Hey, long time lurker of all things reddit and thought to share…not to mention I need to tell somebody even if anonymous off the internet, oh well.
Now, here's some context:
I've been working at my current job for over 5 years now, and I've endured A LOT of verbal abuse, racial profiling, and bordering on sometimes physical danger. I'm in an environment where Forklift is the main means of Picking, Receing, Shipping, damn near anything needs to be done by forklift…and in a gigantic freaking warehouse where said forklifts are all second hand and break down almost every week, you can understand where some of the danger comes in.
Major danger above everything else is my management. When they moved to this warehouse they decided the metal racking was too rusty and ugly so in order to appease to taking pictures for other warehouses to model after, they got new racking. MAJOR PROBLEM however, is the fact that the racking itself is looks over function, the rusty pallets albeit ugly were built with metal boots underneath for the forks to grab hold to, had poles you could place horizontally to guarantee stability especially at higher heights, and could stack 4 high. These new pallets do not have the boots, do not have any horizontal poles to add, and go 5 high, and are significantly less able to handle the constant strain of weight placed on them and bend sooooo easily. I'm talking the old rusty pallets could hold 1,000 pounds (example) and the new ones “say” they can also handle 1,000 but in fact bend at 500 approximately (again example).
However…arguably…this isn't my key issue. In fact I can live with the pallets how dangerous they are, what I cannot live with is my fucking manager and how he treats me. Well, also the Morning shift supervisor, but this is besides the point.
Very quick run down of ladder: Manager at the top, Morning and Afternoon shift supervisors, then all other coworkers beneath them.
For context, I'm white, and ironically my supervisors are both white, but my manager is Indian. This sounds off topic, right? Wrong. He has treated me worse since the completion of my probation, giving me snide comments left and right since then and regardless of how good I work I am treated as lesser. My fellow coworkers that fall under Indian, Hispanic, Philipino, and Black, all get exemplary attitude from him, while I do not.
“Oh, well maybe you're just a bad worker then and he doesn't like you?” – To this I say I've the attitude of a comedian and the patience of a saint, I've been working for 5 years with no threat of termination and my numbers are higher than anybody on the team, morning or afternoon shift. I have been putting work so solid that even when two people call in sick I single handily cover the gap with no extra pay or complaints. My manager knows I'm a solid worker, but will not say as such verbally or even indicate through actions I'm worth the salt it takes to say my name.
“Oh, well maybe you're just imagining the race thing?” – To this I say it's really hard to imagine a scenario where I, as expected to pick 400+ units a day, I clear (on average) 550 to 600 (and 700+ on a good day with cherry picks), get told “work harder” or “You may have picked all this yesterday, but one of your orders had a single mistake / mispick on it, your entire day is invalid, sign this write up”. Meanwhile my fellow coworker, let's call him John, who is Philipino, picks approximately 300 units a day with no signs of improving and he is told “Good job buddy, keep up the good work!” in front of myself and several other coworkers. I like John, I have no problem with his picking cuz as little as it might be, it's still solid and no mistakes, and he's got an amazing attitude and good jokes…but it's very telling that I'm treated differently. Also, by my manager saying this compliment in front of me and others, this heavily implies he CAN give compliments, but will not do so to me specifically.
It all came to a head about last month, Raises. Yearly Raises, to be exact. They calculate your current salary, adjust for inflation, then pull out the pie chart to determine how good you were the year prior to adjust for your final raise. The lowest guarantee you get is 30 cents while the highest potential is 2 bucks per hour, but nobody will ever hit that so it's expected the highest will be a buck. Blah Blah Blah you get the gyst it's every yearly raise from every company and so on.
I was on Afternoon shift, Sunday to Thursday, for YEARS. Since I got hired to about 2 months back when that changed. I needed to transition to Mornings very recently (Monday to Friday) because my child is going to full day school instead of part time, which means I drop him off on the way to work and then my wife picks him up due to our tight scheduling and availability. It's been mathed out and I needed to switch. I hated the switch, mind you, because I grew a repoir with my entire afternoon shift and supervisor, and they all liked me. Mornings, as you can probably guess, did not. Why? Because I single handily made their entire shift look worthless while I was on afternoons. Their picking, grand total between all pickers, would range 1,000 approximate units. I would on average pick well over half of that BY MYSELF. I wasn't doing this to spite them either, I'm just OCD and enjoy going fast fast fast, pick pick pick, work work work. I hate politics but that doesn't mean I don't know they exist. The small benefit of Afternoons financially speaking anyways is a 50 cent shift premium which bumps me up from $22 flat to $22.50
Well transitioning to mornings means two things. One, the entire shift sees me as an easy day off machine. Suddenly for the past two months at least one or more people have been taking last minute sick days like fucking crazy, and 4 of the 8 weeks I've been Mornings, somebody's taken an entire week off schedule holidays when otherwise they wouldn't be able to. Nobody on Afternoon shift over my 5 years has ever done this so abruptly and haphazardly like this, I know I'm the reason why. The second impact, however…is I lose my 50 cent shift premium, dropping me from $22.50 per hour to $22 flat.
My raise came out, and I nearly lost my fucking mind. After all the hard work I put in last year, all the overtime I put in with zero questions asked, all the extra Saturday shifts I picked up when they were struggling, I finally snapped. My grand total was only $1 per hour. I'd be making $23 flat
Thanks to losing my shift premium I already went down 50 cents, which made my raise basically boil into a 50 cent raise if I'm being subjective here. Semantics aside, I was fucking pissed. Nobody, and I mean literally nobody on the entire workforce comes close to my effort or numbers and this is my thanks? I later find out from a different coworker who's numbers aren't anywhere near mine that he got an 80 cent raise!?! I'm sorry, I don't judge him negatively for his work not matching mine, I know I'm just “Built different” and go harder because of it, but his numbers are nowhere near mine, and his raise was extremely close to mine? Excuse me?
When I had a sad look on my face, not even voicing my concerns or disdain for the result yet, my manager took one look at me with this shit eating grin and said “Remember, you asked for this.” (Referring to me going to Mornings and losing my shift premium). Then he gives me the classic “Don't discuss your raise with your coworkers” line which, fuck you I'll talk to whoever I want about it and you can't stop me anyways, but that aside, he shoves me out of his office and that's it.
I think it finally hit me then and there that no amount of hard work, giving my 110% every day, showing up every day even while sick, taking other's shifts to cover for lost manpower, and no amount of good attitude, can overcome this narcissistic asshole and more than likely racist viewpoint. I don't hold it against any of my other coworkers who benefit from said viewpoint, I genuinely have zero negative feelings to any of my coworkers or the Afternoon shift supervisor (Morning shift supervisor can suck a fat one), everybody is an amazing team. It's solely my manager who I disdain, I hate this man. I hope to god he gets Karma one day, oh god I hope he gets karma.
My mental faculties took a gigantic hit and I am now realizing my home life got affected. My wife and kids noticed my negative and angry looks and quick one word responses and I feel god awful for it, I should never have brought my shit back with me. What's more, is I had a snap at one of my coworkers yesterday and they didn't deserve my anger either. The Afternoon shift supervisor, despite me not reporting to him any more, came out and ushered me outside and said “Let's just get some air, bud.”
I vented, I vented hard. I told him everything, all the bullet points, and I was actually crying hard. He told me straight to my face that no matter what anybody says, the Afternoon shift took a GIGANTIC hurt by me not being on their shift anymore. So many days of overtime to try and grab a fraction of my numbers and nobody can manage it. He told me that no matter what my manager has to say or degrade me, he knows square up that I'm the single best employee here, and he has to recognize that. He uses his put downs to keep me in check without inflating my ego but still be his obedient little dog, and the afternoon shift supervisor said he's sorry I am going through all of this.
I guess it finally clicked. I've been here 5 years with barely anything to show for it, inflation almost always overtakes my raises and I've barely any benefits to speak of…but what I do have is an insane work ethic, a dedicated passion to getting the job done, and an attitude that brightens an entire room (usually, bar these past few days anyways).
Then he said something that struck me…”It's better to ask for forgiveness than permission.”
I guess I had a dumb look on my face and he just told me. “Look, it might suck for us on afternoons to be even more behind but you've been instrumental in everybody else calling in sick last minute, so why don't you do the same? You clearly need it, you never take time off for yourself.”
Today, I marched into my work before my scheduled shift by about 8 minutes, told my manager to his face in his office that I'm taking two personal days, and not giving a reason why. He gave me this grin on his face that said he was furious but didn't actually raise tone with me, asked if everything was okay? I told him “Nope” and walked out. I refused to elaborate, refused to keep talking, and am now back home. I could have called in, or faked a sick day, but no…I needed to see his look square in person, feel that look directly. I needed to show him I wasn't in a good headspace and show him dead on I wasn't playing. I know he knows, I know he knows that I know I'm a good worker now, and that we understand one another.
Today I will be spending much deserved time with my family, my wife has the day off anyways so we will be (minimum) going out for brunch together with the kids, followed by some much needed TV binge time because I didn't realize soon enough she missed me being so relaxed and carefree, and her rock when shit hit the fan. I want to be there for my family, not this mindless anger filled drone like my father was for me and my siblings. We will be going to the park as well sometime today and throwing around a foam baseball with the kids. Tomorrow I will be throwing in casual resumes, not hardcore but definitely a few and will continue to throw in a few more until I get out of this hell hole. Yes, my manager has made me view this place like a hell hole, and somehow I have more a disdain for him than my own safety from the racks breaking or falling. I've made up my mind that I won't leave this hell hole before I have something else lined up, but that I will be lining something else up end of story. I know my manager won't fire me, he literally cannot afford to. We just hit busy season and thanks to his maintaining of a skeleton crew / refusing to hire above said skeleton crew, he backed himself into a corner for the next 3 months minimum until busy season is expected to slow down. I'm his rock and he knows it, fire me and he will almost certainly get chewed out by his higher ups for how badly their numbers will tank.
That's it. I am sorry if it's not a super grand gesture but I hope to have at least made somebody's day with this.