So I started a new job today working at a local company that is mainly concerned with building pallets. I left a job I liked because I wanted to be able to have weekends off to have time with my family. I went in with a positive attitude and tried to make the most of it but I ended up having a pretty interesting day.
I showed up early even though I am typically the kind of person to run 10-15 minutes late. I walk up to the warehouse manager that’s outside smoking. I glance over and notice the no smoking sign 10 feet away. He looked up at me and says, “New guy?” I say yes and he doesn’t even ask my name. He escorts me in and points to the back corner of the warehouse and says go find a guy back there and ask him what to do.
I haven’t filled out any paperwork, gotten any safety information, or even been asked my name yet. I walked back and found a guy working in the back corner. He gives me a 2 minute explanation how to grind rough edges smooth and then sets up a table saw to cut them to a specific length that he doesn’t tell me. The “guide” setting the length of the cuts is a piece of angle iron clamped to the table. He says it’s good and have at it. So I get to work grinding and cutting with no safety briefing, no safety equipment, no one who even knows my name there.
I’m at it for an hour and a half and I’m sweating buckets. The warehouse is un-air conditioned and it’s about 80. Saw-dust is thick in the air and I’m hacking and coughing. The guy from before comes up and asks how it’s going. I tell him fine and he goes back to whatever he was doing. A little later I hear an alarm and everyone stops working and heads to the back for break. I get to the break room and I notice tons of pro-Trump shirts, hats, and stickers on lunchboxes.
I leave break with everyone and go to use the bathroom. It’s filthy and there is a broken sink and broken urinal. They seem to have been broken for a while. I head back to my station and get back to it. About an hour later the person who turned out to be my supervisor comes over and tells me a bunch of boards in the pile are unusable because of defects and what I should do with them. So I take care of those and get back to it. Then after another hour they came over to tell me I had cut all the boards the wrong length and they needed to be specific down to the 1/32 of an inch. Thankfully they are longer than the required length so I just need to cut off the excess.
Then my supervisor explained what the boards were for and gave me more of an idea of the general layout of the warehouse and what went on at different stations. It turned out that the company also sells lengths of wood to businesses for construction. My supervisor explained a bit more and talked about how the owner of the business was always riding their ass about wasting material.
So I’m back at my station working on correcting the boards and trying to have a positive outlook and think about weekends with my family. A little later a guy who instantly gives me a vibe of asshole rolls up on a forklift and gives me a dirty look. My supervisor goes over to talk to him. They came back and said I can’t be playing on my phone while working. I was confused because I had only taken it out of my pocket 2-4 times that day and only to check the time as there are no clocks anywhere. My supervisor pointed to a few cameras that I hadn’t noticed up near the ceiling and says they can see everything back here.
It’s getting to be the last few hours of the day and I go up to my supervisor and ask if I need to fill out a time card or something because I was concerned that somehow I wasn’t going to end up getting paid ever. They then asked if it was my first day and what my name was. They said they would go talk to the HR person and see what to do.
After a while they came back and said I could go fill out paperwork after work. I said I had an appointment right after work and wasn’t going to be able to stay. They sighed and said I could go on the last 15 minutes of my shift and do it.
I cleaned up my station and then was asked to help clean other nearby stations. I reminded them about my appointment because it was now 10 minutes to the end of the shift. They said yeah whatever go up front. I found the HR person and in the room is the rude guy from the forklift. HR says this is so and so, the owner, and asks if I had met him yet. He comes over and is friendly and pleasant and makes some small talk. Acted like he had never seen me before.
I finally get to fill out the basic new hire forms and finally get out 20 minutes late. I think I’m going to look for something different.