Years ago, in what seems like an entirely different life, I was working an hourly job making $6 an hour. And since no one told me differently, I was showing up at 6am and working until 5pm. Working. Not fucking around. Then one day, the boss shows up and tells me he feels really bad about my working so many hours and I really need to stop. So, I tell him to make me a salaried employee and then he doesn't need to worry about it anymore. We negotiated a dollar an hour raise for me (at 8 hours), made it salaried, and I was left alone to do what I needed to do. Problem solved. For me anyway. I think he still felt bad, but since he no longer had to see a timesheet, he really didn't need to think about how many hours I was working.
Flash ahead a bunch of years to another hourly job. Shit needed to be done and it took more than 8 hours a day to do it, so I worked from about 7am to 5pm. Then one day, the human resources chick wanders into my office and tells me to cut it out. So, I tell her to make me salary and not worry about it, like I'd done in the past. She tells me she can't. There are laws and non-management positions can't be salaried any more. And the company can't work me that many hours without getting fined or some such nonsense. Well, fuck. So, I tell her 'okay, fine' and start making my timesheet say 8am-5pm with the standard one hour lunch. Because I still had more to do than I could fit into an 8-hour day.
Then she caught me doing that. 'Sorry, you can't do that. Against the labor laws.' Informs me that if I keep working like I want to work, they'll have to let me go.
Think about that for a second. A company would have to fire me for choosing to work harder and longer.
Oh, I was a good girl and I did it for a while. Then things started to back up and weren't getting done in a timely fashion. Then I went back to my old ways. The HR chick, who was also my smoking buddy, took me aside and quietly told me to knock it off. I asked her who I was hurting. She told me that if they got caught working me like that, there would be hell to pay. I wondered how they'd get caught because I sure as hell wasn't telling the government what I was doing. It's none of their damn business, after all. She was worried one of the other workers would report them to the government. Well, fuck... again.
Once more, I went back to working 8 hours a day and trying to cram 10 hours worth of work into it. I was one harried little monkey, lemme tell ya. You see, I was the secretary to the president of the company. He worked from 7-6 (because salaried people work until the work is done) and he needed me there, doing my magic, while he was there. And there were the things I needed to get done when I wasn't working directly with him.
When I gave them my month's notice - because I got married and was leaving the state, not because I didn't like working there - it was the best and most freeing month ever. I worked like a dog and loved every minute of it. I no longer had to worry about what anyone said or did, and I didn't have to watch what I said or did. No more pussyfooting around. Ahhh. I was cranking and spanking more efficiently than I had in my life - unfettered by regulations and rules. By month's end, everything was cleared off my desk and finished, all my processes were detailed in various word documents, all the files were pristine, so the gal taking over my position wouldn't be caught in an avalanche her first day. And if the company got tagged by the government, I was ready to denounce ever working more than 8 hours a day. Like I said, my choices were none of their damn business.
I'd do it again in a heartbeat. You know, if someone was willing to pay me to do anything again. I really need to apply that work ethic to my writing. But no one's paying me to do this and if it doesn't get done, no one else will suffer. Oh, I can still get cranking when the necessity arises. It just rarely arises anymore. Heh, I was working hard and now I'm hardly working.
What about you?
I get that work ethic. My dad brought me up on two things (both I later learned were espoused by Louis L'Amour in his westerns):
ReplyDelete1. When you work for someone, you ride for the brand. That means you stay loyal.
2. You work from can see to can't see unless the job is done.
I went to work for him in one of the family businesses when I was 13. The propane dealership was within walking distance of my junior high so I walked there after school, worked until quitting time and rode home with him. And I worked half-days on Saturday, and 5 1/2 days in the summer. In high school, I branched out a little as Dad had hired an office manager. I worked Christmas vacation and summers (a varierty of retails jobs, including in the pharmacy at a drug store--learning read MD scribbles was a trial!). When I graduated, I worked summers for him again, and he paid me extra with the idea that the extra would be the first tuition payment for college. I also worked at Christmas. Once I was home for good, I became the full-time office manager and ran the place as Dad had been appointed as head of the state LPG commission.
That lasted until I got a wild hair to move to Colorado. I worked a variety of jobs there, too, all the while trying to get on with a police department. That didn't work out.
Anyway, I totally get the whole gotta work to get stuff done. I hate housework because no matter how much I do, there's always more. Empty the laundry hamper? Two days later, it's full again. There's satisfaction in finishing a job and knowing it's complete, done, and off your desk.
Now that writing is my "full-time" job? Yeah...bad habits. It's sort of turned into housework. LOLOL Anyway, I totally get you on this, my sistah from a different mistah!