I'm just bad at thinking up clever titles.

[raine_naoe]

So today coworker M and I were at the connection center when a customer came up. He was concerned because he noticed an old guy in a wheelchair with an oxygen tube was sitting by housewares with a cart of stuff by him for about 10 minutes. So M rushes over to see if he needed any help because she's a sweetheart. While she was talking to him two other people came up and acted really snippy with her saying "He's not going to talk to you." M told me that she thinks he maybe can't talk, but still. How can you be upset with someone for showing concern over a relative.



And if I may include a brief complaint about management. They've started really getting on our case about only working scheduled hours. If you clock in five minutes early than you had better make sure you clock out 5 minutes early. If at the end of the week you're even one minute over than may talk to you about it. And this include if they ask you to stay over one night to help, you need to leave that much early some other night. Nobody is happy about this. And it makes no sense since they'll turn around and schedule me as an electronics associate for a day even though I know there's enough electronics associates available to schedule one of them and I get paid more than them.

[Teefies2]

And this include if they ask you to stay over one night to help, you need to leave that much early some other night. Nobody is happy about this. And it makes no sense since they'll turn around and schedule me as an electronics associate for a day even though I know there's enough electronics associates available to schedule one of them and I get paid more than them.

Yeah I never got that either. You asked me to stay OVER my scheduled 8 hours (scheduled 9 with 1 hour for meal) which, by the way means I'll be even MORE than 11 hours away from home (thanks to my long commute, but that's another story!). And now you want me to take away time from my scheduled hours another day??

Oh and then there's the "8 hours between scheduled shifts" rule. UGH I got scheduled 8 hours & 15 minutes between shifts (keep in mind my 1 1/2 hour commute - 45 minutes each way). I questioned it, manager told me "tough I do it, so you should too ... it's over 8 hours". A coworker was standing nearby, overheard this (has no idea how far I drive to work) and says "But what about drive time? Isn't that considered????"

And yet, THAT job was better than the one I have now. I have reapplied weekly for the last 6 months to that place - can't even get an interview, even though the manager I'm friends with keeps telling me "we're hiring & I want you back!" And no, I didn't get fired; I quit to work at what I thought was going to be a better opportunity, it wasn't.

Sorry to thread jack.

[dispatch]

Raine, this is just proof that some people go through life with all the social skills of a hungry wolverine. Maybe it was a knee jerk reaction to all the stranger danger talks they got as a kid or maybe they were afraid if their elderly relative noticed someone actually being nice to him he might sign over all inheretance to the kind hearted soul who stopped to ask if he was ok. Either way, you did the right thing, and I wouldn't think twice about doing it again.

As far as management goes, I really feel you on that one. last year they got really stingy on overtime with my department, too and everyone had to have exactly 40 hours and not one minute more or less. This motivated many of us to get second jobs for supplemental income and now when they have their bi-annual overtime festival, we sadly can't participate because we have other jobs to get to. It sucks, but hopefully they'll wise up or at least smooth out the process and stop yelling at you for a situation they created.

[raine_naoe]

They're not yelling at me yet, I personally don't mind having to leave early and such since I don't need the money. I just wish that when I have to cut back my hours in august for school that my coworkers would be able to get the hours they're supposed to have, but coworker B says it doesn't work that way. Which makes no sense.

[Kristev]

They don't want to give anyone any overtime, whatsoever. Except, oddly, for me for two weeks straight just before/around July 4th. It's because of that court case they lost, where they forced workers to work overtime, then refused to pay them anything for it. I believe they forced punch-outs, or faked them, and then made them work overtime anyway. When the courts finally had enough and awarded the workers money, Wal-Mart stopped all overtime. Period. Even a minute is enough to get them upset. So then why on earth did I end up having an 80 hour work-week that left me so stressed and tired I'm still recuperating now!

[smileyeagle1021]

Hey, better than where I work where it is now official company policy that your shift really ends 10 minutes before what it says on the schedule, that is just buffer time for if you have a call that needs to be handed off (because FCC minimum session time before we can handoff to a new operator is 10 minutes)... they are serious about making sure no one goes over.
Though oddly, they will allow fulltimers to go over 40 hours and get time and half when it is really busy, but God forbid a part timer get over their 28 hour cap...

[sweetj82]

at my store they were letting people leave early. Than when my co-worker decided she wanted to leave an hr earlier that ment both us at the money center left at the same time,they asked me to stay...where is the sense in that,

Than again this co-worker always leaves a hr or 2 early on Wed but than complains her pay check is small and she cant pay her mortage or her cars.

[Sleepwalker]

Overtime issues are going to come up where I'm working at pretty soon. They want people to go pull overtime at the new store... without paying them overtime. Hmm hmm hmm.

[EricKei]

Even a minute is enough to get them upset. So then why on earth did I end up having an 80 hour work-week that left me so stressed and tired I'm still recuperating now!

. They want people to go pull overtime at the new store... without paying them overtime. Hmm hmm hmm.

It had been that way for YEARS at GameStore. They assign a store X hours a week, and Heaven help you if the total hours go over by 5 minutes...They actually treat it as the managers *stealing* from the store. Even worse, they quite consciously do not account for overtime in their payroll deposits...so if someone does inadvertently get overtime, the last paycheck cashed on that cycle will cause an Overdraft fee for the store...ASM's can't work more than say, 38 hours -- meaning, if it's an hour til close and they hit 38 at that time, they MUST clock out and call in the SM or another same-level manager to close out the store. Naturally, they never dole out enough hours to really cover everything properly, so the (salaried) SM often works 60-80 hours a week (because salary means you make the same money no matter how much you work...)

[PepperElf]

i remember what one of my jobs did... back when i was with Ames in the jewelry dept. (they went out of business some time after i left)

we were open around the clock for christmas, so i pulled in some sweet overtime.
then they turned around and cut our manager's hours to make up for the overtime.

yeah we had a set number of hours for our dept. if we went over, the manager's hours were cut to bring us back down.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

i remember what one of my jobs did... back when i was with Ames in the jewelry dept. (they went out of business some time after i left)

we were open around the clock for christmas, so i pulled in some sweet overtime.
then they turned around and cut our manager's hours to make up for the overtime.

yeah we had a set number of hours for our dept. if we went over, the manager's hours were cut to bring us back down.

Yet another fine example of corporate only caring about numbers and not giving a shit about people.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Though oddly, they will allow fulltimers to go over 40 hours and get time and half when it is really busy, but God forbid a part timer get over their 28 hour cap...

Cuz if you're part time and you are consistently working more than the limit for part timers, you can make a case for getting benefits.

When I first moved back from Philly and started back at Store1, I was considered part time. After a while I was conistently working over the minimum for being considered full-time, but I had to go to my manager and ask that my status be changed so I could get benefits (I was paying for COBRA at the time).

[alowlypotato]

i remember what one of my jobs did... back when i was with Ames in the jewelry dept. (they went out of business some time after i left)

we were open around the clock for christmas, so i pulled in some sweet overtime.
then they turned around and cut our manager's hours to make up for the overtime.

yeah we had a set number of hours for our dept. if we went over, the manager's hours were cut to bring us back down.

Gee, can't imagine why they went out of business with practices like that!

[EricKei]

They want people to go pull overtime at the new store... without paying them overtime. Hmm hmm hmm.

A bit late for a stealth edit here >_>

Not paying overtime is a Labor Law violation, unless the worker is Exempt -- and most part-timers don't even come close to qualifying for Exempt status...

[raine_naoe]

At my previous job they didn't really care if we went over for helping a customer, at least, they didn't cut us for it. But if you were even 30 sec late it counted as a tardy. I like having the nice 10 minute buffer so I don't have to leave super early to account for everything that could possibly go wrong.