Work

All of these months I have hated my job for one reason: Mandatory Overtime. We had to work extra hours from the end of October to the beginning of February. I am starting to see that it may not have been all that bad.

Yes, I was tired all the time. Yes, I wanted to quit on several occasions. Yes, I lost contact with many of my friends. But- I paid off a bill, sent my parents money, didn’t worry about spending at Christmas, and have all of my families birthday presents bought and paid for. I also got myself a new coat, a few sweaters, new make-up, household items, and tickets to see Celtic Woman perform at the Orpheum Theatre on April 18, 2007.

It’s definitely not a bad thing to have extra money for months on end and I feel like I used it responsibly.

Our management team gave us incentives to work toward during the mandatory overtime. If we worked all of the required hours, we were given 8 hours of vacation time. If we had high accuracy and productivity, we were awarded more hours. In total, I earned 26 hours of vacation time. That is a serious bonus if you multiply that times my hourly wage.

In addition to the monetary benefits, management provided snacks like soda, chips, cookies, fruit, Mac and Cheese, etc. to sustain us during the long hours. They also treated us to lunch if the required overtime was more than 10 hours that week. They would cater in Subway, Davanni’s, Chili’s and other quality establishments.

I was inspired to write this today because our managers told us at 9:15 am to clock out after working 4 hours and take the afternoon off on them. So I get to leave at 12:30 and get paid 8 hours. That’s hot, especially when coming from out of no where!

Maybe the perks are worth the struggle after all.