I have worked in the same factory now for probably a little over five years. I started off as a contractor and then made several transfer until now I am a forklift operator.
This place has it's issues, how much more than other places I can't say. Upper management is a complete joke, they make decisions without telling anyone else or asking anyone out on the floor who is actually doing their job their thoughts on these decisions. My supervisor treats his employees like people and because of that, upper management often completely leaves him out of the loop. New employees will just show up without anyone being told anything, including him. They once sent him a new employee in a department that isn't even run on our shift, without any training, without telling him the guy would be there. So he stood around for hours until someone found him and brought him to another department.
There's several people in upper management who shouldn't be working there. I went to HR twice about one guy who loved yelling at women to the point they'd make them cry, in front of their co-workers on the floor and he still works there. Our “Quality Stream” manager is a complete tool, he will mess with machines while people are operating them without even telling them, he got someone on the floor knocked up and tried to pressure them in to an abortion, which management openly talks about, but he still has a job. It's such a mess it isn't funny.
Inventory is chaos, nothing is where it is supposed to be, no one has any idea on what's going on. The people on other shifts will force stuff on to the shelves even if they don't fit, often resulting in pallets getting stuck or loads getting pulled off the pallets. I generally try my best to find what people need and get it to them, for the most part I take pride in my ability to just shrug off all these issues and come to work.
Not today.
This entire week has already been a shit show, but yesterday they decided to fuck with the Wi-Fi internet at work without telling anyone. The forklift operators have tablets attached to their forklifts that we use to look up parts, transfer things, move them to trailers, whatever.
Most of the drivers simply said they couldn't do their job and did nothing. I found out that the wired internet still worked, so I'd get off my forklift, log in to a PC and still do my job, simple. I was pissed off with the extra steps, but it is what it is.
So I come in to work today and we are already short a guy. That isn't terrible since Thursdays tend to be slow, I was thrilled to see the Wi-Fi was fixed but then I found out I couldn't log in to the system we use to do our jobs. So now I am working completely blind without being able to look anything up, without being able to transfer anything, NOTHING. I tried logging in to a desktop PC and I got the same result. I tried logging in to other tablets and it wouldn't let me even get in to Windows.
I talked to several people about this, no one knew what the problem was or how to correct it. To compound matters even worse, several departments were yelling for parts that no one knew where they were. I have complained about this multiple times in the past, but they have these numbers and letters to show where things are supposed to be, like “X29D”, they also have one that's B029 which means the parts are SOMEWHERE in building “29”, that's it. I have to deal with this on a regular basis and there's places I know to check, but today it was like they were just swallowed up by the void.
I don't know what it was, I don't know if it was just all the accumulated stress or what, but as I was slowly walking through parts crib slowly looking through every single shelf for their parts I just kind of lost it.
The frustration, the bullshit, it was just too much, my anxiety kicked in full blast and I freaked out, I almost started crying right there on the floor at work. I want to point out I am in my late 30s, I am an adult, I look like what most people would consider a “manly man” and here I am just trying not to lose my shit. I was raised in a toxic family where I was taught men don't cry and because of that, any time this happens in a place I can't be by myself, it feels even worse, as if I am showing weakness to anyone who sees.
I didn't have any sick or vacation time, I didn't care. I have some rules that I apply to my life, one of them is if I shit myself at work, I'm not coming back for the rest of the day. I made this rule while working at Walmart when someone came in sick, shit their pants and management told them to go buy another pair of pants and get back to work. The same applies when something like this happens, which has never happened before. I took this policy when I started seeing other co-workers literally on the shop floor crying because they were so frustrated. I told myself if I got there, I'd go home.
So I called my supervisor (he was on vacation but I called and left a voice mail). I told my lead, I told the driver who was coming in at 9 and I told the lead covering other departments I was going home at lunch, I was at my wit's end and I wasn't coming back tonight. The entire time I am talking to these people I am literally shaking trying not to just lose it.
I told them that if we needed to talk about this Monday then so be it (I work four, 10 hour shifts a week, not counting over time) but I was leaving for tonight. I did feel guilty because I basically left one guy alone driving for roughly 8 hours, but I was done. I wasn't going to be doing anything else, I was done.
I like my job, I like what I do, I like my co-workers, but this kind of shit happens all the time without any consideration for their employees and I think the stress is starting to catch up to me. I think it makes matters worse we were told about a bonus several months ago and then last week were told we didn't get it, even though we were reaching all our sales goals (tens of millions of dollars a month they literally post at the front doors), wouldn't explain the metrics behind it and then they turned around and had some sort of special “Shingijutsu” event this week with some Japanese people, who they were paying to stay in town, paying for their lunches and dinners and giving them swag bags, meanwhile we didn't get our bonus and they wouldn't even tell us why.
Let's add some icing to this shit cake. Paint line was given a “prototype” and was being pressured to get it painted and out and then they found out it was actually a “trophy” for the assholes in the Shingijutsu event. It wasn't even a production order.
I am going to be updating my resume this weekend, I am going to start looking for a new job, I don't think I can do this anymore. And what's worse, now I am at home and I am dreading Monday. Even though they got people who haven't shown up in week(s) or even month(s), they are still on the payroll, they haven't fired them yet, this place is so wishy-washy I could see them firing me just to spite me.
I didn't have anyone else to talk to, I didn't want to burden my friends and my co-workers, so here I am. I guess if my ass gets fired I'll update this. I needed to vent, I am sorry if this isn't the right place.