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Antiwork

Even family

Used to work for a company. Company itself wasn't that bad. Honeslty, the job itself was amazing. The only problem is that it's 72 hours a week, 6 12's going non stop. 6 12's is fairly standard for the company and the industry. Most employees in that position worked on the road, would work a month or two then go home for a week or two. My particular position was a permanent job, and ran on average nine months straight, this would vary based on the weather and production. Couldn't run in the cold, so if quota wasn't hit we'd have to shut down anyways when the cold snap hit. And if he hit a certain level of production, we wouldn't be allowed to run anymore. When that lay off hit, we'd all get unemployment and some time off with our families. Every year, the company would try to get…


Used to work for a company. Company itself wasn't that bad. Honeslty, the job itself was amazing. The only problem is that it's 72 hours a week, 6 12's going non stop. 6 12's is fairly standard for the company and the industry. Most employees in that position worked on the road, would work a month or two then go home for a week or two. My particular position was a permanent job, and ran on average nine months straight, this would vary based on the weather and production. Couldn't run in the cold, so if quota wasn't hit we'd have to shut down anyways when the cold snap hit. And if he hit a certain level of production, we wouldn't be allowed to run anymore. When that lay off hit, we'd all get unemployment and some time off with our families.

Every year, the company would try to get us to voluntarily switch to on the road. Some of the guys would take it. Most wouldn't. One year, they're bait was actually good and retroactively I should have taken it if I knew my situation was going to change. We're talking close to $50k bring home for a couple months of work.

My uncle happened to be a big wig at the company. Three days after the lay off hit and I felt a bit more rested went up to their house to spend some time with family. When he inevitably asked why I didn't take it, I pointed out that everyone was telling me what it'd be (they were quoting closer to $15k) I didn't really consider that enough to counteract my break.

His response? I already had plenty of time outside of work. Because I didn't work 24 hours straight. Yes, 12 hour shifts with three hours of driving. Leaves 9 hours outside of work, and considering it was graveyard shift I was fighting sleep deprivation at even seven hours of sleep. Trying to get more than just a single hour of free time daily led to me falling asleep at the wheel, several times. So he tried to say we had Sundays off. Okay, when do you expect me to do my cooking cleaning shopping car repairs get my bills paid and all that other fun stuff that naturally comes with being an adult? Are you, as my own fucking family, really about to tell me that I should be considering a few hours a day to sleep a gracious gift from the company?

There was also that time I was starting to get carpal tunnel and when I casually talked about it to my aunt he started pitching a fit about how no one at that job has ever had it. Okay. But I do. I have a doctor saying this, not just some shit off the internet. I could understand his reaction if I had been trying to pin it on the company for workers comp or something. Except the only thing I wanted from the company was a bit of time off for the surgery and to recover.

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