Categories: uncategorized
Date: 06 October 2007 14:35:56
Well, I just had the shortest job, ever.
Accepted a position as a trainee with a very very small, private, family-owned company, to be taught how to use a console that looks like an Original Star Trek (LP/vinyl) record player. I was to trace the zigzag inkmarks on circular charts that would come to me from natural gas pipeline gauges, thus providing the companies involved with info. re: flow rates, etc.
(This could probably be done by machines altogether. Boss lady mentioned a few times how she'd written the Excell program for the monthly statements herself, so I felt like asking her why she didn't buckle down and write a computer program to read the charts.
I'm not sure why there is still the human element so intertwined. I wasn't arguing, though -- it was a job.)
A little less than my optimum pay range, but then there were other perks and plans for re-evaluation and raises later on after I was trained. The lady I was coming in to replace was to train me.
This woman is the close friend and savior-of-the-owner. Within a few weeks' time a couple years back, Owner had gone thru the turmoil of sudden widowhood, almost losing her business in the inheritance wrangle with the stepsons.
And Hurricane Katrina hit, wiping out some sources of the company's business, followed one month later by Hurricane Rita, which wiped out more.
And somewhere in the mix the trainer-lady had also lost her husband after a long illness.
So the business owner and her daughter had their business saved from destruction by fellow widow Trainer Lady jumping in and joining them in the long slog of 18-hour days it took to save the business and help their clients survive. (Even now, two years on, Trainer Lady usually gets to work one or even two hours early, and occasionally works on a weekend, with no extra compensation.)
And I'm supposed to be dropped into that dynamic and survive? Eh, didn't bother me, I am a cocky thing. I went, jumped right in. Seemed to fit in OK.
(Or maybe not. The days seemed filled with employees dashing hilarious emails back and forth to each others' offices, and oooh-ing and aahh-ing over each others' catalog purchases as they were delivered. How hilarious that I, a participant in various 'Net-forums and a bloggish person, stood back all business-like while the others Internetted themselves into a giggle-fest.
And I appreciated any humor they shared with me, and I thought their new shoes / new dress / orders of fresh produce were lovely -- I did not exude any surprise or disapproval, because I might have been surprised but I certainly did not disapprove. Small family businesses are like that, I guess.)
(And what was it with the constant references to race race race color color color around there? I was informed before I was ever hired that the only other serious candidate was a Black girl. What that had to do with anything I don't know. If the Boss Lady's reasons for choosing me over her were legit, then she might have shared them with me without any reference to race at all.
They seemed like such nice people. I found out that they give to at least one race-related charity, while I was there -- but these little ladies went all nervine when Black people walked in, and almost daily there was some sort of "I'm not prejudiced, but..." type comment in the conversational mix. Not to mention that they made sure I knew where the handgun was kept.)
Yesterday afternoon the boss lady asks the trainer lady to do an evaluation on me. I was not aware that there would be a (supposedly) two-week evaluation. I wonder if the people at the State-connected office where Boss Lady found me knew that? Standard around here is a 90-day probationary period, or at least 30.
So -- after 13 days, only perhaps 5 of them real working days having much of my particular techical/artistic task involved (cyclical nature of the information arriving) -- and the work I did get to do, I wasn't allowed to do without trainer lady hovering and clucking and twitching the whole while I was in her files and using her machine -- stating verbally all the while that she did not mean to hang over my shoulder --
I was informed that I had not picked up all the nuances of the position. The complaint seemed to amount to (a) me not touching the exact same paperwork in the exact same order as Trainer Lady, and (b)... um... well, there really wasn't anything else. That was it.
A list I had never been shown listed all the duties I had been doing, with little checkmarks of disapproval from the trainer lady because, apparently, I would put my hands on Date Stamper A before I touched Index File Card B.
I assumed that meant I was to be "let go". (Did not bother me a bit, not one twinge of regret. I felt I'd been freed. That must be some kind of sign...)
But then owner lady and trainer lady got to discussing things, and it began to dawn upon them that they'd have insufficient coverage in the office without me, as trainer lady runs off on holiday next week and again next month.
Hee hee hee. I almost did it -- I almost shook hands all around and said, "See ya!" But, no, I offered to stick around at least another week to help out.
I had been turning down interview requests from other companies since I started there. (Of course, that's how you make some of these recruiters take an interest in you, go take another job. It's like making it rain by washing your car or scheduling a picnic.)
So, now, in my final week, I will openly take all such calls that may come in and go ahead and schedule interviews during my lunch hour, after work, the next week, etc.
Let us hope said calls do continue to come in!