A Venting Rant about ASDA/WAL-MART and another reason to boycott such places.

To find myself in a situation where I must take on a second job in which I find unbearably depressing, irrelevant, tedious and depreciating has been bad enough to deal with this last month. The random bout of insomnia made 9 hour shifts in the hell hole even worse, sometimes having not actually managed to even grab 5 mins sleep since the previous days shift. However, I'm only in it for the money which I need, and I had decided to grind down and bare it for the time being as the current economic climate has made finding a job painfully hard. I must always remind myself of how depressing it was enduring unemployment before this.

However, the scales have suddenly tipped. The balance has been offset. Up until now I was trying to mind my own business and just work through my shifts regardless of how soul destroying it is. However, how do I find anymore motivation when whilst already dealing with this bullshit I have a confrontation with an out of line manager who blatantly calls me a liar and a slacker?!

Whilst working my ass off on Friday morning, the start of another gruelling 9 hour shift, I kept my spirits up by reminding myself that I had finally reached the end of the full-time week which I had ignorantly agreed to work (9-6 five days that week). Lingering in the back of my mind was the thought that it would be just my luck for something completely shit to fall my way now that I was so close to the finish line. I was right to think that.

I completed the mornings usual laborious tasks with a speed that only reflected my desire to get it done and dusted as soon as humanly possible as prolonging the monotonous tasks would only further piss me off. Upon finishing what needed done, I took my usual route to the chiller to pull out the first of todays stock that needed shelving (another glorious duty). While maneuvering a huge wheeled cage of goods towards the doorway of the chiller, I was confronted by the massive, obtuse, walrus-like shape of my very flustered looking manager. His large, bulging face red and sweating with rage. "What is going on in the department?!" He shouted.

Hmm, whats going on in the department. It was something I really didn't compute. "I dunno?!"

"Its an absolute disgrace! What have you been doing all morning?!"

This pretty much set the tone for the rest of the lecture. "Well first I done this..." I would say, to which he would reply "Ok, so thats 10mins, what then?". This exchange of evidence and denial went on until he estimated an hour was accounted for. Doing everything I had done within an hour was humanly impossible.

After being questioned about my activities and accused of somehow wasting time doing something else, I was then called a liar.

"I don't know what you want me to tell you, I've been working as hard and fast as I can since I've got here today" I proclaimed. To which he stated...

"No, no you haven't".

To which I stated... "Yes, Yes I Have".

Then he came up with "No, no you haven't..." and while scanning me up and down with a condescending, sarcastic smirk "Look at you, I can tell just to look at you that you aren't working hard".

At this stage I was getting very irritated with having to repeat "I don't know what you want me to tell you, I have been working hard".

Finally he said "Well if that is you working hard maybe this isn't going to work out", to which I was left to reply "Maybe your right".

At that precise moment I have never been closer to walking out of a job on the spot in my life. As I stood there in the chiller, shaking with rage instead of cold, I knew that had that argument went on for a matter of seconds more, I'd have thrown my gloves at him and walked out.

It is not the first time I have had a confrontation with him after the canteen incident where he came running in looking for me, questioning me on why I took a break so late.

As I stormed out, back to work, I spoke to my colleague. Only him, and myself are working in that department all week. I asked if he also had a confrontation. "Oh he just told me to keep it up as he walked past".

I would have came to the conclusion that this particular manager has developed a disliking for me had it not been for another nasty incident I witnessed on the shop floor. While already furious at the ordeal I went through, I stormed through my work duties thinking up all those things I should have said. Whilst storming my way down one particular isle some hours later, he was standing there with the same red, sweating face, yelling at some very timid looking female colleague. As I past all I could hear was "... AND THAT TOOK 25 MINUTES?!"

Feeling sorry for her, I went out of my way to walk back that way several minutes later and asked her was she ok. As she looked around at me to answer, her lip quivered and her eyes began to fill up with tears. "Its ok! He was a bigger asshole to me earlier!" I quickly interjected, more as a means to stop the seemingly impending waterworks from causing a spectacle than to consolidate, admittedly. She was quite shook up though, I did feel sorry for her as she reminded me of myself several years ago when I would have been too timid to stand up for myself.

The only other time I spoke to him that day was while stacking a shelf he ushered me over to a front-of-shop display of produce. "See this is what I am talking about, it looks disgraceful, its a terrible first impression upon coming into the store", he said as he pointing to a solitary, empty crate going completely unnoticed by the hoards of shoppers bustling by.

People skills matter more than that empty crate. He is not going to lose a single shopper over that, I can guarantee him that. He will however lose more money over disgruntled ex-employees subsequently boycotting the store along with their families. He didn't loose any shoppers that day at all. His tone and ignorance at dealing with me lost him my weekly shopping there, my parents weekly shopping there, and both my sister's families weekly shopping there. Consider yourself a grand a week down for being an asshole in how you treat staff.

The reason I know I have a valid point which allows me to rant about this being out of order - is because I know I am a non-biased person who is brutally honest to myself. Had I not been working hard this would have been another story. For the fact that I was working much harder than I can understand why for a job I despise to deeply, it was infuriating to be accused otherwise.

As a 'Manager', I am perfectly aware of his rights, and I am perfectly aware of his duties and roles and the various red tapped crap he must highlight as his duty. I am perfectly fine with receiving angry lectures - this is life, this is what happens. I am fine with someone angrily shouting at me about how something needs to be rectified immediately, how something just isn't being done right. That is all fine and above board.

You cross a line when you start accusations, when you start calling workers liars, when you start looking down at them, when you laugh in their face, when you humiliate and condescend. There is a boundary that can not be crossed. There should always be a mutual understanding between worker and manager that each has an equal amount of rights within the workplace. They are above you in job description but they are not a member of authority - as a worker you have the power to bring them down if they are out of line. With this in light, upon leaving I plan to put the problems into writing, people are beginning to talk, people are beginning to think about leaving. If more than myself leave without stating a reason, a problem will never be brought to light by other fellow managers within the building.

I have decided to take this weekend to think about whether to return to work or not since that day. Instead of walking out - I decided I would simply wait until the shift was over and at least get my pay for the day I'd already half finished. However, my only concern now is that if I decide to not go back, perhaps I wont receive my pay for that hellish week I just endured. This is the downside of a 'monthly' payslip.

I am now considering working my 4 remaining shifts over the next fortnight until the month is at an end and I have the money in my account, then leave. I am not handing in any form of notice. I am not writing a letter to say I will be leaving in a number of weeks. I will simply not return and the problems caused by a sudden lack of staff and undesignated shifts can be a small punishment for poor managerial people-skills.

I will however, write a letter putting my thoughts on the mounting situation on paper.

I have read up on several ex-employee stories on the internet similar to this. There are a lot of horror stories out there. ASDA, Wal-Mart, Tesco... all the massive companies are developing a very unhealthy image for being market bullies, using brute force tactics to power their way to staying on top by means of the massive amount of money behind them and a top level committee of greedy, filthy capitalists. Support the local corner shop.

This blog was originally supposed to be wrote to put aspects of my life that actually matter into writing, but instead I am depressed that it has become a collection of rants on meaningless events that happen in meaningless places by meaningless people carrying out meaningless jobs.

This is not a way to live, dreading the next shift to such an extent that the days off in between are ruined. There is more to life than making money, before this it seemed to be the main goal on my mind - an income. Now its back to my happiness.

There is job seekers allowance actually...

Bureaucracy Grinds Me Down

Massive corporate conglomeration sometimes feels like it has the same effect on me as being positioned at the centre of the CERN particle accelerator so that my face is at the centre of a massive proton collision leaving my soul obliterated into shear anti-matter.

Quite the over exaggeration to some - not really to me! Having trudged through another 9 hour shitstorm of total and utter bureaucratic monotony, I find myself returning home completely spent of life with a measly couple of hours to myself, doing things more important to my wellbeing than supplying the demand of the ravenous consumer on behalf of the bastard son of Wal-Mart.

Today, I sat in the grey sludge filtered world of the canteen. I sat there with a pounding headache brought on from retinas burnt through the artificial, fluorescent strip lighting that sears overhead from morning to evening, the constant burn of tiered refrigeration units combined with dry and cold air-con, hoards of screaming kids and nattering imbeciles and the never ending ritual of stacking the never replenished towers of banana and potato crates.

I often sit back on the sofa panning the canteen; dubbing the sound of tumble weed and fluttering shutters over the scene in my head. Generally, it is very fitting. A lifeless, sterile and baron wilderness sparsely populated by withered and enervated members of staff who have taken on the chameleonic shade of beige as their backgrounds.

However, today, as I pan the landscape, something sticks out. Protruding from the normally immutable scene. From amongst the tables of grazing staff drones, a sternly faced manager marches directly towards me with an air of importance. This is a man on a mission. He is now pulling up his sleeve to reveal his watch. He doesn't look at it, but its obviously the opening gesture to his announcement.

"I have been informed that you are due back?" He says, as though it were a question.

"Nope, started the hour break at quarter past, its only 3 - got 15 mins still"

"3:15 ?? 3:15??" He says twice, trying to comprehend the unusual addition of 15 minutes.

"I started at 2:15, so my break ends at 3:15", I respond.

"Oh! Hmm... well why did you take your break so late?!", as he struggles to understand.

"Ugh, because thats when the guy before me finished his break - doesn't matter it's just 15 mins, I'll just go back to work now" I say, finally getting frustrated at the enormity this mundane event seems to have taken on.

"Oh no, finish your hour if thats when its over" he says while fidgeting and slightly mumbling as though his brain is quickly trying to conjure up a something more to say.

He doesn't need to say more, I realise what he is getting at. I realise what he is doing is trying to enforce some kind of regulations that are supposed to be in place. I realise this added 15mins has loosened his preferred tight working schedule up.

Its only been a few seconds since his last words, but the fact he has not started to walk away combined with the fumbling means he feels I actually do not realise and he needs to hammer the point home by saying something a little more. I help him by giving him a line to respond to - either that or I just want him to hurry up and end the stupid bureaucratic showcase.

"Sorry, I didn't realise we had to finish our lunch break by 3 on the hour", I said politely.

"Oh yes, certainly... certainly" He finally says whilst walking away and pretending to look at his watch repetitively in quick succession.

I realise I took what seems like a very long winded route to describing that altercation which in real-time actually only lasted about 30 seconds - but it at least reflects how much my brain made of such a seemingly small situation, allowing me to manage to stew and fester over it in my thoughts for the rest of the day. Getting through a shift in that subhuman world of subhuman costumers and subhuman co-workers is depressing enough to make that one hour lunch break the one thing to anticipate and subsequently feels like the one lousy 'hiding-place' I have. That event more or less obliterated the idea of the hiding place, the untouchable zone, the hour of rest, the 'leave me the fuck alone' part of the day.

Yea - I let these little things grind me down too much, but at least I can feel a bit better resting assured I am not that managerial figure who seems to have an almighty abundance of meaningless things to worry about for each second of the day.

Goodnight corporate world - sleep tight making sure all emergency exits are clearly lit, free from obstruction with hi-vis vests and hard hats worn at all times - and not forgetting to SMILE :P