Another mini round of firings took place. One of the casualties was a girl who worked in "the cage" as "the filer." There are actually two of them. One on the day shift and then the main one who works during the night shift. The day shift girl primarily goes through the tons of boxes that hold the physical submissions of customers picking out files that need to be reviewed or putting them back.
As the project has gone on, more and more files are coming up missing. And my supervisor is about to lose his top if he has to go round and round in circles for claims that seemingly don't exist in real life. I could get further into it, but I won't.
Today I got pulled from what I normally do for the project to go and find original documents for resubmissions. Basically, I'm finding old stuff that customers sent in a while back to match up with new stuff that just arrived. I go to the cage (because that information has to be locked up) and I take a deep breath as I see two walls of boxes full of paper work. I cry a little bit because I am going to be alone all day staring at numbers and names. I put down my tub of paper and stand there thinking how I could do this with the minimum amount of fuss.
I get to work with my plan and every now and then I hit a roadblock. I can't find what I'm looking for. So I look at it from different perspectives. Maybe this 7 is really a 9. Maybe this got filed under order codes rather than customer codes. Maybe these aren't the droids I'm looking for. With a help of a computer I go into the non-physical files to see if there are notes or other codes that might help me track down the missing files. Sometimes it works. Other times I have to leave the cage to ask questions.
Apparently, I did such a good job, I got a "condemnation" from V who's the "lead" of our group of data processors. She says she meant "commendation." Furthermore, I hear of the managers talking about the problems that they are having tracking down files and remarking how I was able to find at least some of the ones they could not. Towards the end of the day, my supervisor comes up to me and asks, "Do you want to the bad news now or when you come in tomorrow?" I choose now.
Tomorrow, I will be going in early and leaving late again. I have been assigned a new project that I will be in charge of and answerable only to the supervisor himself. I will be going through each and every damn file and making sure that it is in the correct place. And I've got a week to complete it. FUCK.
Meet the new Filing
This work related post will self-destruct in five... four... three... two...
5 comments:
I feel bad for you. Is this why you weren't on-line tonight?
Sorta. I was really tired so I only stayed up until ten.
It's a familiar story. Most companies seem to function on the forbearance and higher-than-usual competence of a few employees.
I was that employee a few times, before I decided it was better to have a life outside work than have the double-edged respect of collegues.
Be careful - if you find yourself becoming invaluable to them, you'd be in a good bargaining position for a pay rise. And some companies would rather fire someone useful than have them reach a strong bargaining position. I've seen it happen.
As if you didn't have enough to worry about.
Congratulations on becoming the person who makes your bosses look good! :P
Steven
It gets you both ways. I've had my own company for 6 years now. So I get to decide which 80 hours a week I want to work.
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