Work It
What another messed up week.
I got sick last week Friday – and it really wiped me out – I basically slept and complained all day Saturday and Sunday. I felt like crap, but I went into work Monday and I was thinking about leaving early, but I stuck it out and stayed the whole day. Tuesday was worse though as my throat started to really get sore. I think at one point, I went through like 10 cough drops in 2 hours – not fun.
Work is yet again pissing me off. As of January 1st, they dropped our break times to the legal minimum – 10 minutes per every 4 hours or so – and they are making us include trips to the bathroom with our breaks – so I haven’t really been getting breaks because I have been using them to go to the bathroom. Super!
So that has motivated me to become my own law clerk or whatever and I have delved into Oregon labor laws and OSHA standards. Ooof. It’s amazing what you can learn in a couple of hours on the internet. So according to Oregon laws, employers must give workers 10 minute breaks every 4 hours or so and according to Oregon OSHA and Federal OSHA standards – employers must give employees reasonable access to bathrooms and they must be available for workers at all times. However I haven’t found any documentation stating specifically that rest room breaks are to be separate from regular breaks – but I ony started researching this yesterday. I do believe that rest room breaks are definitely supposed to be separate from regular breaks.
I would think that my job is not giving us reasonable access to the restrooms though. I mean if we go over 20 minutes of break – we get hit with an attendance point – which I guess could be described as a demerit point – and they are stating that if we go over 20 minutes, they are going to adjust our pay so that we are not paid for that time. WTF????? So, if I have used my 20 minutes, but suddenly get a bout of diarrhea, I would not only have to worry about skid marks, but also about getting a demerit point. Great!
I wonder what kind of opinion the Dept. of Labor or OR-OSHA would have about this. I know I am complaining and the easiest thing to do would be to quit, but why would I want to just give up and not get in touch with the proper authorities when I am pretty sure what they are doing is not right? I am going to be quitting soon anyway.
It’s funny I got a letter in the mail a couple of months ago about a lawsuit that the company was settling for things like unpaid overtime and such and if I accepted the settlement, then I would give up any right to sue in the future – I am so glad that I did not sign that waiver.
Oh Bob, I hate my fucking job, I am going to be so glad when I am out of there.
In other news, I got me some new exercise videos again. This time these are from Tracie Long Training.
They looked really great from the previews and I really need some variety with my workouts – I pretty much just did videos from The Firm for about a year and I did kind of get burned out on them. Now that I am feeling better, I just need to get off my ass and start working out again.
Well, I am going to preview the new workouts now.
January 12, 2006
