Time to move on/and a special Thank You to Butterfly

Hello everyone

Well it is 11:45pm on a Wednesday night and I am sitting and thinking about 8am and the fact I am going to be unemployed.

Part of me says wait don't do it you only called in one day and said your taking a personal day.

But the other part of me say dam it man how much more of your soul can you stand to let these folks take away from you?

So with a sick feeling in my gut I plan to show up fashionably late to work in the morning walk in hand them my keys my work shirts and turn around and walk out.

THE PART BELOW WAS WRITTEN AS WAY TO PURGE MY MIND OF THE PLACE I HAVE BEEN FOR THE LAST YEAR AND A HALF (MY JOB)

For those that might be interested I will kinda fill you in on what the deal is and why it is bothering me and why it is TIME TO MOVE ON.

You see me and butterfly have been together a year and a half. I started this job two days before I got to actually meet her for the first time. I have held this job the whole time we have been together.

My point is in many of her past relationships she has had to support the man not to mention the kids have seen her do this time and time again. I would never want her or them to feel I am leaving this job just to be a dead beat.

Well today me and the boy child where outside working on the door for his room and out of the blue he ask me if I was going back to work tomorrow? I looked him right in the eyes and said son after being off four days and having time to get my thoughts straight No I am not going back.He looked back at me with a serious look on his face and said GOOD!

I thought to myself wow what a good feeling to know these kids understand what I am going through and that I have their support.

You see my days off this week was sun,mon was supposed to work tue just to turn around and be off again wen. Well yesterday I called and said I was not coming in I was taking a personal day(first time I ever used a personal day). Oh the boss was pissed he started crying well you know my father in law(the main owner) is sick and I (owners son in law)am not feeling to well myself (keep in mind he is on his day off but up at the store at 8 am?) and with you taking off that is going to run us really short handed(keep in mind it is tue. we always work with just three people on the floor)are you sure you can't come in? er um NO!

Now let me explain what I was told when I hired on. I was told you get ten sick days per year and ten personal days per year (all of these are unpaid by the way) if you happen to need to use them and you have a open day(day off) you can make up your time so you don't lose any of your hours. LMAO I have called in sick one time in a year and a half and never once was offered to let me make it up. Hmm? I smell a fucking liar( my worthless boss).

Well that is just one of the many problems at this place. The next one that chaps my ass is the way they give us our days off. The lady who makes the schedules every week has no common sense about how to do it. One week she post the schedules on a tue the next week it may be first thing Thursday morning or it may be Thursday evening late so trying to make some kinda plans with the family is next to impossible.

Oh if you think that is enough to push you to the point of telling them to fuck off just wait lol it gets better yet.See where I work they have six cashiers and they have six customer service people(that is what i am).

OK all of the cashiers rotate every other weekend off that don't sound too bad right? No not at all till you take a look at our schedules. You see the customer service people we rotate weekends alright EVERY FIFTH WEEKEND that's right you read correctly we only get every fifth weekend off that is if no one puts in a request for that weekend off which would bump you out of your turn.

Well I should say that there are five of us who have to rotate every fifth weekend. You see our manager and the top customer service guy on the schedule they also rotate weekends just like the cashiers.

Well I got to watching how things was going some time back and I said something to the other guys. They all said hey your right what gives here? I said I don't know but we all need to go to the manager at the same time and say hey man right is right and we would like to have a chance to plan things with our families too.

Well one of the guys who is a little older than me said yeah your right and I will speak up when we all go to meet with the manager. So I ask the other guys hey what do y'all think? Oh yeah we would like to have weekends off more than we do. I said OK well it takes more than just one guy with BALLS to speak up for equal treatment.Oh man they where all on board with it.

Well it seems that the top guy(managers ass kisser caught wind that he was possibly going to have to share his every other weekend off schedule if this made it to the managers Attention so next thing you know a couple of them are craw fishing on setting up a meeting with him.

Well folks I got Balls and I waited and I waited for just the right time to ask him hey what gives on this time off thing? He said whats wrong with the time? I said well nothing if your anyone of the others that get every other weekend off.

But there is five of us out of everyone that don't get every other weekend off and I feel that we should. You always talk about getting burned out/stressed out but yet you seem to have no concern about our well being.

Well his worthless reply was "well that is just how the schedule is made". I said and your the manager you can set it up where we all get some time away from this place other than one day off here or two days off during the week when our friends and family are all gone to work or school.

I could see I had him by the balls and dam if I was going to let up off of him while I finally had his ass backed up in a corner.

So I said and come to think of it I just wanted you to know I am not stupid nor have I forgot what you said when I hired in. 1. learn to cut keys 1.00 raise 2. learn to cut glass 1.00 raise 3. learn to cut and thread pipe 1.00 raise I said been doing all that for over a year now and have not seen anything after the first raise you give me. So the way I got it figured you have pasted me up twice now and I feel I am do for a annual raise on top of that.

Oh man I thought the poor bastard was about to pass out. I don't think anyone has ever had the balls to tell it like it is. (Now folks keep in mind he is my age(late 30's) not some old fart about to die)

Well he did just what I thought he would he went to trying to explain that he spends to much time in his office and not out on the floor to really see what everyone is doing and what all it is they can do or be doing to improve the store. Oh he did say that this crew of guys is one of the best crews he has ever had.(can you see him trying to blowing smoke up someones ass?)

I looked at him and utterly LOL no joke I stood there and laughed at him and said sir I strongly disagree with you on so many levels it is not even funny.Just the fact that we all come to work on our posted days to work we don't call in sick or leave early is enough to give us a annual raise if nothing else. And as far as your answer to the five of us that don't get but every fifth weekend off that sir is a lame excuse and that shows your asst. manager does not know how to make out a time sheet.

Well if you have read this far then you know I basically got the brush off of well uh I uh will uh look into it and see what we can do.

So I have decided that I am done it is time for me to move on to a job that offers some kind of benefits. Butterfly has begged me to quit for some time now. I just kept saying no not yet I think I am making head way here and if I leave who will stand up for the ones who wont or don't have the balls too?

I hope that my time there has brought these guys a little closer to becoming men and that my leaving will be a wake up call for them?

To the guys I work with I will miss each one of you. I hope that in some way I have taught you to stand up for yourselves and what is right. I wish each and everyone of you guys the very best life has to offer. I hope that one day each of you will find the courage to get away from that dark place. There is something there that utterly takes a mans soul away from him and leave him with nothing. I was very lucky to have someone as strong willed as butterfly to keep my will as strong as it stayed and for this the man could not/ did not break me or beat me down.

Butterfly I want to thank you for all the support you have given me over the last year and a half while I tried to make that little corner of the world a better place. I feel in some ways I have failed by quiting tomorrow or rather today.

I will always wonder if anything I did or said made any difference to the guys? I worry that one day they will wake up to realize the man has taken the best years of their young lives and left them with nothing and by then it will be to late to make a change.

Butterfly thank you again for being such a good slave,a wonderful mother, and a dam fine listener/advice giver to the bullshit I have crawled through in the last year.

Master JB