Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Hump Day

Well, it is Wednesday and the traditional "hump day". Once you are through this day of the work week, the weekend seems close at hand. Ahhhhh, can't wait. It has been a tough week!!
Shawn and I were just saying last night how the people who did the study that every company quotes regarding employee satisfaction, must have been underwritten by some large conglomerate. We were talking about the fact that if you can't support your family on the wage you are earning then you do not have job satisfaction. I don't disagree with the idea that staff must feel involved in decision making to a point, receive public recognition of their work and simple thank you's for everything they do but money is a great incentive - especially when extra work is constantly being added.
For instance, "On Call" was not part of my original job description, hire letter or an expectation of my job. Four years into my career, they decided to put the management team "On Call". I am now "On Call" for a week every eight weeks. There was no discussion of compensation or lieu time. I actually called the labour relations board who said that yes, every time we received a call, we were entitled to 15 minutes of lieu time. There have been days when I have had at least 20 calls and with the downloading of tasks to my everyday job, just getting in my vacation time is difficult. So, if they offered me more money to do this or at least honored the time in lieu, I would feel better about the whole situation.
I guess what I am saying is that even though I really like the recognition for a job well done, I would also like to be compensated for my extra time and the weekends and evenings that I give up when I am "On Call". I would really like to get out of management and all of the "extras" but with this adoption timeline increasing daily, it doesn't look like I will be able to do that for some time. So another hump day completed and looking forward to a nice and relaxing weekend.

2 comments:

Tao's Mommy said...

Sounds like you a similar situation that I was in. And when your off and "on call" and you get that CALL it is so hard to relax again as your mind in back on work!!! I feel for you!!! Can I ask...do you work in the hotel industry?????

Kristine said...

No, I work in the retirement industry but it is very similar to the hospitality industry with fine dining, event planning, upscale suites for our clients, emphasis on client satisfaction and service. My favorite was a call at 1 am because the fire alarms went off and noone seemed to know how to reset them. You can't get back to sleep after those!! Thanks for your understanding Kim, I had a particularly bad day yesterday!!!