Let me start out with the one minor positive before I get into my opening remark in that @ about 3AM I SHOULD be getting my overdue holiday pay - if not, then add this to the rest.
Opening Remarks
FUCK ME SIDEWAYS WITH A FORK
Now that the remarks have concluded let me explain just how big of a clusterfuck my work has become. At my job, we working staff have the pleasure of being unionized so as to protect us from the machinations of the management personnel, whether of ill-intent or not, and to ensure that we could not only maintain a working balance with management but also ensure we could make a proper living. Everyone came to the conclusion early on that it was going to be a little while for the building to get up to speed fully in terms of everything so we bent a great amount to allow management to get building operations underway...
...
...
Here we are now, over a full month with several high profile events having happened and low and behold...it appears that very little to nothing has changed from the first day. I'll explain my position of security last since that's the biggest clusterfuck of all. The scheduling has become a major issue in all departments. All of the staff, from banquet servers to housekeeping are all being asked to provide their absolute best efforts...like working without the ability or chance to take proper breaks - SOMETHING LEGALLY MANDATED. We, as a whole, have also been told that once on site for our shift, we were not allowed to leave the building - we can't even punch out to get a bite off-site. The set hours of work have become so vague that certain staff, particularly banquet captains, are told to work 18 hour days and because we generally have events all day long and captains are scheduled separately they end up being alone. The pay and benefits are another great joy of joys... most staff are reaching the end of their probation hours which automatically entitles them to benefits and input into a pension...no one's getting that or stat/holiday pay. (See blog SHITTY-ASS DAY, the pay thing ended up being across the board)
The worst thing of all is that the clients who hold events here want so many things done in an instant that the staff can't physically keep up with them and it's wearing them and morale down yet it keeps happening because the management's goal is to please the client, to make their experience as memorable as possible. What has happened however is that this focus on the client/guest experience has made the administration/management team very tunnel-visioned that all they see is getting the goal of memorable experience accomplshed. They don't seem to realize that everyone needs to be on the same page to do this, as all the guests and clients will encounter our front-line staff first upon entry and they are the first impression to the guests. With administration becoming so tunnel-visioned to the goal they've forgotten that it is the front-line staff who are the driving force behind the accomplishment of that goal and mission; the staff have fallen by the wayside.
Then there's security and let me tell you, it really is the clusterfuck that never ends; a clusterfuck that dwarfs all other clusterfucks. At security we are the absolute bottom of the barrel in terms of just about EVERYTHING in our building, from pay level to straight up support from management, we get squat. I've always known that security is one of the least regarded avenues in any complex but the sheer level of low here is, frankly, outstanding. We do just about everything in the building: we greet the guests coming in, we create theirs and the staff's access cards, we do regular patrols, we secure and monitor the loading dock, we are event security, we are responsible for setting up the daily events board for the guests, we are responsible for the paystubs of all the staff, (500 working staff in total) if a client wants something, even as mundane as more coffee, we are the ones who receive this and must be the ones to contact the various departments to inform them, we are responsible for satisfying every single one of the clients' wishes at the moment it happens, even if it contradicts their previous wish or common-sense (think "I want this...no wait, I want this instead...actually, I really want this...") and the absolute best thing of all is that at security we are all treated as goats: WE ARE BLAMED FOR EVERYTHING THAT GOES WRONG. Our pay...given that we are responsible for maintaining the order and security of the building and the guests who attend events one would believe that we would make a good amount....we make less then housekeeping. THAT IS CORRECT LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WE MAKE THE LEAST AMOUNT OF MONEY IN THE BUILDING, HAVE THE MOST RESPONSIBILITIES AND ARE THE EASIEST TARGET FOR MANAGEMENT TO BLAME. Our security manager, who really has done as much as she possibly could for us, is reaching the end of her rope mentally and physically because of all the bullshit. We barely have enough of a budget, given to us by our lovely admin, to have enough manpower on a shift to cover even the most basic security responsibilities, and on top we become responsible for a whole slew of other administrative duties that management DUMPS on us. (It's happen several times actually, the boss who dumps paper work on your desk and says "Finish this by tonight"...) Our uniforms are garbage, the dry cleaners can't get their act straight, there really is a shit-ton but I can't think of all of them off the top of my head at this hour.
It has been so bad in our building that the union, to give you perspective, has already had over 70 grievances sent forward to them and almost 1/3 of those grievances are from security. Upon discussion with an associate who worked at the building before the tear-down/rebuild stoppage informed me, there have almost been more grievances made to the union in this 1.5 months then the old building had in it's existence. I know that more grievances are beginning to enter the formal process and of the staff called back or hired new, overall of course, almost 25% quit within the first 3 weeks.
My work is a clusterfuck that never ends since I don't kow how else to more properly describe it.
Opening Remarks
FUCK ME SIDEWAYS WITH A FORK
Now that the remarks have concluded let me explain just how big of a clusterfuck my work has become. At my job, we working staff have the pleasure of being unionized so as to protect us from the machinations of the management personnel, whether of ill-intent or not, and to ensure that we could not only maintain a working balance with management but also ensure we could make a proper living. Everyone came to the conclusion early on that it was going to be a little while for the building to get up to speed fully in terms of everything so we bent a great amount to allow management to get building operations underway...
...
...
Here we are now, over a full month with several high profile events having happened and low and behold...it appears that very little to nothing has changed from the first day. I'll explain my position of security last since that's the biggest clusterfuck of all. The scheduling has become a major issue in all departments. All of the staff, from banquet servers to housekeeping are all being asked to provide their absolute best efforts...like working without the ability or chance to take proper breaks - SOMETHING LEGALLY MANDATED. We, as a whole, have also been told that once on site for our shift, we were not allowed to leave the building - we can't even punch out to get a bite off-site. The set hours of work have become so vague that certain staff, particularly banquet captains, are told to work 18 hour days and because we generally have events all day long and captains are scheduled separately they end up being alone. The pay and benefits are another great joy of joys... most staff are reaching the end of their probation hours which automatically entitles them to benefits and input into a pension...no one's getting that or stat/holiday pay. (See blog SHITTY-ASS DAY, the pay thing ended up being across the board)
The worst thing of all is that the clients who hold events here want so many things done in an instant that the staff can't physically keep up with them and it's wearing them and morale down yet it keeps happening because the management's goal is to please the client, to make their experience as memorable as possible. What has happened however is that this focus on the client/guest experience has made the administration/management team very tunnel-visioned that all they see is getting the goal of memorable experience accomplshed. They don't seem to realize that everyone needs to be on the same page to do this, as all the guests and clients will encounter our front-line staff first upon entry and they are the first impression to the guests. With administration becoming so tunnel-visioned to the goal they've forgotten that it is the front-line staff who are the driving force behind the accomplishment of that goal and mission; the staff have fallen by the wayside.
Then there's security and let me tell you, it really is the clusterfuck that never ends; a clusterfuck that dwarfs all other clusterfucks. At security we are the absolute bottom of the barrel in terms of just about EVERYTHING in our building, from pay level to straight up support from management, we get squat. I've always known that security is one of the least regarded avenues in any complex but the sheer level of low here is, frankly, outstanding. We do just about everything in the building: we greet the guests coming in, we create theirs and the staff's access cards, we do regular patrols, we secure and monitor the loading dock, we are event security, we are responsible for setting up the daily events board for the guests, we are responsible for the paystubs of all the staff, (500 working staff in total) if a client wants something, even as mundane as more coffee, we are the ones who receive this and must be the ones to contact the various departments to inform them, we are responsible for satisfying every single one of the clients' wishes at the moment it happens, even if it contradicts their previous wish or common-sense (think "I want this...no wait, I want this instead...actually, I really want this...") and the absolute best thing of all is that at security we are all treated as goats: WE ARE BLAMED FOR EVERYTHING THAT GOES WRONG. Our pay...given that we are responsible for maintaining the order and security of the building and the guests who attend events one would believe that we would make a good amount....we make less then housekeeping. THAT IS CORRECT LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WE MAKE THE LEAST AMOUNT OF MONEY IN THE BUILDING, HAVE THE MOST RESPONSIBILITIES AND ARE THE EASIEST TARGET FOR MANAGEMENT TO BLAME. Our security manager, who really has done as much as she possibly could for us, is reaching the end of her rope mentally and physically because of all the bullshit. We barely have enough of a budget, given to us by our lovely admin, to have enough manpower on a shift to cover even the most basic security responsibilities, and on top we become responsible for a whole slew of other administrative duties that management DUMPS on us. (It's happen several times actually, the boss who dumps paper work on your desk and says "Finish this by tonight"...) Our uniforms are garbage, the dry cleaners can't get their act straight, there really is a shit-ton but I can't think of all of them off the top of my head at this hour.
It has been so bad in our building that the union, to give you perspective, has already had over 70 grievances sent forward to them and almost 1/3 of those grievances are from security. Upon discussion with an associate who worked at the building before the tear-down/rebuild stoppage informed me, there have almost been more grievances made to the union in this 1.5 months then the old building had in it's existence. I know that more grievances are beginning to enter the formal process and of the staff called back or hired new, overall of course, almost 25% quit within the first 3 weeks.
My work is a clusterfuck that never ends since I don't kow how else to more properly describe it.
