So it looks like I haven't even posted in this topic? Wow.
So when I started my current job late last year, they were just getting off a hiring freeze of some sort. So they spent a few weeks shuffling people who'd been there in part-time positions officially into their full time ones, and I slid over into a part time position.
For about a month, before one of the full time people who'd moved over also quit. Since I'd already been picking up all her off days in addition to the off-days my position was mostly there to cover, it was a natural enough move. Also it was the morning cook shift, which literally nobody else wanted (because I was bottom seniority, so if anyone else had wanted it they'd have bumped me out of consideration). Understandably, because it's twice as much work as the afternoon cook shift and runs from 5:30-2.
Now, after a month or of that, we got a couple more part timers. The basic shift structure in the kitchen is one cook and two aides for two shifts, one breakfast/lunch and one dinner. Then each of those six positions has a part time counterpart. After all the hiring, we had all but one part time shift covered... naturally the one position that wasn't filled was the one nobody wanted, so often times I would pick up one of my days off in the two-week schedule just to save myself some hassle and know when it was.
Somehow the whole department acts like teenagers or something. Calloffs are distressingly common, like I'm pretty sure people intentionally use up exactly enough call in as they can get away with without being disciplined, wait a few months for the slate to clean, then do it again. Being woken up because they were hoping I could cover got so common I started just turning off my phone on nights I had off, because I just don't think I can physically keep up on it anymore. Granted it hurts that I almost never get any of my breaks/lunches because there's just too much to get done and I'm only very slowly finding the right corners to cut to get it all in, but in the past month or so I have started to not take extra hours on my weekends and just letting the cards fall. Hopefully I can recover some.
Granted June was pretty bad all around for everything. So in addition to the 12 regular employees, the department has a manager, and then the dietitian is also kinda-sorta a manager for us. Could cover the manager's stuff, come in early to pitch in for actual kitchen work, that sorta thing.
So at the end of may (give or take a week, it's been a while), he didn't show up to work monday or tuesday. So they got worried and sent police around to his house... and they found his body. Later it was mentioned offhand he actually shot himself which... he was about 37 and didn't show any obvious signs of drug problems, so... yeah, I kinda had that feeling as soon as they told us he had died. So that was a good couple weeks. Hell, they still have a rotating cast of managers from other facilities covering either my boss or his empty position to try and keep that floating, but in either case it's yet more instability.
Since naturally the call-in situation has remained and has kicked off almost a blood feud between some employees that feel they're getting screwed by it. Also a couple weeks someone called off with fucking pneumonia.
A couple week's ago my boss' boss was in, and wanted to know if I'd go to some training thing over in Cleveland. yeah sure, barely two weeks notice, that'll be fun. Granted I didn't have to go quite that far, just meet up with a van in Toledo, since basically it was a "we have a bunch of accounts with this company and wanted to get them more involved with this" which, combined with some stuff I heard while I was there, says to me they're kinda looking to just have all the healthcare kitchen employees transfer over to be employees witht he food company. Honestly I'm down for that, not sure about everyone else though. Anyways that's all well and good, total review for me (the idea is to be a "year one culinary school in one day", except I've actually DONE two years of culinary school) but it's nice to polish and hone that stuff, there's a lot of shit I've learned I just do not get to use. They got a... much nicer hotel than I expected for us too, although thanks to amazing shenanigans half of us didn't have the right names for the reservations, the hotel overbooked and I ended up letting someone share my room once I got into it (although it had two beds so... yeah sure no problem man, let's keep things simple). Still, nicest hotel I think I've ever been in, clearly designed for exactly this sorta clientele, big national companies doing overnights. I take the day after off because uh yeah I got home at like 11:30 that night, next day is a natural day off.
I'm there like three hours the next day and, getting the sense of The Drama while I was gone, immediately feel as beaten down as I had been the preceding two months or so. It's kinda... almost scary? This is objectively the best job I've ever had, with actual stable hours, a raise over my max pay at any other job at hire, benefits, management exists, and over time I am getting to a point where I'll probably be able to actually get some time during the shift to break (and real talk, The Drama is totally fucking normal coming from restaurants, for all I thought this job having so much stability might blunt it a little. Idiot me). But I just fucking hate everything all the time, forever. And while I have a reasonably stable base to seek other opportunities either in this company or in related fields, I just can't escape the feeling this is just going to be the same everywhere? Like the problem is my brain raging against the concept of employment rather than any specific problems with any employers I have? Which is causing no shortage of paralysis in terms of weighing options, let me tell you.
