My dumb boss.

So my boss at the residences (I work at Queen's residences making beds and cleaning toilets and generally learning about the class system in Canadian society) is this young woman. Her name is Barb and today, I decided I didn't like her very much.

Y'see, at the beginning of the season (about two months ago now) she told all of us workers that she would need to have our days-off requests in writing, two weeks before we wanted time off. This was so she could make up the schedule in a timely fashion.

Turns out this was all a dirty dirty lie. Not once have we had a schedule that was more than four days in advance, and lately it's only because we go ask her at the end of the day that she even tells us (with a look that says "why are you bothering me?") when, or if, we're working tomorrow. So if I wanted, say a weekend off, I would put my request in and then not know if I was actually off until the Thursday before the weekend. For the last two weeks I've just been showing up at 8:45 am and finding out at that point when I'm working until.

Now, I understand that I've been requesting a lot of weekends off. I have things to do, people to see, etc. If Barb had looked at my days-off request (which I gave her more than three weeks ago), and said "You know Lydia, I can't give you all these weekends off. You can only book off two out of these four," then I would have been fine. I would have been sad that I had to work while others were having fun, but it would have been fine.

Instead, she tells me nothing. Nothing at all. So today, when she said "I need you to work this weekend" (the weekend that I'm going up to a friend's cottage, an outing I've been planning all week) I simply said "But I booked it off." She gave me a dirty look, put a red line through my working days on the schedule she was making up as she went along, and said "You know, I give more hours to those people who can give me full availability". I said I understood, and she said "Okay -- you're only working from 9-1 tomorrow."

Now, this very threatening cutback of my hours would have been more frightening to me if 9-1 were not my regular shift. Sure, I've been working 9-3 all this week, but when you add in the lunch break, the difference is only 1 and a 1/2 hours (ie. $15). And considering I just signed up for a psychology study which will pay me $10 for about 45 minutes of my time, I think I'll be okay.

Now sure, maybe I'm being a bit bitchy. But I'm tired of Barb's lack of understanding. She doesn't know what it's like to work in our job (she's certainly never ever cleaned a toilet or made a bed), she doesn't seem to understand that we're frustrated by our lack of schedule, and she never explains anything to us (the supervisor-in-training, Matt, followed her around for weeks before we figured out who he was. She never introduced him or anything. She never announces special events such as a staff BBQ, instead expecting us to 'just know'). And maybe I'll get in trouble later for needing more weekends off. But frankly, right now I don't give a damn. She's a dumb boss, and I'm not going begging for her work when she doesn't give a damn about me.