Nothing like 30 hours of sleep on the weekend to make Monday tolerable. [I had the flu.] The final tax documents are trickling in—I don’t understand why I can’t submit my own records which are always exactly accurate. [Later, I found out you could, but it causes delays. It seems although any state does not have to get you your information slips until the deadline, Florida is one of the places that waits for that deadline.]
After a meeting at work, it was decided that something had to be done, at least in principle, about me effectively reporting my own time. I agree, so now I am punching the clock and as predicted, my income went up significantly. I no longer call it even, but I still work till the job is done.[It was clear to the management that I could not be doing all the reports in the eight hours per day I was being paid for, but yet I was not on salary. Rather than go on salary, I have my reasons, I went hourly. Prior to that, I’d just drop the extra hour or two a day and “call it even”.]
There are some interesting implications to having the only real database in the company. (Oh no, database [again]!) But think of this—the company has simply found it impossible to keep track of everybody’s t-shirt sizes. Impossible is not an exaggeration. By the time they get the information (which is a hassle to the foremen), people have quite, moved and been hired. It is so expensive (time-consuming) they only do it in batches in about a one year rotation. Even the person who looks after it only has about 30% of the info.
[There is a note here that her name is Cathy, 40ish, skinny, sharp gal with a story to tell, I’m sure. It turned out later she was neurotic right off the top of any scale I use.]
Now consider this. An employee gets six t-shirts a year after the first six months employment. I get feedback every week from every employee (the paycheck release form). And there is a beautiful blank space on that form. Circle one.
[In the end, the company was too old-fashioned and the employees too unimaginative to see the value in a database. That might explain why in 2005, all the owners and best people quit to go form their own new company.]
Note: the margins of this page contain the words “Capri Gardens”, “Holly House” and “Greenwich Village”, indicating I was still looking for an apartment. Boy, if I’d only known back then this trailer was just sitting here.
