So I've been at my current employer since December of last year. In the time that I've been there I've always voiced my opinion on anything that I thought could be improved or anything I thought wasn't right and I've never conceded and most of the time I've won held my ground and won the argument. I try to always communicate with supervisors and support about problems I encounter to try and get them fixed. I stick out a bit in meetings but I only state facts and if it's an opinion I try to use reasonable logic to persuade. Several things have been reviewed and fixed because of me.
Overall, I'd say I go above and beyond my job duties when I find free time and someone asks for help.
I started in production running a laser to cut parts as entry level. I bid on every job posted until I won a bid to be a forklift driver. I'm pretty competent in who needs what and what goes where and I stay ahead most of the time because we don't have a very large staff on third shift and we are never able to run all 5 machines at once. In my downtime I double check out shipping lanes for stuff that other shifts have put in the wrong place and I fix it, or I'll look for something that needs done and just do it because it's better than sitting around and waiting for something to do.
We have a high turnover rate so theres always someone newer who may need help with something and the lead that runs the FL or is often out smoking or on his phone so I'll stop and help where I can. I recently brought my son in law to work and got him a job there. He's just 18 so I try and make sure he is always doing his best and ask if he needs anything. There's been an issue with one person there giving him shit and at one point tricking him into looking at his genitals on this person's phone when he thought he was looking at the guys vacation pictures. I emailed HR about all of this after the supervisor did little about it. I feel this started a war between me and the supervisor over the issue. It didn't bother me that supervisor didn't like me because he is pretty immature and doesn't take much seriously.
My son in law was hired in as a laser operator but has been made to work on the press side where the metal blanks are hot formed. He doesn't like it and often asks to be on a laser. So last Thursday night he got to be back on a laser and I watched him and he was trying pretty hard to get it done and make rate. The machine was turned down to 80% and effectively not fast enough to make rate. Around lunch he told me the supervisor has stopped and told him to pick his numbers up or he was going back to the press. I took three minutes and got out my phone and timed the machine and it could produce 26 parts an hour instead of 31. I brought this up to supervisor and he acknowledged that was right as it was having quality issues. I went back to my sil laser and wrote in his downtime log that the machines speed had been reduced to cover his butt. At the end of the night before we left he pointed it out to a GM and the GM got upset and got with supervisor and another boss and they still all agreed that my sil could have tried harder.
This morning at the end of our shift I get called into supervisors office and get a written verbal stating it wasn't my job to enter that into his downtime nor to time.the process to figure out why he couldn't hit numbers. Supervisor stated that I opened a can of worms and made everything harder and I needed to do just my job and nothing else. I wrote my paragraph on his sheet and signed it by saying Will Meet in HR in the signature line.
I went to HR afterwards and explained my experience to them and clocked out.
I like my job driving a forklift. I've been keeping a cons list of work and adding to it when something isn't fixed or I find failures on the companies part. I don't like that I get paid every two weeks and there's no option to pay them to pay me every week. I don't like that there's only two breaks in an 8 hour shift where breaks are almost three hours apart. I don't like driving 46 miles one way to get there. I don't like that the base pay is 14.50 and I only make a dollar more driving a forklift with all I do. I don't like the attitude management has when I point out obvious math and they deny it saying someone can do better. I don't like it when my supervisor is petty and writes me up for letting the GM know I told him what was going on.
The cons list just keep growing and we just keep losing people and it's like they can't see the forest for the trees and would cut there nose off to spite their face when you call them on it. I'm dog tired boss and it don't seem to be getting better. I wish they would consider bigger changes where people might consider staying but at the rate it's going it seems nothing will.