Team Player Bullshit

[blas87]

Well I certainly hope to God that it won't be "remembered", as in, put on my review. But if it is, oh well, not like it'll really hurt because we lose so many perks and have gotten screwed out of so much already.

[BlaqueKatt]

Remember people the proper response to "there is no "I" in "team"" is always "but there is a fucking "ME"".

and I was once "reprimanded" for responding with-"no but there's a big fat 'U' in stupid"

[Hobbs]

Well, depending on the type of job, Blaque, that is contempt.

[McDreidel09]

Ugh. I stopped being a "team player" a long time ago. I have had people take advantage of my wanting hours to the point it was ridiculous. If I got the rare day off, people would try to pawn their hours on me and if I said no, they would beg or pitch a fit.

Now, if you want me to take your hours, there better be a good reason. Lack of planning? I will not take it. Emergency? I will take it.

Some of my managers have been getting a little bit irritated with me because I won't take hours at the last minute. I'm sorry, I have a life outside of work and when I get the schedule, I plan my life around that. In an emergency, I will be more flexible. Sometimes, I CANNOT take hours at last minute. For example, a few days ago, one of my coworkers was sick and wanted to go home. I had to have my car looked at right after work, as I had an appointment to do so. When the manager asked me if I could stay, I told her I couldn't stay, she got mad.

But of course, as everyone knows, even if I had an emergency, no-one would ever help me out, even the people who admit that they just don't want to work, but bitch about their paychecks. So, I have stopped caring. I will work my hours, since I work a lot anyway. If a manager needs me to take hours, please let me know the day before. K thanks

[blas87]

Lil Sis, "emergency" is pretty vague to me, I'd need a very good explanantion as to why someone had an emergency and needed a day off. But we all know how my coworkers are, an "emergency" is usually just wanting a day off to go to the casino or a weekend person is just sick of working weekends.

A lot of us have tried to tell the manager and our bosses that this is wedding/graduation party season, and NO ONE is going to not RSVP to these events or flat out cancel plans because of last minute required overtime, and none of us should have to tell our friends and family "I don't know if I can come because I don't know if they'll assign overtime that weekend." It's fucking bullshit.

Any time of year, it's bullshit, but especially this time of year, now that it's finally summer and nice out.

[Greenday]

Remember people the proper response to "there is no "I" in "team"" is always "but there is a fucking "ME"".

There is no "I" in "team", but there is an "I" in pie. And there's an "I" in "meat pie". Anagram of meat is team. I don't know where he was going with this.

[blas87]

I like Katt's analogy the best, even if it got her in trouble, it's true.

Especially when it comes to last minute demands of overtime...there is a really big U in stupid.

[McDreidel09]

My definition would be family sickness, a loved one's funeral, family events that you accidentally got scheduled on, being so freaken sick that you can't even get out of bed (and not because of a hangover. That, I will tell ya tough noogies), stuff like that. Stuff happens.

[Hobbs]

Nice out? It's practically Black Flag every single day. I hate the summer time.

[Wingates_Hellsing]

Church: "There's no I in team Grif."
Grif: "Yeah, well there's no U either. So if I'm not on the team and you're not on the team, there's no one on the fucking team. The team sucks."

I honestly believe that RvB is trying to achieve the Simpsons-level of 'features a joke for every situation'.

[Rantsylvania 6-5000]

This "team player" stuff works both ways.

Well it should, but rarely does. It seems only some employees are expected to be team players, while others don't have to do shit, and still get whatever they want.

[Boozy]

I'm a big "team player", except that my managers and I are not on the same team as far as I'm concerned.

There's always a bit of an adversarial relationship between management and it's employees. As far as I'm concerned, it's us against head office. I fill in for my co-workers at the last minute if it will help them out of a jam, and I expect they will do the same for me.

But I'm not working overtime to help corporate out of a jam. I'm sorry that you made a bad decision that's going to screw over your bottom line. I'm sorry that decision may cost you your bonus this year. But don't expect your staff to save your ass. We owe you nothing, because the favours don't run both ways.

[MaggieTheCat]

I remember another thing about my last job that bothered me. This was right when I was starting that job and I was working part-time in the call center. I was going to school full-time and I believe I was working 20-25 hours/week. Management let employees swap hours however they wanted, as long as all the hours got covered and no one went into overtime from doing so. For full-time employees, this meant a direct hour swap (if Person A asked Person B to work 8 hours on Tuesday for them, then Person A would have to take 8 hours from Person B sometime else in the week so that Person B wouldn't end up with 48 hours for the week.)

Of course, since I was part-time, I could take up to 15-20 hours (depending on the week) on top of my regular schedule without going into overtime, since OT pay doesn't start until 41 hours. Somehow, the person who did the scheduling got it in her head that since I was "only" part-time, I was always looking for more hours (I remember during orientation she was explaining the hour-for-hour swap deal, and she looked at me and said, "But since you're part-time, Maggie, you can take hours from full-timers but they don't have to take any of your hours, and I'm sure you wouldn't object to more hours since you're only part-time!")

Um...no. I was going to school full-time, I didn't want to be working 35-40 hours a week. That's why I...y'know...was hired as a part-timer. The scheduler apparently even went around telling full-timers that I was always looking for extra hours, so that if they wanted a day off during the week, they could come to me and ask me to work their hours, but they didn't want to take any of my hours in return and they didn't need to, since me working an extra 8 hour shift (or even two 8 hour shifts, sometimes) wouldn't put me over 40 hours. At first I didn't really mind and I wanted to make a good impression on management, but finally I had to put my foot down, especially when the person who worked at 6:00am kept asking me to take her hours for her. I was NOT a morning person back then and I generally didn't have to be, so after I took her hours the first time, I decided not to do that again since 6:00am was a bit early for me (having to get up at 4:45am and all to get to work on time.) When she asked me to take her hours again and I refused, she got all huffy with me and said, "Why not? It's not like you're doing anything anyway and I really need the day off!"

[blas87]

Yes, yes, and yes, Boozy!

I mean, there are instances like others have mentioned where it was grunt vs grunt, but my main issue was us vs them, them being the idiots in suits.

I don't see why we have to pay for their mistakes, and we are the ones punished. I also don't see why our punishment of over a year and still going of overtime has also given us smaller bonuses because the drooling idiots declared that overtime took up so much of the budget....well who's fucking fault is that?

You took advantage of this company flourishing while other companies were tanking in this economy, decided to make some of the highest goals and quotas EVER (literally, ever), and were unable to make them. As is, we have too much work compared to how many machines we have to work on the product, or machines that are in dire, and I mean dire, need of repairs or replacement. Yet, it's all our fault. We are lazy and don't know how to do our jobs, so guess what grunt workers, you get to work overtime until your stupid lazy asses make our goal. Oh, and IF you happen to start reaching the goal, we are going to raise it, since we figure we can just keep striving higher and higher and pushing more and more.

Pardon the term, but these fucking retards demanded the factory stay open over both Thanksgiving and Christmas vacations, demanded volunteers to keep the plant going on Memorial Day and guess what, now the 4th of July. People are being frowned upon for not giving up their holidays (and sometimes even weekends, like the situation last week in my OP) because they God Forbid want some damn time off or want their entire weekend off.

And then that puts the grunts vs the grunts because not only is there enough tension from employees having to work too much and getting more than sick of one another, but now they are squabbling because the same people volunteer every time or some buckle out of fear it'll be made mandatory, then go around shaming and bashing others who stand firm with their refusal to do it.

[Lace Neil Singer]

99% of the time, my job is fine. But there was just one incident that bothered me recently and yup, it was team player bullshit.

To set the scene, it was a Wednesday. I had worked an eight hour late shift the night before and had an eight hour all day shift this day. I was working another eight hour late shift the following day. My collegue Katie had a similar shift; she'd worked the late shift with me the day before, and was also working an eight hour day shift on Wednesday, cept that we had staggered starts.

At around one pm, I took a call from one of my collegues, let's call him David. David was calling in sick, and would not be able to work tonight. This is not about David being sick; this is a guy who dragged himself into work once when he had a broken collar bone, so I could be pretty sure that he was not lying. But his absence meant that there was a space needed to be filled on the late shift.

I called the manager at home and informed her. She said she'd call over the main store and work out someone to replace David. I thought no more of that and went on with my day. Now, the manager came into work at around two. She asked me if I'd go home and come back to work the late shift; unbeknownst to me, she later asked Katie the same question. I said no. Since I live quite a way away, plus I had a birthday present to buy after work, by the time I got home, I'd only have one hour til I had to come back to work. Plus I'd already worked most of my shift so I was already knackered, especially since I hadn't had much sleep the night before cuz of working the late shift and having to get up early the next day.

After I said no, Katie was asked; she also said no for much the same reasons. I was asked again. I said no a second time. That was when I got the whole "you need to be a team player". I was livid. I've often come in and helped out; when Katie was ill for two weeks, I covered a lot of her shifts. Plus, due to both Katie and Jim being on holiday for two days in August, I've got a nightmare weekend where I'm working Thursday, Friday and Saturday night followed by all day Sunday scheduled, and I haven't complained about that.

Why should I have to sacrifice my precious evening? For the record, I wouldn't have gotten anything in return. No extra pay, no shift swapping. Nothing. Zilch. Had I been on a day off, having gotten a good night's sleep, and been rung up at home, I probably would have come in and done it as overtime, but then I would have gotten extra money so it would have been worth it. I don't see it as being "not a team player" just cuz I refuse one time, when it's just me who's making a sacrifice, when it's not up to me, or Katie for that matter, to pick up the slack when someone's ill.

True, I can volunteer to help out out of the goodness of my heart but I don't see that that little fact means I should sacrifice myself every sodding time. I talked to Katie about it yesterday and she agreed with me; she was given the exact same guilt trip about not being a team player that I was. Yes, it sucks when we're less one person to fill the late shift, but it's up to management to find someone to fill in, or to do it themselves if they can't. That's why they're managers and get paid more than us lowly peons.