Alright, honestly this is a bitch/vent/rant post. I'm at work currently because at this point, I don't really give a rats ass about this place, so it may take me some time to write this, in which my narrative voice may change, just due to being somewhere else mentally.
EDIT: I do apologize for the length of this one, there's just a lot of details to include, and still missing a few in the post.
So I do security at a data center (We're contracted out by the client company (Which I am leaving unnamed for a variety of raisins)).
Recently, the security team has fallen under the leadership of a new site security manager, or SSM. This guy used to be the regional accounts manager for the security company/data company interactions, but his position was being dissolved, so he jumped ship and wedged his way into the first vacancy he could at or below his previous job. This is how he got here.
Since we all heard that, we assumed we were getting a tightass, but the guy shows up for 2-3 days back in August (I honestly can't remember how many days but for sure less than a week), and is immediately making changes to site policies that nobody had issues with. Weird, but not a huge issue. The guy remains gone until the end of September, and continues to change policies from the comfort of his own home, and states to everyone that he is on vacation, but at this point he has been out for well over a month collectively, which is honestly about where our company's PTO caps honestly.
He shows up for 3-4 day intervals throughout September to fuss at us for 'ruining his vacation.' (there were some secure door policy violations back to back).
From here, he decided he didn't like how we were scheduled to work the same positions at all times, and instead of letting people stay in their comfort zone and build efficiency there, guy has us put on a rotating schedule. So the officer working a metal detector post one day is a patrol officer/rover the next, and the rover would be MD or material search.
The client is redoing their headcount and had been telling all of us for 2 months ahead of time, which we passed up our chain of command. They ignore it until a week ahead of time. So they put us on a weeks notice, and don't speak to a single employee about our varying availabilities, and pump out a new, schedule with absolutely no regard for what an employee is or isn't able to work. These changes only affect 1st shift, and only the tier 1 positions. I responded to the chain email with a snide comment about not having told them I could work my new hours.
They begin calling people to the main office by the end of the week, starting with myself. I expected to be scolded or potentially even fired for being sarcastic for all of the site to see, but no. They called myself, and several other employees who were being vocal IRL with a snitch we never pinpointed, and told us that we are not to complain to other employees (Security or other), about our grievances with the schedule. They go on to say that if any one of us does have a problem, that we should seek them out. If the problem can't be fixed by them, then we deal.
The client changes their headcount back to the original number, but SSM stands by the decision to reduce our available hours (not starting until October)
In the meantime, to shake things up, the SSM has the 1st shift supervisor and ONLY 1st shift, make a rotational schedule, for all tier 1 positions, and none higher, to rotate what positions we fill from day to day.
So for the month of September, showing up to work was like rolling the dice not knowing what kind of day you were going to have.
The reasoning behind this was to 'prevent complacency and stagnation,' which I fully understand as a valid reason in the security field, but something was telling me that it wasn't really the reason. People started throwing around the words 'quiet fire' which were new to me.
October comes around and we start the new scheduled days and hours regardless of the clients preference. They at least spare us the confusion of figuring out where we're working while we're adjusting to the new days by canning the rotational schedule.
November gets here and the SSM is certainly more present, but really only comes out of his office to do post checks and gab about how his was a warrant officer in the navy and did 20 years. Mid November, we get notice of another headcount change happening and our site is losing 380 hours on 1st shift, and they're scheduling people in positions they know we can't work. Then for those of us who complained, he literally says “It could be worse, I could've just fired you.” Many of us either work 2 jobs, attend college, or have children to take care of. So we were left with the options of taking attendance hits in class, other jobs, or shaking up our schedules dramatically with our kids as the better alternative to being fired. End-ish over Nov, or early Dec, he goes to the gate to flex his power and down right harasses one of the highest ranking employees for the client company not just on this site, but the region. I don't know exact details, all I know is I heard from the gate officer, and the employee himself that the SSM showed his ass.
From there we all heard that our security company is likely to lose the contract over that one, and the SSM puts out an email about the prospects of good customer service, site expectations, and all sorts of other jargon basically saying “there is yet another headcount and contract negotiation coming up” to paraphrase, and goes on to insinuate that we are potentially about to lose our jobs to another security company over our poor customer service.