I've been holding off on this, but let's talk about a certain company named Speedy Transport.
I started working there about 5 months ago, and I thought it was kinda crap to begin with to be completely honest. Right off the bat, I noticed most of the people (including the person training me) had only been there for maybe 4-6 months tops, except the floor super, and maybe one other person. So essentially you have barely experienced employees training new people. And the pay sucks, but it was just good enough for a temporary job. (that was always sort of my plan unless this miraculously was a decent place to work) They don't even supply markers for tagging the freight, you have to supply your own pens and markers.
A couple months in, rules started cropping up, which hinder our jobs. The intentions of these rules are exactly what you'd expect. Suits in an office who don't do the work, trying to micro-manage the floor staff to squeeze extra profit out of things. What ends up happening is it slows everything down, because nobody can operate effectively under the new restrictions. Because things slow down, it's obviously the fault of the floor staff, right? What they fail to get, is nobody wants to work harder because there's literally no incentive aside from the fact you might not get fired if you do just enough.
Next thing is we start getting upper management show up for “visits” which end up in people getting canned for what seems to be no particular reason. One dude got canned because he was seen on cam kicking a foam roll. Yes, kicking a roll of packing foam will get you fired at Speedy. To put this in perspective… Many of the guys actually push these rolls around with their forklifts, the rolls get tossed and thrown around, you can't hurt it, that's what it was made for.
At speedy our forklifts are in awful condition. The forks are in bad shape, the batteries leak, the hydraulic lines burst frequently, the controls are sometimes broken, and the displays on one or two of them malfunction a lot. There's maybe 8 electric lifts, 3 of which have high reach. The rest have had it disabled because someone fucked up a trailer roof years back at another location. (A method I've come to realize, by the upper management is that if something goes wrong, they punish the floor staff by taking away tools that we need. Then because we can't do our jobs, they punish us further with new regulations and stipulations. This is all part of their plans too, I'm almost certain of it.)
The mechanics the company use are based out of another city, and work everywhere between Montreal and Windsor. So if a lift goes down, it's days before we get it back. They water the forklift batteries with tap water, so they stink of sulphur, and are bursting at the edges with some white substance. They've basically become chemical accumulators. The warehouse itself is in poor condition, busted door frames and guard posts by the loading doors. The building never had eves, so when it rains, you just get drenched trying to load the trucks. Not to mention the lifts get soaked, electronics and all. Most of the dock plates are busted in some way. They constantly kick up when you drive over them, so you have to either keep getting off your lift to reset it, or weigh it down with something.
We used to have 4 propane lifts, which were removed because the company deemed them too expensive to run. If there's a smart way to go about doing something, Speedy will do the opposite.
Today, the last thing that happened was half my shift was canned for no reason other than things are slow. Pretty sure that isn't legal, but I'm not 100% sure what the rules surrounding it are. Rumour is the other two shifts are getting slashed as well. So come Sunday night, the shitstorm begins. But they won't be getting any extra effort out of me. If shit is nuts, I will be going the same pace as I always go.
Essentially I'm faced with no option but to look for other work, because even if I stay, I'm almost certain to be fired for nothing eventually. Their game basically is to keep all the employees new, so they can avoid giving raises out. That's what it boils down to, and everyone knows it.
Word to the wise, don't ever apply to work there unless you feel like hunting for work after a VERY frustrating 6 months, followed by pointless termination. Their corporate management are the epitome of the lowest scum. I can't say enough good about the floor supervisor I work with though, if it weren't for him we'd be more than fucked. But unfortunately he has no power over what goes on.
Until I find something new though, this is my life.