Frustrations

JT job is really pissing me off and to an extent JT. He doesn't have an office, he has a van which he has to drive over 1/2 - 2/3 of the state on any given day (they have even tried to send him to other states). He can spend six to eight hours behind the wheel on a fairly normal day. This is because we are in a rural state where the companies customers are spread out all over the damn place. He services and repairs mostly computer registers for grocery and retail outlets. His company or more specifically his boss like to play a juggling game with his hours and overtime. Overtime happens in this job a lot. It's not created by slowness it's just the nature of the job. If you have to drive 2 - 3 hour to get to the store to work for 20 minutes on the equipment and then drive back and do other calls along the way or in town then you are going to have overtime. There is just so much a person can squeeze into 8 hours. The way calls operate is that they are dispatched and rated on importance from a 1 - 4 with 1 being immediate priority. Something with an immediate priority usually has a 3 - 4 hour repair clock ticking on it that begins when the store called it in. They have to make it to the store and complete the repair in that time. It's in the stores contract with the company and most of the stores can cancel the contract if the company misses something like more than 5% of those deadlines in a month. 2 and 3 level calls can have between 8 and 24 hours (can't remember the specifics), but if you get say two level 2s at the same store at the same time it ups it to a level 1 and changes the time frame. Level four are low priority and don't usually have a time but need to be done within a few days anyway. Stores can call in things anywhere from 7am to 11pm. If the whole register thing is down though they can call it in at anytime, like say 5am. There are only two guys to cover this territory and do this work. Well a third is sort of there but he's not on call and isn't trained on most of the stuff because his primary job is something else. Sometimes they even have to do other parts of the state because the contractors in those areas don't want to or can't do the job when it has to be done. Because of all these crazy time demands, contract obligations, two people doing it all, and all the distance to travel from place to place over time is unavoidable.

JT has been dispatched to call at 3:30 in the morning and 11:30 at night. He is on call for seven days in a row, twice a month, for after hours calls (6pm -8:30 am as well as every other Sunday).He only has 3 days off every 14 days. Sometimes a lot of overtime happens and sometimes hardly any happens. Overtime cost money and the company is all about the money. Since he started working for them they have tried all kinds of things to cut back on overtime despite the fact that when he was hired he was guaranteed overtime and in fact told he would be obligated to work it. His latest boss has decided that they must balance out all overtime by making them take days/hours off in whatever amount of overtime they rack up each week. This while still requiring them to be on call and take calls at night and weekends after their regular shifts.

It's pissing me off. JT shouldn't have to drop everything we are doing on a Sunday afternoon or a wed night to drive to Hays and back but then not get decent compensation for the interruption of his life by getting to keep that as overtime. He gets phone calls from his boss all the time on his "off days" that he doesn't get paid for either. It's not a minute or two either. He can have a couple of 15 - 20 minutes calls a day on his day off! His boss knows his days off but doesn't seem to respect them. The company has skipped out on bonuses and raises as well.

I'm mad at JT because he never even asked his immediate boss if this balancing thing was anew company thing or just a new policy of his boss. it makes a huge difference in the end. If it's company policy then it's just more ridiculousness from some nameless dud in Japan. If it's his bosses newest idea it is simply to make his boss look real good to his boss and get himself a raise or bonus all well screwing over the guys beneath him. His boss is known as a stickler for regulations and a tightwad so I really believe it's all to benefit him while screwing others. I'd like JT to just straight out ask. If it's a company policy thing then it will probably pass on by when it's shown not to work well or the financial quarter they are pinching pennies in passes. Limits on overtime have come down from the top before and passed pretty quickly. If it's all to benefit his boss then I think he should just say no to working beyond his scheduled 40 a week. He isn't getting any benefit for never being able to plan to do anything or dropping everything and int erupting our lives to go do something for his job. On call simply isn't worth it if you don't get decent compensation and treated in an appreciative manner for it. JT says it's pushing it to simply ask why and who decided that nobody could have beyond their 40 a week now. I think it's simply asking for clarification on a subject that is becoming a huge problem for those in the field. He also says if they just say no to working after hours then they will just have to start working weird shifts and weekend days to have coverage. I'd rather have that. With that at least we know when he is working and not working and there would be no more sitting on our butts not doing anything for fear that he would get a call or being woken up with 5am oe midnight surprise calls. He wouldn't have to quit watching a movie in the middle of a day off to go put in six hours of work. We could plan a life around his work even with a weird shift schedule. The only reason I haven't gone insane with the weird hours and dropping everything and having to explain to the kids why dad is not their yet again is because of the overtime pay that was paying our bills.

He can't exactly quit the job but I'm strongly encouraging him to keep looking for a new one and to beef up his resume so that he is more desirable to other companies. He does really good in this job, gets all kinds of pats on the back and has wanted to move up the line into higher positions.Sadly the company is treating him, as an employee, like shit when they insist he forget about having a life in order to serve the company and then want to take away the one thing that makes it a tiny bit worth it. Not to mention for all the praise they give him for doing so great they haven't given a raise and the bonuses they dangle in front of him as possible always seem to disappear around the time they were suppose to appear. It just doesn't inspire any company loyalty from employees.