Sometimes You Just Have to Put It On The Table.

If you have been reading my blog, you know that I have two jobs. My weekday job that was at one time, full time and now three quarter time and my weekend job that "picks up the slack" so to speak.  I got this job just a few weeks after my hours were reduced at my full time job.  I was hired to fill in for someone who got injured and could not work. I knew then and still know now that my days are contingent upon this persons return to her old schedule. My boss also would like to keep me on at his facility since I can contribute more to his operation than turning out horses and mucking out stalls.   For the most part, I don't care who does what when I'm not at the facility, I don't oversee the other workers, I have no managerial duties so to speak. If I did, I'd of fired a couple people like last year.  I like to get to my weekend job, get settled, do my work for three days and  then go home. I have to travel to my weekend job, I like to use Thursday evenings as "me time", other than checking the schedule, I like to crash, maybe eat a pizza and drink a beer and watch cable TV for a few hours.  Such is the exciting life I lead.

Except for last weekend. I got to the facility and it was a mess.  I mean a real mess. Like a mess that should have been dealt with by the staff that was on duty that day.  Of course, the boss was away, so the mice played.  I walked into the facilities office to check messages, looked at the weekend schedule, and do a quick check of the facility.  I also noticed that a lot of the daily house keeping chores were not done and not done for umm, two to three days, the exact amount of time the boss was out of town.  Most of those chores are not difficult or time consuming and considering there was not a lot of "extra" work to be done at the facility I was wondering why the daily chores were not done.  Most of these chores revolved around the guest lounge and common areas that need to be kept clean neat and tidy all the time.  These are the "public faces" of the facility and all of us are required to make sure they look presentable.  The people who pay money to use our facility don't make a huge mess, in fact, they are pretty tidy and if the staff on duty keeps up with the chores, the public areas look more than presentable.  We had a program scheduled for the weekend and the public areas of the facility needed to be extra spiffy.

Needless to say I was not happy to find out Thursday evening that I had to spend a good two hours cleaning up these areas since I knew that I would not have the time on Friday to do so. My weekend boss was away and despite leaving him a couple phone messages, two texts and a hand written note, he did not get back to me until the middle of the week. 

I point blank told him I did not appreciate the fact that he had all this staff on duty who seemed incapable of doing the basic chores, yet somehow I managed to do all the chores and then some without the benefit of extra staff  (which I knew a head of time we would be short help) and oh yes, did I mention that the public face of his facility looked like crap? Yes, my words, looked like crap. I gave him a blow by blow description of what was NOT done that should have been done. What triggered my unusual outburst was the phone call I got (actually three phone calls) from the weekday person wanting to "touch base" about the facility.  Which in her speak means "here-are-my-excuses-for-not-doing-the-work".  The weekday person was trying to shift the blame to the other staffer. In my opinion, both of them need a sharp prod with a very sharp stick on a regular basis.  When prodded, they do more than acceptable work, when not prodded, they slack off.

My weekend boss and I have a good working relationship.  I don't bother him with the BS stuff, not my style, but this really irritated me.  Busy weekend, no extra help and a lot of unexpected work, two staffers who probably sat in the lounge watching cable or playing on the computer and got paid for it. I was not very happy to roll in to the office and then have to do someones work and not get paid for it.  I told  my boss that  consider  Thursday evenings "me time" even when I get to the facility early. It did not make me a happy camper to have to do the chores, and it made me an even unhappier camper to find out that there was extra staff on both Wednesday and Thursday. 

He did apologize and say he would talk to those people, but I really wonder if he will. He's a non confrontational type of guy and may just gloss it over.  Oh well, at least I told him my feelings on this matter and I will wait and see what happens next week. At least, he should put a little extra in the pay packet.!