Standard Disclaimer 37M Autistic.
I can't be the only person who, while at work had an impossible situation where there are very few ways to circumvent/circumnavigate your way around it or out of it.
One I will never forget was at my former work, where we had to ship our product internationally, using DHL, and we had been taken over so many times, that my new company just outright, refused to pay DHL on time due to budgets, or at least according to their scheduled payment strategy, so DHL cut us off, and wouldn't pick up from us anymore, until they got paid, but the workers still got negative reviews because we couldn't meet our orders on time, even though our company didn't pay the bill on time, but that fact didn't seem to matter. And it keeps going around and around.
I told that story to say the latest example below.
I do first aid audits at my new company, every three months, in conjunction with the local hospital. The hospital does the first aid kits, so they would do Jan, Feb than I would do March etc… but they never did the excess stock in the first aid room itself I did. My boss today asked me why in the shelves of our first aid room, were there so many things, despite all these audits, that were out of date? and I had no other choice but to fall on my sword a bit and act dumb, because I genuinely didn't think that bandages expired.
In my defence, the writing on the expirations dates is so small, and if you really need something in a time of need, you use it right? It’s not like it is expired milk or anything, right?? A band aid is a band aid… long story short I said this to my boss, and she said, “that's disappointing to hear” and took that task away from me and gave it to another one of my team members to now look after.
But I have also recently noticed we still use hand wet wipes from COVID and hand sanitizer throughout the building in every floor.
At the beginning of the pandemic we did a MASSIVE order of them, hundreds of boxes, so many that we still have hundreds left, yet shortly after the first aid expiration date fiasco, I looked down at the expiration date of the wet wipes and sanitizer, and they have been expired almost for a year.
The example my boss gave was, my job basically goes into crisis mode/chicken little the sky is falling panic stations every time a partner loses their goddamn minds and sends a email… “no toilet paper, broken desks, missing stationary expiration dates” etc etc etc… it takes one person to notice an expiration date and send one email that sends her into blowing everything out of proportion. I had told her repeatedly about the wipes about to expire and “don’t want to be that guy!!!!!” but I refuse for this to come back and bite me, god forbid a partner notices, because it seems hypocritical that we threw a bunch of first aid bandais and bandages that had expired away, but we are still using wet wipes and sanitizer that is over a year old.