New Employee?

[trinityvixen]

Le sigh.

It's a divine comedy, this making me--who has worked a month and a half--go to the new hire orientation. For all the good it did me, the word 'orientation' is something of a misnomer. I've never been less oriented. Everyone wants something from me. Every little thing needs about thirty approvals, and not one of the probation periods, delay-of-start-of-benefits periods, or what have you ends, starts, or even coincides on the same day/week/month/planetary rotation. HR needs one set of things, after which I will still be on probation for another three months, but that's only if they count me as having started in June. However, I need them to consider that I didn't get a start on the paperwork until these past couple of weeks, and, even though I was here and I better damned well be getting paid for it, I need them not to count that against me because otherwise I've missed a shitload of deadlines.

Yes, that's right. These people jerk me around for a month and a half before I can get to orientation and then procede to tell me that I might miss out on pre-tax discounts towards stuff (one of which is transit, which, given the price of a monthly metrocard, I want, want, want) because I didn't apply within 30 days of my hire date. Which was, if they bothered to check, 15 days expired before I knew I had a deadline or that such discounts existed for me period. HR must be putting too much time and effort into the orientations to actually bother inviting people. My union rep looked suitably puzzled by my explanation, and I nearly broke into tears because he looked unoptimistically skeptical about my situation, as if there were yet more sinister things hidden by the fact I've still got no money to show for it. I managed to pass off my near break down as being sick (I am much sicker today but still not unmanageably so; I'm functioning fine, it's the headache that's a bitch), but I still felt dumb for nearly crying for no reason. No, not 'no' reason, I had a damn good reason, and all of them linked to one department. After being up and paying attention since 8:30 am this morning, I think it's not unreasonable to be near a breakdown come 1 pm when I've not had a break and had to absorb more information about stuff I've never really dealt with than I could possibly handle.

The point of all this comes down to one thing: fear. That was what I take away from this today (besides two more things worth of paper to carry home and pour over). Keep my head down for four months, and I might survive the year I'm contracted for. I got all paranoid about how I've been leaving here early when there's nothing to do. I don't see how, logically, that's my fault. She left me stuff to do. I left only once it was done, once no more could be done without going into overtime (which, despite his assurances, I'm still not sure I'm entitled to), or once there was nothing else to do within the day's time (ie timed experiments). Now I've got to start keeping track on time sheets (which, okay, I really should do just to protect myself anyway, but it's scary to have something like that turned in), which means I need to stay the time required. As long as I've been here and Karima's been here, she's sent me home before six every day, just about, or I sat around until she dismissed me. I never left without permission, and now that she's not here, knowing that she's let me go when there was nothing else to do, I should be able to go without penalty, right? Only now that I've got to report it on my timesheet, I'm tempted just to kill the time here, put in the face time, because what if I don't get counted as a full-time employee when I go home at 5 instead of 6?

These labor laws are too damned confusing. If she doesn't work me 35 hours, it's still full time if I'm paid that way, yeah? Like as in I'm not an hourly employee, so I must be full time, right? Whatever, full time or no, I get to go home at 4:30 today if I want 'cause that's 7 hours from 8:30, and it won't matter for overtime as I've got the wonky two-week schedule starting Thursdays. My actual salary doesn't depend on my hours at all. Yeah, yeah that's the ticket.....::falls asleep for rest of her lunch hour....WHICH I AM ENTITLED TO, RIGHT?::

Comments

[fairest.livejournal.com]

You're entitled to a lunch hour. Don't give up on the transit thing, though; as I understand it from my paperwork here, you may be entitled to sign up at a general-sign-up time even if you missed it in the first month after hiring. Where I work, you need to be there for three months before you can get the transit discount in the first place. I'm sure details like this, which can get overlooked in the rush of orientation, will make themselves clear in said stack of paperwork.