Career Advice

I have worked a lot of jobs in my 10+ years in the workforce. Some have been gratifying, some have been unnecessarily dramatic, some have introduced me to people who will hopefully be in my life forever, but all of those jobs functioned by one very simple principle; do your work, get paid for it. Unfortunately, that idea really isn't simple enough for some people.

My two most recent jobs are in the security industry. It's very easy to see the perks of security. For example, you get to work longer hours and strike up overtime quite often (I worked 147 hours in two weeks not long ago), you don't always have to work in one location, the work is rarely overly demanding and sometimes it allows you to catch up on reading and you can take time off when it is needed with little trouble. The money isn't very good, but the perks can be exactly what is right for your life.

The flaws however can be pretty unbelievable. A good example of that is that I have been fighting to get paid for a job I did last September!!! Last bloody September!!!! Ultimately I quit that company 2 weeks ago but am still actively fighting for my money and dealing with the mother of all run-arounds. So, that company could just be a lemon, seeing as it took over a month to get paid for the last job I did with them, right? WRONG! I've heard horror stories about a local security company from a good friend who worked for them too. Naturally after that I thought I'd try working for a big national company, and have been for a year now.

It went pretty well for quite a while and made the other company look like a bunch of clown shoes. Then they hired some ignorant idiot 26 year old (as opposed to me, a good natured, decent, 26 year old) to be scheduling manager. Oh boy, for a few months my pays seemed lower than they were supposed to be, but the hours are so sporadic and all over the place, and the pay stubs are so unreadable I couldn't tell that there were actual shortages. Finally, I decided I needed to keep track of my hours in a very detailed format and really buckle down with those pay stubs. Oh boy, am I glad I did. My first pay after I started keeping track was approximately 50 hours short. Seriously. That's 500 bucks that inbred sewer rat tried to pocket from me! So, angry about the lack of massive overtime cash in my account I contacted his superior, who assured me that next pay would have all of that money in my account. Guess what? It's payday, my account got a pretty standard pay, which in itself may have been short, and those 50 hours weren't added to it. Of course I could properly examine it and see what's off, but my legal right to have my pay stub before or at least by the time my pay is given is apparently being overlooked too.

I can't tell you how tired I am of fighting for pay. There are no victories and only constant losses. The only logical course is to move on to greener pastures, but my immediate supervisor is amazing and I don't want to leave that person short. However, I don't know that I can continue to fight this war on two fronts. Perhaps it's labour board time, but if that's what it has to be, I don't want to be attached with the company that I'm battling for obvious reasons.

So this post is called career advice, and I'll put the advice very clear to be seen.

1. If you do shift work, keep track of everything.
2. Don't work security!

Oh well, it's not a total wash. Whenever someone asks me what I do, I can reply with, "I'm into charity work." Chicks love it.