Ok, usually i'm pretty laid back. Afterall what good is it to get upset over things you can't control right? Unfortunately I am currently finding myself in a situation I can't fully control and having my blood pressure shoot through the roof.
Last summer I worked at the painter's shop on campus as an assistant. It was fun though tiring. I honestly was looking forward to coming back this year even though my boss said that we would have more work and less time to do it int this summer. No biggie I thought. Then one of the six painters quits. Then the guy I worked under last summer shows up one day drunk, makes an ass of himself, and then gets fired because he didn't want to come back to work after that.
So now I get to work under a new guy. Problem is that this guy is the root of the reason the two painters ended up leaving and two others are threatening to as well. See apparently my boss decided to hire this guy even though he wasn't anywhere near the level of experience the other painters were. Yet he was getting paid just as much as they were. This caused an uproar. And everyone was telling me how stupid a guy they had to constantly teach how to do his job was paid as much as them.
Even then I would have let it go. Yes the shop was in turmoil but I was just student help, so why should it bother me? Except being rehired from last summer I was the only student help who knew how to strip the parking lots on campus. Thus I didn't need to be retrained and could just get to it. But guess who I work under?
Now this guy has some interesting personality quirks. He is never wrong, constantly changes his mind on what he wants done at the moment, is sexist, and acts like he is still in high school even though we are the same age at 24. Did I mention he is never wrong? I've been insulted as a woman, treated it feels like as a slave because I do all the heavy lifting while he gets the light stuff, told to work while he chats with women, and told that he is the boss if I try to talk to him to explain my grievances.
Perfect example from today. We were packing up after finishing a parking lot and he tells me to pack up the barricades that we had been using. I get halfway done when he tells me never mind and to put them back. This was after walking all over the lot to disassemble and place on top of the van, which is a stretch even for me. So I have to put them back out where they were...alone. This happened right before lunch break and we started to run late because of it. He sat in the van while I did this, just listening to the radio. Then as I started to get into the van he suddenly let go of the brake and the van started moving with me still half out of it. I jumped out and told him that in the future it would be nice if he waited until I had actually gotten into the vehicle before he started moving it. He told me to quite my bitchin and get in as he had only 'gone a few inches'. Bull->-bleeped-<-.
Then to top it off he tells my boss the reason we were late to getting in was because I was moving to slow. That perhaps a woman shouldn't be doing this job. Did I mention he knows my status from another event, and he had told me that when I get sick from my periods I should just stay home to deal with my 'personal problem'? Or that he told the cis-girl that is also working this summer that the way she sweeps will make her a great housewife someday?
I would report this but it would cause some problems. First is that the shop is severely shorthanded. So getting this guy taken away from the shop in anyway would hurt the others working there. It might also threaten my own job as the primary reason I was hired back was for the striping season, and this guy is the stripier. Second is that if I end up causing more work for the other guys or more problems
I'll be the bad guy, not him. Third is I can't just leave as the economy the way it is I need another job to go to before I leave this one, but I work 10 hour shifts and get off after all the managers have left which is the best way to get a job. Once I get a car which I hope to buy off my boss next week I can look at some overnight jobs which are to far to walk in this town. Till then though it feels like a rock and a hard place.
*sighs* To think I had been looking forward to this summer. Right now i'm just resisting the urge to unleash the feminine fury that a lot of my female friends say I should.
