I'm fed up and hoping to get my thoughts out. Please enjoy my rant .
So, my work has been WFH ever since Covid hit, they even made it official last year by making us go in and clean out our desks. Unfortunately, not everyone in management has approved of this decision.
Most management types are just there as a fail safe, someone in charge to run stuff by and pretend to be organized. My job is no better. The direct supervisors tell us priorities and make day to day decisions, but everyone above that is just there to tell the supervisors that the team isn't productive enough. Since we've all been home, they've lost off of their real power since they can no longer walk around the building to check up on us and tell us to work faster.
Cue this past month, we lost our last sup and we did our best to keep things running as best we could. Even better actually, numbers haven't been this low in a year. Though I will admit our ticket system has been going up. Nothing we can really do about it except keep working them. Problem is the team is new, half are under a year and the remainder are a mix of 3+ years. This means that the new ones are always nervous when working tickets or ask the veterans for help.
To make this process easier, our last sup made a training a few months ago. Been doing pretty good since then, maybe half as many tickets as last year.
And… Then we got a new sup. They're just in it to climb the ladder. Already has the same attitude as their boss and their boss' boss. They've started making changes that make no sense, and when questioned about it, he just say that “so and so and I decided this was the best course of action.” No additional info.
It all came to a head when he decided to force the whole team into the building for mandatory training. A whole week of in house training, on the same system we just had virtual training for. All so they can 'get to know us', and all that jazz. When asked why we couldn't do it virtually or why the previous training wasn't good enough, we got he same “cause management thinks this is better”.
Team tried to push back, but just kept getting the same response. Got so bad that someone reported it to the union. Sadly, management said the training was mandatory and that was aparantly enough to bypass whatever the union can do about it.
So here we are, stuck in the middle of winter, forced to drive into work. With only a weeks notice. Most of my coworkers aren't ready for it, and I know I'm not ready either. Winter started super late and most of us haven't been able to put our studded tires on (no point if we haven't been leaving the house). And the road to work is all corn fields and water, the roads constantly flood and the snow is crazy. Even before Covid, with studs on, people would get into all sorts of accidents.
Called in first thing this morning and asked if I could participate virtually, no luck.
Use vacation time? Nope, not accepting it.
Sick time? Fine, but you better get a doctor's note and you will still have to come in house to make it up.
Hoping to call out sick long enough to get my tires on, but it just seems dumb to force this to be on site. I'll go in if I have too, but it just seems redundant since we just did a similar training just a few weeks ago. If this was just about numbers and re-training then it could easily be virtual. But no, they can't wait to see all of our happy faces.