I just can't take anymore...

[protege]

Funny, that's very nearly the opposite of their reputation

They only got that reputation, because American mechanics refused to learn how their bits worked. Throw in the "improvements" done by previous owners, or that many of those cars weren't maintained, and it's no wonder. Mine has only let me down twice--once on the road, once at home. The failure at home wasn't even the car's fault--I couldn't get the ignition timing set correctly because I didn't have the proper wrench. Oops

Seriously though, nothing makes problems go away by jumping into it, and just going wherever.

[trailerparkmedic]

Like others have said, I suggest creating a fictional life that you use to relate to customers. I used to have to do that in a call center (sometimes to just calm down crazy people), and it helped. I had a husband in Afghanistan, a boyfriend in Colorado, a girlfriend the next town over and I lived with my fiancee. I actually had names for them and little bits of stories and everything. This unintentionally helped me seperate myself from my work, since nothing was real and it was all just an act.

Find a way to leave your work at work. I have heard suggestions of taking five or ten minutes in the parking lot to just sit and release all of your bad feelings from the day before starting home, riding a bike to work because the exercise can feel cleansing, listen to music on the way home that relaxes you, take the long way home to allow yourself a few minutes of quiet between work and home, hell, just scream for a couple of minutes when you first get in the car. Think of something that sounds appealing, then do it everyday. I've made a "driving home" playlist on my mp3 player for days I need to leave work at work, and it helps me a lot. My boyfriend plans an elaborate meal and goes shopping for it when he needs to leave something at work.

Focus on your hobbies. Don't have any? Get a new one. Get a cheap one (reading library books? Going for walks? Sketching?) if money is a concern. I know this is probably hard with your depression. Give yourself a reward on the weekends/days off, for making it through the week.

I think the path of least resistance for getting bathroom breaks would be a note from your doctor. ADA requires that the company make reasonable accomodations for you, and this is easier to do than getting the labor board involved. Since you don't have health insurance, maybe someone sympathetic at a clinic (even one of the Redi/Minute/etc clinics in drug stores) can write you a note.

I know money is a concern for you. Do you have any vacation time you can use? How about sick time? I would suggest getting your depression doctor to help you get some time off through FMLA. If you have short term disability, this normally covers FMLA time. If not, your job may allow you to use vacation or sick time. If none of those apply, see if you can afford even a day or two off and use your FMLA for that. Your job cannot deny your right to use FMLA.

When you're considering what you need to make, have you considered things like food stamps? If you're making less, you may be eligible for government assistance. Places like food pantries are always available. If you're a member of a place of worship, talk to your priest/rabbi/imam/whatever and see if they can help.

Good luck in finding a new job!!!

[Andara Bledin]

When you're considering what you need to make, have you considered things like food stamps? If you're making less, you may be eligible for government assistance. Places like food pantries are always available. If you're a member of a place of worship, talk to your priest/rabbi/imam/whatever and see if they can help.

I'm pretty positive that $17.50/hour puts them way outside the range of getting public assistance. Me, making $13.50/hour and "supporting" 3 other people wasn't eligible. Unless they've got an astronomical mortgage/rent payment, anyway.

^-.-^

[Dips]

Jester's advice is excellent. Take on the winnable battles and find ways to cope with the unwinnable ones.

In that vein, here is a link to a memo issued by OSHA in 1998 regarding access to restrooms:

http://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owad...ONS&p_id=22932

It appears to me (and I'm NOT a lawyer or law expert) that your employer *is* in violation if they won't let you use the facilities when you need to.

Given what you've said, though, be cautious in how you approach them (or don't approach them; just report them anonymously). They don't sound above retaliating. Sure, it's illegal to retaliate but that's not going to deter them from finding some means of retaliating that can't be proven.

Good luck.

[Jester]

I think the bathroom battle is one that I would pick.

"Where are you going?"
I'm going to the bathroom.
"It's not your scheduled break time. Get back to work."
I'm sorry, but according to OSHA, a federal agency, you cannot legally impede me from using the bathroom when I need to. So, I'm using it NOW, and THEN going back to work.
"sputter sputter sputter..."

Of course, that's easy for me to say, as *I* don't rely for my livelihood on The First National Bank of Douche. But I do think this is one area they don't have a legal leg to stand on.

[WageSlaveofDoom]

Not cool

Sounds like you should seriously talk to a lawyer. Whatever bs is spread all over your employee handbook, you are a human being, and definitely deserve better. If your company's idea of "making personal connections" is to encourage you to disclose personal information to a perfect stranger, that really sounds like harassment. The whole bathroom nonsense is definitely against the law. Customers don't have the right to know anything about you, and you can cause even more damage physically by neglecting personal needs.

You seem like a wonderfully caring person, and I'm so sorry that you've gotten into such a sucky situation. The best short-term advice I can give is to build up your mask, and find the best way to keep your real life out of work. Seriously, make copies of whatever written materials this hellhouse of a workplace has given you (and any documents from your doctors) and take them to a lawyer for a consult. At the very least they might have better advice for you on how to handle this place.

Keep looking for new work. And, I know people hate to think about this, but consider the resources offered by the city, state, or township where you live. There is a lot of help out there for single parents in need, and no shame in getting help when the alternative is an early grave from stress.

(((((((((((((((((((hugs and chocolate))))))))))))))))

[Jester]

If your company's idea of "making personal connections" is to encourage you to disclose personal information to a perfect stranger, that really sounds like harassment.

I would like to reiterate something that has already been said here by multiple people: one can make a personal connection with customers without revealing actual personal information. Making a personal connection IS part of customer service and/or sales, and while Spawned's employer is a bit extreme in encouraging this, in and of itself it is not illegal or even unethical.

[Rantsylvania 6-5000]

Spawned, if you're reading this, let us know you're okay. You haven't posted on here in a long time, and this situation is disturbing. This has to be the most evil workplace ever created! I hope things have improved since then.

[smileyeagle1021]

Like others have said, I suggest creating a fictional life that you use to relate to customers. I used to have to do that in a call center (sometimes to just calm down crazy people), and it helped. I had a husband in Afghanistan, a boyfriend in Colorado, a girlfriend the next town over and I lived with my fiancee. I actually had names for them and little bits of stories and everything.

I did the same thing when I worked at the reservation center... I even kept a notebook of my different personas for different cities taht people were calling.
New York I was an art student, San Diego I was a surfer boy living with my girlfriend saving up to start a surf school, Minneapolis I was a full time student living in the dorms, San Francisco I was a huge gay activist living with my long term boyfriend, Atlanta I was a new transfer from New York moving down to experience southern hospitality and to be closer to my wife's family, Denver I was a big hiker looking forward to the next weekend hike with the boy of the week, and in Detroit I was a black guy moving my way up in the inner city trying to get out of the ghetto.
Spawn, that may actually provide two for the price of one... first it may be a good stress relief to make all these fantasy worlds that you can escape to while at work and it allows you to "connect" with the customers without actually having a connection.

Aside from that, let me tell you, I understand exactly what you mean when you talk about hating a job so much that your health is affected and you wish for death. I had a job at a car rental place inspecting cars for damage, and I despised it. They had lied to me about what position I was being hired for, it was outside in the cold and wet of winter, the air was always filthy with car exhaust, and all my coworkers were douchebags. They made it clear that the fact that I had never been on a mission was a personal failing and that I deserved to be single because of that (oh, I would hate to find out what they'd have done if they knew I was gay). Oh yeah, and the tipping point was when I got a really bad case of pnemonia and they told me that I had to either come back in or be fired and what should have been cured in a week went on for nearly 6 because I was working at it just kept getting worse and worse. My coworkers went on endlessly about how I was a slacker and a weakling because I would let something so minor as pnemonia affect my work.
I quit that job without another job lined up, I accepted a job that paid 50cents less an hour, and within 3 months was making $1.75 an hour more than I had been making before in a job with better hours, better benefits, and much better environment. There may come a time when you just have to make that leap.

[Gawdzillers]

Me: What type of cancer does your husband have?

SC: Skin cancer, he got it 10 years ago, he has been in remission for 8 years.

What a hateful, dumb little cunt.

[XCashier]

Spawned, if you're reading this, let us know you're okay. You haven't posted on here in a long time, and this situation is disturbing. This has to be the most evil workplace ever created! I hope things have improved since then.

Indeed. I've been reading through these posts, and I'm wondering if you shouldn't examine your bosses' hairlines for the presence of horns!

I had a job at a car rental place inspecting cars for damage, and I despised it....the tipping point was when I got a really bad case of pnemonia and they told me that I had to either come back in or be fired and what should have been cured in a week went on for nearly 6 because I was working at it just kept getting worse and worse. My coworkers went on endlessly about how I was a slacker and a weakling because I would let something so minor as pnemonia affect my work.

Pneumonia is NOT MINOR!!! People have died from it! Damn, I am glad you got out of that hellhole.

We as a people have been so brainwashed into thinking that "good work ethic" means "destroy yourself for your job, even if they don't give a shit about you". This has got to change. If your company will not treat you with basic human decency, they deserve no loyalty.

[Moirae]

Spawned, the kind of situation you are in is illegal. Go a lawyer. If you don't quit, your body is going to force you to quit and you'll be hospitalized.

btw, I work in a call center too, though its just taking reservations and not as stressful as yours sounds like it is. I did work in one for Comcast that was a nightmare so bad that I literally started dreaming that every day I went in to work, I was being horribly tortured in physical ways. I would burst into tears for no reason at work. I finally quit and was out of work for nearly a month. It was either that or end up hospitalized due to stress.

As well, your employer can't stop you from complaining about the customers no matter how much they want you to think they can. If they fire you over it, you go to the gvt for them creating a hostile work environment with all the stuff they've been doing to you, and all your fellow employees to back them up, and they can get shut down. You are not powerless.

And one more bit of advice, learn to use the mute button. Its a great invention. I've had times when I've used to to swear my head off at the customers where they couldn't hear it. Its a great cathartic relief.

[chickengirl]

And one more bit of advice, learn to use the mute button. Its a great invention. I've had times when I've used to to swear my head off at the customers where they couldn't hear it. Its a great cathartic relief.

It is a great invention but it sounds as though Spawned's employer would punish or fire him for using it.

Spawned, I do collection calls, I loathe my job and am going through many of the same things you are, and your job even makes MINE sound a little bit better.

You said back on page one that taking calls a straight 80% of the day is burnout levels? I think maybe my employer read that study and thought it would be a fantastic method of torture (and by torture they mean "motivation" except by "motivation they mean torture...) because as of a couple of weeks ago we're supposed to have 80% or higher availability, that part's not new... the new part is that now going to the bathroom or otherwise hitting the Not Ready button to leave your desk for any reason counts against availability. For the very first time in the entire two years I've been working here, I'm no longer passing for availability! And unfortunately for them, I don't give a shit. In fact, I give less than a shit.

I've had the thoughts about hurting myself, too. Not out of being suicidal because I'm not (lucky, I guess), but because the idea of getting in a horrible accident and having to spend a niiiiice long time in the hospital with broken bones and punctured organs and whatever sounds like it would be a nice, relaxing vacation compared to what I deal with at work.

I've got an idea, let's both quit our jobs, start our own diabolical company, hire our former bosses and give them a taste of their own medicine.

[smileyeagle1021]

Chickengirl, you may be lucky, his call center might actually use the real work time to report how much he is working. My call center says you're not working unless you are doing billable minutes. Of course maybe 66% of what we do is billable minutes.so, they tell us how that we are at how little work we actually do, when they aren't even counting all the work we did.

[chickengirl]

Chickengirl, you may be lucky, his call center might actually use the real work time to report how much he is working. My call center says you're not working unless you are doing billable minutes. Of course maybe 66% of what we do is billable minutes.so, they tell us how that we are at how little work we actually do, when they aren't even counting all the work we did.

No, mine is real work time too. Available = logged into the dialer and on a call or waiting for a call (and on outbound you spend hardly any time waiting). Not available = all other logged in time... and we are no longer allowed to log out for anything except break or lunch. So if you have to go pee or you just need to get off the phone for a few damn minutes, it's now counted exactly the same way as if you had spent that time sitting in after-call. Before they pulled this we could log out to go pee and available time was just on call or waiting vs. after-call time. Bitches.