure what he wants me to do about it. I did not yell at him, but I did get a little more forceful than I normally do, because stuff like this makes me hateful. I told him there's nothing I can do about it, and they're going to do what they think is best for them. It's mostly talk, but I will not be held hostage by a bunch of man babies who are upset they have to work a little overtime. No, it isn't ideal, but we are paying them very, very well for their troubles. And I'm keeping them in meals and snacks.

If they're going to quit, then quit. Fine. I will replace them and be happy to do it. Will it cause some trouble and disruption? Yes. Do I want them to quit? Of course not. But we are not going to play this game.

I will not be threatened.

This job is going to drive me to drink.

Go get me a switch

The last couple of weeks have been so, so crazy friends. This actually happened a couple of days after the events in this post, but I'm just now getting a chance to tell y'all about it. Strap in.

Let me start at the beginning. One thing that I didn't mention in that post was that my boss, Marvin, was out of town that week. So I was handling the cookout all on my own, which was fine. We'd planned for it. At several points in the week, I did get a profound sense that oh, this must be what it feels like to have children. I about told several people to go outside and get me a switch. (For those not from the South, that means a small branch to spank with.)

I wanted to do something nice for Department B, because by that time they'd been working almost a month without a day off. They'd cycled through the local restaurant offerings, and I thought about what is easily scale-able for a bunch of people, and volunteered myself to make bacon and pancakes. I've done it for a crowd before, but never by myself. How hard could it be?

Well. So I call up the grocery store the day before and warn them that I'm coming. I then proceed to purchase 100 lbs. of bacon. (That's 45.3 kg for my non American friends.) Its a lot. The checkout guy's face when I showed up with an entire buggy of bacon was something. 

So anyway, I get everything back to work, go to dinner, and decide that I don't have enough time between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. to take a nap. I head into work at one and get started. 

This is the part where you will know if you know me in real life, because I have told this part of the story to many people. Everything on the internet said you could cook a pan of bacon for 15 to 20 minutes at 400 degrees (204 C) and it would be done. Well. The oven in the breakroom doesn't work that way. I had to crank it up to 550 degrees, and it still took 45 minutes to get one pan of bacon done. That's not a lot, especially when you're feeding about 20 people a round. I also had trouble getting the griddles for the pancakes to stay on, because I kept tripping the power strip. I finally just pushed the meal back by an hour and a half, because I wanted it to be ready. I will not do that by myself again.

Anyway, at this point it's like 4 a.m. I do not have makeup on, and I have been awake for about 20 hours. One of the supervisors asked me, completely serious, if I had been out in the sun. No, sir, that's just what my face looks like. Also, I've been running around for three hours like a chicken with my head cut off.

That meal went more or less ok, as did the others that followed. After the somewhat disastrous first attempt, I took the rest of the bacon home to cook. It worked much better, even if the house did smell like bacon grease for two solid weeks.

However. I do have some complaints about the way in which these men complimented me. Did they say, "Hey Bees, this is good, thank you." Well, some of them did. But I had not one, not two, not three, but FOUR SEPARATE PEOPLE over the three meals tell me that my cooking would make me good wife material. Thank you? If they thought I was offended by this, they would be horrified, but it's offensive. Why can't they just say thank you? If I was a man, nothing would be said about my marriageability based on cooking. It would just be, hey man, this is good. Sometimes, working in a male dominated industry is terrible.

And now, what everyone really wanted to hear about. One of the supervisors (!!!) told me that if the food was any good, he'd have to hurry his divorce along so he could marry me instead. He is easily twice my age, and a very, very strange man. Not sure on what world he thought it would be ok to say that to someone, especially someone my age. I think at that point (when I had also been awake for probably 30 hours) my brain just shorted out.

No thank you. I shudder just thinking about it. No. Just no.

*Walks out of the room, then comes back wagging finger*
And another thing!

I have been proposed to over food before, but it was for my triple chocolate cupcakes, from someone roughly my age, and those deserved it. Bacon and pancake mix (from a box) most certainly did not rise to that level.

My favorite thing

About a month ago, the guy in the stockroom forgot to order some supplies I asked for. It wasn't a big deal, but he and I give each other a hard time, so I acted like it was a big deal.

I called and asked if my stuff had come in, and he said I hadn't ordered anything. I had, two weeks before, and he missed the email. Again, it wasn't anything urgent, and he had it here the next day.

However. I go on lots of trips to the grocery store for snacks, and we have lunch for the salaried staff/visitors about twice a month. It's hard to get that stuff down the hallway, let alone across a very large plant.

I told him (and I do believe I've forgotten to give him a name) that if he wanted to make it up to me, I was going to need a cart. Just a little three shelf thing.

Y'all. I have used that thing literally every day. Whether it's for extra desk space while I'm sorting papers, or taking snacks back to Department B, I find some way to use it. It's a lifesaver. Highly recommend.

It's maddening

Just had a conversation with an employee who asked about how much vacation time he has left.

Me: Did you take any vacation in July?

EE: No, I haven't taken any in a while.

I start to pull up the spreadsheet, because I get to track all our vacation manually right now.

EE: I took some in July when we were off for the shutdown.

I am proud to report that I did not bang my head against the keyboard.

Don't give me that sass

So there is a distinct divide between the two departments at work. The perception that Department B gets treated better than A is not always untrue, which doesn't help morale. Which is in the toilet. But that's another post.

Anyway, the employees in B have been having to work weekends lately. Not optional. I have been doing my best to make it as nice as I can, and giving them perks like bringing in food and snacks.

However. The employees in A don't realize that B gets the extras because they have to be here 60+ hours a week. Well, they do, but they choose not to recognize it.

Anyway, A had to work a couple of shifts this Saturday. (Which is where I am right now, actually. And I'll be here Sunday. Yay) I was taking some snacks back to B on the cart I made the guy in the stockroom give me, which is my favorite thing. (Also another post) I had someone stop me and ask slightly snottily where their snacks were. He was fully expecting me to say that everything I had was for B. And everything on the cart was. But. I asked if he was working this weekend, and he said yes, slightly dejectedly. I told him their half was in my office, and we'd be having pizza for lunch. He looked dumbfounded.

I'm going to make everything as equal as possible, and I take great pleasure in throwing people's assumptions back in their faces. It's a win win.

The shadiest

Oh my word. Friends.

I have joked about this before on the AAM open thread, but I've decided it's true. The Hellmouth has moved, and it's moved here.

My work is like a circus. But not a normal, fun, accredited one. No. It's a shady, fly by night kind of circus. Where they still have tigers and stuff, and all the clowns look like criminals, and the people manning the rides look like they could disappear in a puff of smoke at any moment.

Everyone is so stressed, and I'm trying to manage it with snacks, but we've got people working weekends, and they are not happy about it. They've worked every Saturday since the week after the 4th of July, and have only had the last two Sundays off. They're working this Sunday though. Our corporate overlords are trying to make some greatly unwelcome changes.

It's not good. And if this one little pompous upstart VP doesn't come swanning into my office with all these "great ideas" to improve moral, I'm going to hammer him through the concrete floor and into the dirt. Yesterday he comes in at 10:30 and wants lunch for 25 people. At 11. We are in a small town. Most of the places I get us lunch from I give at least 24 hr notice to. Sometimes more. We had lunch at 12. I headed him off today, I just went ahead and called yesterday on the off chance he'd want food today. Bless his heart, he thinks I was able to get a full course Italian meal here in like an hour.

I still have to tell y'all about when I worked the overnight a couple of weeks ago. Here's a teaser for you, it involves a creepy marriage proposal. Yay.

At least there's overtime

So. I was scrolling through my phone, and passed calendar. Then I had to stop and go back. How did it get to be the 29th already? This week just flew by, and so did the month. I must have been in more of a daze then I thought.

Or. Possibly, I just hit that day at one point when swiping past it, and that's why its highlighted. Just possibly.

In my defense, I have worked the last two Saturdays. Last Saturday for about 6 hours, starting at 7 a.m., helping to clean one of the lines. (And I have a story about that for later) And the Saturday before that, I was awake for like 40 hours straight and fed everyone breakfast. Which I can't remember if I told y'all about or not. I will check.

But anyway. I am in a constant state of tired. Maybe it will slow down soon.

Ha.