Well, the saga continues. I spoke to my doctor the other day, and it appears that everything is good. My blood pressure is coming down, though it’s not quite where we want it to be. I’m saving the health care stuff for the other blog, but suffice it to say, all is decent if not well.
Friday rolled around, and I went in to have my showdown with my boss. I told him that I needed health care, that that was no longer an option but a priority. I told him that I would like him to raise my salary so that I could pay for the healthcare myself, but I wanted to make sure I got the best plan possible. I told him that I needed vacation days and sick/personal days. I told him that I would like to be made salaried, and that, if he wasn’t willing to pay for my full increase, I would like a pay bump that would put me up a whopping $2500 extra a year. I told him that I needed this money to actually PAY for the medical care that I required. That the extra $175 that I would earn (after Uncle Sam drinks my milkshake) would go towards doctor’s/dentist’s visits (because my wisdom teeth are making my mouth look like Sloth), complete lab work, and essential care in case there was an emergency and I had to be hospitalized.
Now, let me divulge a few details. My job does not exist in the real world. I applied at a temp agency for data entry/clerical work when I moved to California. I ended up doing the invoicing for a company that cleans grocery carts and repairs shopping equipment. For the past year and a half, I’ve essentially watched this company fall apart under the complete douchebaggery of my boss. My position is executive administrative assistant/internal quality control facilitator. What does that mean? I’ve got no fucking idea. I made it all up. That’s how we roll. Basically, I’m responsible for typing up the invoices from the cart services, answering phones, acting as my boss’s personal assistant (complete with booking flights and rental cars), filing, etc. Oh, I’m also the shipping manager for his latest magnetic shopping cart ponzi scheme. So like I said, my job doesn’t exist. Now, every time he increased my responsibilities, I went to him for a raise. He didn’t like that, called me unprofessional. I told him, in a normal company, I’m doing the job of two people, so I want the pay of both of them. He said, that’s not how it works. I said, no, it doesn’t. It’s called a promotion, look it up. I don’t suffer fools, and because of that, he had a begrudging respect for me. Or so I thought.
We get the big teamwork speech Thursday, about how this is a family, and we all need to feel like part of it, and we need to watch the company grow, and we need to help that, and puppydogs and rainbows and sunshine and all that farty fart fart. So I’m feeling good about my prospects. So I go into his office, and I lay it out. I need an answer on this today. Mostly because he would hem and haw over it for two months before making any changes. I told him, I need to know if I would be a part of this team on Monday. Because if not, I need to go find other work.
Well. First, he berates me for sandbagging him like this. He doesn’t like this insistence or pressure. He doesn’t appreciate me making ultimatums. He calls me out for being unprofessional. This, from the motherfucker who fired one of my co-workers on a Friday afternoon after I left for the day. Not only did he fire him, but he had secretly been training his replacement for a month. The dude had been with the company for 8 months, and boss man just ditches him. Tells me, Mike took it like a man.
Then, he proceeds to insult and belittle me. Telling me my job is easily replaceable. Telling me that this company isn’t as profitable as I think it is. Telling me that my demands are ridiculous, the amounts that I’m quoting him. Motherfucker, I DO THE FUCKING BILLING. I process the fucking checks. I KNOW WHAT WE MAKE. You know how much we charge to do a full service at a store? Anywhere between $1500 and $2000 a service. Now, we’ve got six warehouses, and almost 15 crews. Who are doing services Monday through Friday, and occasionally Saturday. So that’s about $25000. A DAY. Even being less than generous, we pull in $100,000 a week. Sure, he has to pay payroll and office expenses and yadda yadda. But that doesn’t count all the other services we do that are pretty much pure profit. We fucking make over $10 million dollars a year. And the cost to run the company is about $4 million. That’s $6 million. And this cunt can’t fork over an extra $7500. Just typing this pisses me off.
Then he condescends to me. He gives me this line about how I need to consider my professionalism. And then he gives me some “mentoring” advice. The day I take advice on how to conduct my life according to his personal philosophy is the day I finally stretched my big toe long enough to swallow the barrel of a shotgun. Mostly to cure myself of the flying monkeys bursting from my asshole.
After all this, he tells me that he will get me the medical insurance, but he wants to pay for it, because he knows that “some people” would quote a number and then buy lesser medical insurance and pocket the rest of the money. You know, liars. Like me. It was the second time he questioned my integrity in less than a week. He tells me that he will give me a week of vacation and two personal/sick days. He then tells me that he will consider whether or not to raise my salary, and he’ll give me a decision but not until next week, and even then there’s no guarantee that there will be a discussion, but that he will consider it.
I basically tell him that I would like him to instantly give me the pay raise, and then consider bumping it up to a proper salary in two or three months after I’ve proven to him that I can take on the extra responsibilities. What extra responsibilities? The ones he’s already going to put on me. He’s going to increase my workload by 40%. And he doesn’t want to pay me extra for it. He just wants me to do it, and then maybe he will increase my pay rate. Maybe.
I finally found my pride. There it was, at the bottom of the fucking barrel. I don’t want to find another job. As shitty as my job is, it’s not hard, I’ve gotten my niche with my other co-workers, and I was learning to leave it at the door as I went on to get my really real career as an actor/writer/burdenonsociety. I don’t want to have to break myself in at a new job, and maybe hate it, and leave to find more work. Interviewing is demeaning, and since I have degrees in English/Theatre as well as an MFA in Screenwriting, I always have to defend myself that I’m not going to up and quit. I usually tell them the truth, that it’s a fickle business and it’s hard to get a foot in the door, and that opportunity might not come until years down the road. And in the meantime, I’ll work as hard as I can for your company. Which is pretty much true.
But no amount of money can keep me at this piss poor excuse for a company, with my Napoleon Bonerheart boss. Seriously, the motherfucker looks like Joe Piscopo, complete with collar opened to the third button shirts and a jewfro mullet. You better fucking believe there’s a screenplay coming out of this. Office Space indeed. So I’m looking for new work. I haven’t put in two weeks notice, and I don’t believe I will be. I know he’ll take it like a man.
