I’m at that point
in my life when I realize that some of my perceptions may be skewed by my age.
Stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason: they reflect aspects of reality. So
the image of the older person mumbling “I don’t understand young people today!
Why, back in my day…”
Ah, the power of
that “dot dot dot”. Back in my day, a lot of things were different than they are
today. I’ve been trying to figure out what the major difference is—could those
differences really be nothing more than my own perceptions, or are they
real?
That’s a serious
question, because one of the things that’s not as sharp as it once was, is my
memory. I’ve unloaded a lot of stuff from my mental main frame. Some of that
unloading was deliberate. It made no sense to me to hang onto memories that left
me stinging. It’s truly a waste of time reliving hurtful moments, when they are
over and done with and there is nothing that can ever be done to change them.
Except, of course, taking away their power to hurt me over and over again by
getting rid of them.
So I want to ask
y’all, is it just my perception that people don’t seem to care anymore about the
quality of the work they do for the wages they’re paid?
My daughter has a
continuous hassle with her employer. They keep making mistakes on her pay check.
Aside from putting in a full day seeing clients, she is also “on call” nearly
every day from about 5:30 am to 9 am—one of the places she goes in the community
is a long term care facility for the aged. Inevitably co-workers will call in
sick on any given day. Whether she fills in for others or not, the on-call is a
bonus that she’s to be paid on every pay check. There is also a mileage bonus,
because she is a PSW (Personal Support Worker in Canada, Nurses’ Aide in the U.
S.) in the community and must use her vehicle to get from client to client. On a
regular basis, one or both of these are missing from her pay, because the one
person who’s in charge of forwarding the payroll information to head office
repeatedly forgets to include them.
When I worked in
payroll, if you screwed up a person’s pay, you made it right on pay
day with a check. That was people’s rent, and their groceries, and shoes for
their children. They counted on that money and if I screwed it up, I was
expected to make it right.
The reaction my
daughter gets is a shrug, and “oh well”, and she has to wait until
the next pay day to get what they missed on the last pay day—oh, and yes,
that makes that week’s tax deductions higher which of course, they say, will all
balance out, eventually, at tax time in the spring…
Y’all recall the
fiasco of my television repair a couple of years ago? I forget how long we
fought for that (I let most of that stuff go, see above). Now we’ve had a
similar experience with that new furnace/AC unit we got last winter.
When they
installed it all in December, they discovered they brought the wrong breaker for
the power box for the air conditioner. The furnace was good to go, and has done
a wonderful job keeping us warm for less money, just as advertised. The
installers said they would be back the next day, two at most, with the right
part, to finish the installation of the Central Air unit.
They didn’t come
back. Not that week, not the next…
I called in
February and the person to whom I spoke was SHOCKED that no one had gotten back
to me. She put me on hold and then came back on the line, and assured me the
service manager himself was going to order that part today. It would either come
here, or there, at the office. If we received the part, I was to call
immediately and they would send someone out to install it…
On April 19th I called and relayed the activity to
date with regard to that missing part that had never shown up. They promised to
send someone out on April 21. They did. That gentleman went downstairs and took
pictures of the panel, so that the office would know what part to order. He
assured me the service manager (and here he actually gave me the man’s name)
would be in contact with me. I informed him at the time that the next week we
were going out of the country for a few days. “Oh, don’t worry,” said that
service man. “He’ll contact you tomorrow, the next day at the latest”
…
When we returned
from Vegas, I checked my phone messages, and nada. So I called them immediately,
and they apologized, and promised to send someone out Monday May 9, between 8
and 11; at 11:10 I called because no one had shown up or called, they
apologized, said the service team was running behind, but someone would be there
shortly. However, ten minutes later when I checked my e-mail I found a
confirmation of my appointment in a new time window: 8 am to 5 pm (this was just
after noon hour).
I got a call an
hour later from the service manager himself, apologizing and promising to be out
next day (Tuesday May 10th) between 2 and 4 pm…
This story has a
happy ending. After no shows and no calls to me on Tuesday, and my calls and
their assurances on Wednesday for Thursday with again, a no show, the
technicians finally arrived…on Friday, May 13th.
Note the date.
It’s always been a relatively lucky one for me. And yes, the a/c is in working
order. Now, if only the weather would co-operate so I could enjoy it.
Love,
Morgan
No comments:
Post a Comment