This is a factory job. When I first started the job, this was my first ever job and I wasn't used to spending 8 hours straight doing the same mindless tasks repeatedly. It's been almost a year, and back then, I got away with a lot of cell phone use, even knowing we were technically only supposed to use them to stream music in one earbud while we work. But everyone else got away with a lot, too. I tried not to have it interfere with my productivity, for example when I'm on the production floor ahead on my work and it gets bottlenecked. Or I would take a glance at a video when I was doing a menial, safe task.
They have started to crack down on it and I've steeply lessened my use, but here is what I don't understand.
I have been working alone or with maybe one other person at a roll cutting station, abandoning my previous station with a group of coworkers marking with markers and then cutting with saws. One day, I go back to that station again, and I am just shocked with how often they are on their phones, and they don't seem to get reprimanded the way that I do. They are from an east Asian country and most of them have a harder (but not impossible) time with English, maybe this is why they dont get lectures, to my knowledge. If they did, they wouldn't be doing this so much. Between working on one part and another, I was just confused how they would just stand around for a minute on their phones before going to the next. I didn't remember it being this bad before. In fact, they would ask me to slow down. I wouldn't understand why. I didn't even know what slowing down would look like. I guess it looks like standing around. I get in trouble for that.
The guy I'm friendliest with, when he would help me with the roll cutting on occasion, would find windows of downtime in bottlenecks and would say, “Facebook time, Facebook time” (east Asians love Facebook).
I have noticed more and more cameras surveiling. I am so uncomfortable being watched like a hawk. I don't know what changed.
But today, a higher up beckoned me and seemed pissed. He said the floor manager saw me stand there on my phone on the standing desk for five whole minutes. If anyone caught me doing it again, “we don't need you” and would send me home and give me a write-up. It was Saturday, an overtime day which we at least rarely have anymore, it's at least double pay but it still sucks. It was still 95°F+ and 35%+ humidity in the warehouse. I would've loved some reprieve, but I honestly didn't remember that. I may have been going over the papers or doing some math, but it's entirely possible that I lost track of time. The fact that we rarely ever get overtime days anymore shows that production isn't even an issue. I have been told that I work too hard, even.
I understand my bosses get in trouble if their bosses see slacking. I wouldn't want them to get fired because of me either. I don't want to bitch about my coworkers, I don't even give a shit about the car parts we make bc fuck cars. Although I genuinely wish nobody suffered under coerced labor. This kind of work for this amount of time uninterrupted is not natural for humans.
I'm not sure if I'm venting or just trying to get some clarity. Maybe it's a bit of both.