Just Got Potted..
Yeah, I know I don't post here that much, but I needed to vent..
Went in this morning and got the brush-off.. Don't know if it was too much to do with what they said it was ("not productive enough") or more to do with politics, but I'm glad to be out of there TBH..
I started there through a temp agency (warehousing job) and the old manager offered me a position.. Then he found out that the agency wanted a year's pay to buy me off them, or I had to work there for 4 months, so I was temping there for that long and they took me on at Christmas.
Around Christmas they sacked the old manager and got this new guy in.. (I don't think he's ever liked me personally) and the rest of the guys there smoke (I don't) so he goes outside for like half an hour with them sometimes when they're quiet in the warehouse and I was left on my own inside.. Felt like he 'bonded' with the rest of them, but I was never 'part of the team'.
(And they always talk about sports, which I've never been into).
It was pretty much mindless work - pick orders (of heavy crap) and make pallets up for customers - but my mind always wandered and it took me too long to get the orders out.. Plus I'm approaching my late 30s now and everyone else (apart from the manager - who doesn't do this crap) has either done this for years or is a lot younger than me.
I used to build flat-pack furniture before this - which was easy because it was all pretty similar and once you knew the design you could just bang them out with a screwgun - and I could work on my own and just listen to my MP3 player all day, which was great.. Unfortunately, their cheap supply of furniture dried up and so that was that job.. Pity, as I was quite happy there for 3 years.. (Pay was crap, but the job was good, so it made up the difference.)
I'm actually glad to be out of this place when I think about it..
When I started I was only looking for a bit of supplementary income from the agency while I was on the dole (you can earn a bit each week while you sign on over here, as long as you declare it and don't go over a certain amount - you get less dole, but it makes up the difference so it's worth doing.. Not like the whole 'work a day and you have to sign off and on again' thing in the UK.)
I was hoping to get back into an office job, which I had had before this flat-pack thing - and I figured I could spend the rest of my time working on my CV and going to interviews - but then the agency gave me this job and said it could lead to full-time work, so I jumped on it.. Wish I hadn't now..
Oh well - I'm going to take this 'back to work course' next week and hopefully get back into the swing of things.. Sucks to be unemployed again though.. :(
Went in this morning and got the brush-off.. Don't know if it was too much to do with what they said it was ("not productive enough") or more to do with politics, but I'm glad to be out of there TBH..
I started there through a temp agency (warehousing job) and the old manager offered me a position.. Then he found out that the agency wanted a year's pay to buy me off them, or I had to work there for 4 months, so I was temping there for that long and they took me on at Christmas.
Around Christmas they sacked the old manager and got this new guy in.. (I don't think he's ever liked me personally) and the rest of the guys there smoke (I don't) so he goes outside for like half an hour with them sometimes when they're quiet in the warehouse and I was left on my own inside.. Felt like he 'bonded' with the rest of them, but I was never 'part of the team'.
(And they always talk about sports, which I've never been into).
It was pretty much mindless work - pick orders (of heavy crap) and make pallets up for customers - but my mind always wandered and it took me too long to get the orders out.. Plus I'm approaching my late 30s now and everyone else (apart from the manager - who doesn't do this crap) has either done this for years or is a lot younger than me.
I used to build flat-pack furniture before this - which was easy because it was all pretty similar and once you knew the design you could just bang them out with a screwgun - and I could work on my own and just listen to my MP3 player all day, which was great.. Unfortunately, their cheap supply of furniture dried up and so that was that job.. Pity, as I was quite happy there for 3 years.. (Pay was crap, but the job was good, so it made up the difference.)
I'm actually glad to be out of this place when I think about it..
When I started I was only looking for a bit of supplementary income from the agency while I was on the dole (you can earn a bit each week while you sign on over here, as long as you declare it and don't go over a certain amount - you get less dole, but it makes up the difference so it's worth doing.. Not like the whole 'work a day and you have to sign off and on again' thing in the UK.)
I was hoping to get back into an office job, which I had had before this flat-pack thing - and I figured I could spend the rest of my time working on my CV and going to interviews - but then the agency gave me this job and said it could lead to full-time work, so I jumped on it.. Wish I hadn't now..
Oh well - I'm going to take this 'back to work course' next week and hopefully get back into the swing of things.. Sucks to be unemployed again though.. :(
Post edited by Grunaki on
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I did it for about a year many years ago. I used to work part time in a musical instrument shop, and declare my wages.
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I worked for Booker's frozen foods, order picking, for 6 months. Everybody was numbskull numpties there. I asked one of the older blokes how long he was working there, he said 40 years! ffsake! I left about 2 weeks later. It was bloody cold, -60 in the deep freeze, and some of the old blokes used to be in there for over an hour. They'd come out with frozen snotty beards all proud of themselves. Sod that for a game of soldiers... My bones used to hurt when I went into the sun after work...
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That agency sounded a bit harsh. Are they all like that, or are there other ones you could sign up with?
That sort of thing is standard for agencies in the UK. The law has changed a bit recently and there are easy (well, easier) ways to get round it but it has always been classed as an introduction fee. Normally my contracts say something between 25% and 100% of first years salery if they take me full time while I am on contract to the agency so being as neither agencies or employers are really willing to give long contracts at the moment you just work out your 3 months and then don't renew with the agency and go staff with the employer. Agencies used to have a clause in the contract saying something like "if you go back to this employer within <length of time between 6 months and 2 years> then you owe us an introduction fee" but that was ruled illegal as restraint of trade.
The government (last one and this one) have come down quite heavy on agencies in the last few years to get rid of some dodgy practises after what happened with the chinese cockle pickers and for me, as a highly skilled, highly paid agency worker its been a real pain in the ass but for low skill, low wage workers it's done really good things in getting rid of some bad agencies and bad people in the trade. Made them all clean up there act a lot which, even though its bad for people like me, has been a good thing overall.
I was looking for quick work when I signed up with the agencies about 6 months back and was told to check out this one place because they usually get a lot of industrial jobs. It was a total hole though. If you wanted (almost) guaranteed work you had to be there for about 4:30 am when the place opened, (which meant getting into town on this special 'work bus' - no doubt full of all sorts of 'characters') and then sit around in this dodgy room which was in a basement down a flight of dark stairs (At 4:30am)..
They didn't do background checks, so all sorts went there, and they didn't pay anything above minimum wage.. There was a sign on the door saying "don't smoke pot in the corridor" and they had all sorts of scams to try and wangle the money back off you - like they would find you a job and take you there on their minibus, but you had to pay them $5 in gas money.. (And I don't think they brought you back, so frig knows how you were meant to take care of that..)
They also had this "work today, get paid today" scheme where after you'd worked they would credit your earnings to an account. You could wait until the end of the week and get a paycheque or you could use this ATM machine they had in the office that would let you withdraw some or all of it for a $5 fee.
I went down there during the day and signed up, and I was considering going back, but then I told my Wife about the state of the place and she told me not to bother, so I didn't.
Yeah, that's what I remember about the UK.. If you went over so many hours in a week though, you'd need to sign off.
What they have in Canada is this system called 'Employment Insurance', which is automatically taken out of your wage while you work. The more you earn, the more you contribute.
You pay into a fund and can amass so many weeks of payment which will come back to you if you become unemployed (it's something like 70% of your last working wage). Once you start a claim, they tell you how many weeks it will run for (up to a maximum of 52). It runs through its duration regardless of whether you start a job or not, but once you start full-time work you stop getting money from EI. However, when you start working, you start amassing another 'pot'.
If your employment ends before your previous claim does, (provided you didn't quit or get fired for gross misconduct), then you can still go back and ride out however many weeks of it are left. If you're still unemployed when it runs out, your new claim (the 'new pot') is automatically initiated when the first one ends.. Otherwise it just sits there and is gradually overwritten as the duration of your worked time increases.
(This can also be a bad thing though - if, when starting a new claim, you have an EI 'pot' from one job and go to work at another place with a much higher wage, but the new job doesn't last long enough to completely overwrite the contributions from your old job, then rather than give you 70% of your last working wage, they blend the two levels of contribution you have banked for an average and give you 70% of that - which kind of sucks.)
Anyway - while you're claiming EI, you can work as much as you like, so long as you declare it. If you earn less than (I think) $223 in a fortnight, you'll get some EI money, but if you earn more than that you won't get anything from them for that 'pay period'.
When I started my last claim, I got lucky(ish) and started working right away for the temp agency and they kept me busy, so I never actually got any EI payments as I had always earned too much.. However, I kept my claim active and ongoing all the time while I was temping as the question it asks when you sign on is "have you begun permanent full-time work in the period of this report" and I hadn't as I was still a temp.. When this place took me on, I had to answer that yes, I had started a full-time job and it closed my claim.. So now I might not get any money for the first two weeks as it usually doesn't give you any - but that could just be when starting a new claim.. As I'm tapping into an existing one, that may not apply.. Have to wait and see.
(Sorry, that was long-winded and probably quite boring.. ;) )
what you said about furniture and a warehouse.. have you got an airport near you .. find out if there is a place that does custom packing crates.. that might be something handy for you.
where I worked (the mac place years ago). we had to do the upgrades in the warehouse as obv they'd be re-packed / boxed.. and yer the boss there was a bit of a "der" and it was very pack mentality. Bloke who was good at football, but trashed his career thru a bad knee.. blah de blah.. and ended up there.
I do my work and avoid most of my colleagues. I used to go smoke in my car before after smoking ban came in. Gave up smoking and still go out for my break. I don't have anything in common with a lot of folk who I work with. Yet I'm sure others here get it.. very handy to know when their pc or mac goes up the ****
people going outside taking smoke breaks on top of their own breaks I do find annoying and if I added it up , bet it'd be a day or 3 of holidays.
my friend in regina tells me the weather.. sod -30 or -40 , dunno how cold it is where you are. You'll find something I'm sure , but agencies here are used a lot for your sort of work , same for driving .. partly as works not consistent + they don't wanna pay out big pensions in years later. An ex of mine used to work for an agency BUT in accounts so knew how much her agency got.. basically they paid the agency the same amount they were paying her.. so there is a few quid in that line of work.
That's exactly why I decided to go back to school when working 12 hour shifts in non skilled jobs such as factories or the security industry. I saw old nearly retired blokes having the saddening to see 'What have I done with my life' moments whilst they coughed and dry retched their way though a cigarette, and young guns you knew were going to be in their position in 40 or so years time. TBH it scared me witless.
Now if I went back to to my eleven year old self and said what I would be doing in 25 years time, I'd be like 'I cant wait go go to work' all then gadgets all that tech!??! Wow!. However, funnily enough very often my job depresses me, but that's mostly because of non job related socio-political shenanigans of others and not the core of the work which I love. Largely it does not seem to matter where you work or at what level. Some lucku places are great fun to work at and other not for a multitude of reasons, be it cliques and exlcusion tactics, elitism, or one one-upmanship knowledge is power let's keep them down type things .
I like this quote from William Gibson.
is that the pink in the brown hole?
errrrrrrrrrrrm
I though this was going to be about weed.
That's usually a lack of concentration that. What you need to do is take time to line up the shot. Maybe make a few practice motions...but always make sure to strike cleanly and follow through with your cue - don't stab at these things.
Of course luck plays a part and sometimes going into the brown hole is the only option if the other hole is covered by a red.
Snap.
little doggy crossing street
heavy lorry......
potted meat