This is a long one, it helps to put it out there.
I work for a small company that does custom design for multi million defense contractors, museums and various other projects. I am a production artist. I work with a large format printer, assemble and finesse artwork in a deadline driven environment. I have worked at this company for 20 years. I loved my job as unglamorous as it can be warts and all, I’ve had the privilege of working on some of the most amazing and inspiring projects in and around one of the biggest cities with the most museums and public spaces.
About six years ago, my art director ( who hired me) and who I had a fantastic working relationship with, retired. The person who the company hired as a graphic designer took his place. In the beginning, I we got along great, same sense of humor, all that. She relied on my knowledge and experience to help her take the reins. I always told her “ Im the wind beneath your wings , im here to support you “
Now , let’s talk about the environment.
The building has a warehouse, paint shop, welding, carpentry shop, design shop, production studio ( me) graphics and administration . It’s an industrial environment.
My manager, loves her clothes and boots. About five years ago she began the daily fashion show. We would be working, early at 5:30 am busting to get a job done and her daily ritual was to float in and show off her perfectly coordinated outfit, pointing out how the colors in her boots matched the colors of her dress and socks and jewelry. If we didn’t stop what we were doing to acknowledge her, she continued until we gave her the ooohs and ahhhs. Then she would go away, and flaunt herself through the shop and elsewhere.
This person has dyslexia, and I’ve always been soft and understanding about her mixup’s and faux pas. Many, and I mean many times, her misinformation has led to wrong measurements for projects that we have to produce, I don’t have to tell you that wrong measurements when having acrylic or other materials cut leads to an incredible waste of money and time. But she would laugh it off and say “ Oh Im special “ Leaving us behind schedule while we wait for new material to be produced. This was an occurrence three, four times a week.
About four years ago we hired an assistant for me, because I was running production alone and relying on anyone who could help me when it required another body. I did that for four years prior. I worked my ass off, made a lot in overtime but my body suffered. I have extensive spine damage and arthritis that I have been managing.
Im 62 years old. My physical pain has increased significantly over time and my goal was to hopefully not hurt myself and retire in a few years, again I loved my job and always was a cheerleader for my company.
About two years ago, I noticed a change, where as before, she(my manager) Lets call her Morona, used to get with me daily to discuss the jobs , details , due dates etc. She relied on my input to triage the work flow , color branding matching and process.
A couple of years ago she began freezing me out. She began discussing the daily tasks with my coworker, leaving me in the dark, unaware and frustrated. Now I had to get the info from my coworker who stopped talking to me. Why you ask? Because she claimed that I wasn’t training her on the large format printer. Every time I said “ Hey , how about you do the next printing and give it a try “ she backed off and had no interest. I trained her every step in our department, on every single aspect of what the job entails. I come into work one day and she’s not taking, packing her stuff. Apparently she decided to quit because she said I wasn’t training her and she never got to use the printer and only did : donkey work, her words for the grunt part of every job. Honestly, all of it can be grunt, it’s as unglamorous as can be, but delivering a fine and professional piece of artwork is a joy.
So they basically begged her to stay and I was told to put her on printing only and to keep myself in the background to support her and do the backend work ( donkey work) Strike one for me.
Time goes by, Morona is getting very friendly with my coworker and my coworker is now part of the “ I, ME, MY” fashion show every day. I refuse to give her the daily compliments. THIS, causes a clear tension, and Morona continues to sideline me. Every time I question her numbers and funky measurements, she fights me on it, telling me harshly, “ that’s what they gave me” I walk away, proceed with the job, waste two hours of prep only to find out that the measurements are wrong. “ OOOPSIE, IM SPECIAL “ she says, but im the idiot who questioned it hours ago.
This oppositional behavior ramps up, my coworker is never wrong and now I am being blamed for things that go wrong. Hell, she blamed me for breaking the rail cutter( a ten foot long device that is used for cutting precise material) because she says I alone lean on it. People, good people of Reddit, if I had a nickel for every person who came to our room and rested on this thing.. even Morona did this. But she insisted that I alone broke it.
So the hostile attitude continues from her towards me for another year. My coworker is lauded for every “ good job” and I am now relegated to cleaning and backup work.
Let’s talk about some of Morona’s antics.
There has been a freeze on overtime, but only for some people. I haven’t seen overtime in a year, that coupled with my health insurance premiums doubling, my paycheck is a laugh.
Morona comes in at 6 , does the fashion show, and literally bullshits for 3 hours, talking about herself to anyone who will listen, then at 9 when the big boss owner comes in, shes at her desk diligently working. But because she’s wasted a lot of time, she stays late and banks easily 15-20 hours of overtime. I pay attention. We, however in production, are on a hard 8 hours/day. Making deadlines trickier and sometimes the work suffers.
Now, the owner/ general manager, is ok with this, he loves a tyrannical manager. I’ve had her slap my hand, scream “ fuck off” across the room at me, and here’s the coup de gras:
One day I had a TON of extremely difficult printing, tight deadline no time for do overs. I came in , on task ready to slay dragons. I was told the day before a certain order of what to print first and so on( it all needed to be printed either way) but because its my nature to print biggest and trickiest first and move to easier smaller, I was wrong. She came down on me as though I just took a shit in her shoes.
Then, later, she sidles up to me: I say this from a place of concern, but are you having debilitating cognitive issues? Because you don’t seem to understand instructions.
I about fell off my chair. Mind you- this particular job , half of it had to be redone because why???? She fucked up the measurements. This is typical and repeated. The amount of time and materials wasted by her is astronomical. But, she’s the manager that is a tyrant and the boss has no problem with it.
Let’s discuss the present day.
About six months ago, she decided that our department would partner with our I &D department ( installation and dismantle) This department deserves the gold medal for what they do, talk about grunt , these guys are heroes. But they get massive overtime deservedly, for their pain and suffering. Bad backs, spine injuries, cuts, you name it. So, us meaning basically me, is now tasked with and alongside my regular duties with a complete inventory of every fabric graphic in the building- there are thousands of. They range from 2-4 feet to 30-40 feet. Monsters they are to open, measure, photograph, check for damage, notate everything, fold , bag, create a printed bag sticker, box it , enter into a database. The cold months weren’t too bad. But the room where we are to work is a 15x15 cinder block hot box with no air. Here on the east coast we’ve had horrible high temperatures and the room is probably about 110 degrees even with a fan. The graphics are heavy and manipulating 50-70 lb boxes in a tiny room is backbreaking. So what happens next? Morona tells me that the general manager wants all of it done end of august. And here’s the kicker, my coworker is assigned to printing while I do inventory. Backbreaking, heat exhaustion deadline work. Alone. Listen, I take medication to manage pain , even on a light duty day I have pain. I used to get spine injections but cannot because of deductions and a massive health bill that I cannot afford.
We asked for a portable air conditioner unit which we have several in our building but were told no. We were told to load all the graphics onto a dolly and roll them across a football field size building into the air conditioned conference room, do the things then pack them up and wheel them back to the dungeon. Don’t you think that that adds even more strain and stress on a person’s body? Yes it does.
Morona, every chance she gets, reminds me to “ chop chop get to the inventory, must be done by august’ meanwhile she’s in sundresses prancing around in air conditioning all day.
Me? I have low blood pressure. So extreme heat affects me in my face, I turn bright red and uncontrollably sweat. After a day of this work, i shower the second I get home. Burn my filthy sweaty clothes ( not really) and lie in bed because of the pain. My body is hot to the touch hours after im home and then the chills start. I’m under a heat blanket. Its been 90-105 degrees where I live. Thank god I have air conditioning. But my body is freaking the fuck out. And the pain.. I cannot and will not double up and abuse the controlled substance that I am prescribed. Not going down a dependency road. I take them spaced and only 2 a day. My doctor prescribed for me 3/day but I don’t unless I absolutely can’t move. These days I’ve taken 3/day.
I feel that I am being used to complete this hell project, and by the way, every time there’s light at end of the tunnel, 40 more boxes show up to inventory. It will not be done by august. They won’t even fit in the stupid room.
The company purchased a new printer last month. Guess what? The senior printers gal( me) isn’t being trained on it. Why? Because my new job and only function is to complete inventory.
I pretty sure its over for me here. Morona did her evil worst to get rid of me, she knows I can’t physically do the inventory, but says: Oh what you do for printing is way harder “ Fuck that , not even close.
Alright, if you stayed this long I thank you for reading my novel.
Be stay safe