Strike 2

So what part was I responsible for? The president of the company was on my cell phone and she chewed my butt. I’m so thankful in moments like these that I have God to rest upon. I let him take control of the situation and my emotions. I felt like she was baiting me. If she could push me far enough and make me explode, she's have grounds to fire me. But I laughed instead. At least that was what Paul said I did. I don’t remember doing so. She went on and on. About how important this was. Important enough to keep a driver waiting (why hadn't someone told me this?). I walked into the field behind the redemption center and listened until she seemed to be finished and somewhat came to her senses saying she would see if she could do something. I doubted that would happen.

As an employee I really didn’t care if she had been up to 1:30 am, nights in a row trying to get things done. As an employee I really didn't care that she was just one person handling a work load doubled in size. As an employee I really didn’t care that she had just gotten the forms herself on Friday. As an employee all I cared about was my two crew members and I just get screwed out of medical coverage because the company tried to force us to make a decision that we all believed was too important to make without the proper information. As a person, I tried to care.

Here’s what happened. On Saturday my supervisor called. It’s a four day Easter weekend, but stupid me answered my phone. She wanted to meet me. She had the insurance forms that needed to be turned in on by Monday. They were due. Had to be in. Urgent. I agreed to meet her but wondered when she was going to arrive. I wanted to go to an Earth Day concert. At 3 PM (concert is over) she called and said she was running late. On top of that she couldn’t get a hold of my two team members. Of course not. One is just one step away from homelessness and doesn’t have a phone and the other has a cell plan that’s anemic. Her instructions were that she'd leave the paperwork at the redemption center. When we come in on Monday we are to fill it out and give it to a driver.

Simple enough, but I got visions of Nancy Pelosi and “have to pass the bill so you can know what’s in it.” When was the last time you enrolled in an employer health plan with two carriers to choose from? Remember how much packet info there is? I wanted to know my options. The co-pay, the deductibles, the benefit plan, the doctors, their locations... just the small details. And how much is going to come out of my paycheck. As a former HR manager we use to have enrollments that lasted a whole month. Well, maybe the driver won’t come until mid-morning. Maybe we will get a few minutes to look the stuff over.

Each day when I arrive at work I have to literally set up the office because everything is shut down, and locked away each night. My desk folds up, the chairs, the laptop, the printer. Sometimes even the power has been be “set up”. And there is all the money to count. I pray everything works after I get it all plugged in and I log on to the computer. Sometimes Windows wants to make 20 updates. It takes nearly thirty minutes to get everything done, so I get come to work 15 minutes early. It's my spaz prevention plan.

When I arrived today the driver had already gotten his loads and was waiting. Now how was I suppose to set everything up and familiarize myself with insurance plans and complete enrollment forms? By 8 am? Sorry, I couldn’t make that happen and neither could my coworkers. It was unfair. It was not reasonable. I apologized to the driver. I held him up. He said he would wait. I’ve had drivers get huffy if I make them wait. I told him we couldn’t get the forms done. The customers began to roll in.

It was busy. We paid out just under $2000. Remember that is at five cents a whack. We averaged a customer every five minutes. That’s a customer coming in, sorting his material, weighting the material, making the computer entry, paying the customer and dumping the material into the bin. I was able to sit down at lunch time for 30 minutes at 1PM. By then the driver was long gone.

Fortunately, we were busy because if I had time to think about getting chewed out for not filling in the forms and sending the driver down the road, I would have exploded.

Why was this done at the last minute? The president had all the excuses. She even blamed me for not coming in and getting the paperwork on Saturday as if I knew where my coworkers were this weekend.

Something about wanting to make an intelligent decision. I believe that decision is to get back to NY as planned.