First I want to say that I'm sorry if this is rambling, I'm currently feeling angry and terrified.
I started working for FedEx a little over a year ago. It used to be a good job. It paid decently ($16 an hour), it was nocturnal which helped me deal with my light sensitivity issues, and I really liked who I worked with.
Unfortunately, that was a year ago. Nowadays with rising prices, and insanely high costs of living, $16 an hour is barely enough to survive. Most of my coworkers ended up going to UPS which pays $23 an hour.
Now FedEx is extremely understaffed, because they refuse to raise their base pay. Because of that, work has gotten worse and worse. Increased numbers of packages, with barely enough people to cover shifts. The managers have ended up needing to work multiple extra shifts, making them more stressed and making their work quality go down quite a bit.
Both my roommate and I have been working for FedEx.
A week ago my roommate and I caught COVID. Luckily for us, FedEx said that they would give us 5 days of paid time off. We sent our test results to our manager, who told us to take our five days and get better.
At our facility, we are typically scheduled for 5 days a week, with opportunities to pick up more shifts if you want them. We ended up having our 5 days PTO on our 5 scheduled days, so we ended up being out for the full week.
We came back to work on Thursday, still extremely sick, but we needed to work because rent is coming due. Due to the fact that we couldn't breathe super well and couldn't exert ourselves very much, we asked our managers if we could be put in the towers sorting packages, which is the least strenuous job.
They gave us the worst of both worlds. They put me in between the two tower stations, which meant that I needed to climb up and down ladders about every five minutes. This was bad for me because COVID fucked up my sense of balance.
They put my roommate on the truck line, one of the most strenuous jobs. It involves walking up and down a conveyor belt, lifting packages and loading them into trucks. They told me that when they asked to be put somewhere else, the managers were, in their words “snide assholes”
Cut to this morning. We come in to work a shift and pick up our paychecks. We get through the shift (barely) and go to pick up our checks. We ask our manager to grab them for us, he says he doesn't have any checks for us because “we didn't work last week”. We ask him about the COVID pay. He says that since we didn't work, we didn't get paychecks, but don't worry, you'll get it next week.
Next week isn't going to work. We're barely surviving. Rent is due this week and we don't have enough. I literally don't know what to do, I'm probably going to have to pawn some of my belongings to make rent. They promised us pay. They said not to worry about it, just to get better, but then the moment our 5 days was over, we're expected to be at work at 100% capacity. That's not how COVID works. It takes 14-21 days to get over and even then you might have leftover side effects. They treat us as disposable, giving us workloads that literally destroy our bodies. They don't care that we're homeless, so long as we bring their profits up. Fuck Fedex, I hope that you go bankrupt.