Rant: I'm on vacation, I'm dead to the world.

[fullmetaljesus]

Wow.

I figured if they mandated a cellphone they had to pay for it.

Nope, doesn't always work that way.

 

[churchmouse]

In the HVAC industry cell phones are an issue.
the Company usually supplies them with some unique tracking on them. They have you nailed as to location. I had no issues with that. My problem was the people that did not keep a personal cell for thier business and used the Company phone.
when you hire in and get your phone the influx of stupid from it usually takes a solid month to cstop. Bill collection X wives/girlfriends and yes 1 X boyfriend. 1 was so bad with midnight calls and bill collecting I gave the phone back. They said you have to use it. I said no. No I don’t and had a new job the next day.
people and their habits.

 

[fullmetaljesus]

In the HVAC industry cell phones are an issue.
the Company usually supplies them with some unique tracking on them. They have you nailed as to location. I had no issues with that. My problem was the people that did not keep a personal cell for thier business and used the Company phone.
when you hire in and get your phone the influx of stupid from it usually takes a solid month to cstop. Bill collection X wives/girlfriends and yes 1 X boyfriend. 1 was so bad with midnight calls and bill collecting I gave the phone back. They said you have to use it. I said no. No I don’t and had a new job the next day.
people and their habits.

Interesting, for some reason I thought you worked for yourself. Am i wrong or did this happen before you went out on your own?

Also I never understood why people let their personal life infect their work life. If I have life drama my boss needs to be the last to hear about it.


Also as I side note I have a lot of love and respect for you hvac guys. I did installs and repairs when I first started "college". It was hard, relentless tiring work. I'm not built for that ****.

 

[churchmouse]

Interesting, for some reason I thought you worked for yourself. Am i wrong or did this happen before you went out on your own?

Also I never understood why people let their personal life infect their work life. If I have life drama my boss needs to be the last to hear about it.


Also as I side note I have a lot of love and respect for you hvac guys. I did installs and repairs when I first started "college". It was hard, relentless tiring work. I'm not built for that ****.

I worked for others between times I worked for myself. Been on my own for the last 10 years or so.

 

[fullmetaljesus]

I worked for others between times I worked for myself. Been on my own for the last 10 years or so.

Ok making sure I wasn't crazy.

Next time my stuff goes crazy I'll just call you.

 

[Libertarian01]

I have had two (2) sets of friends go on vacation where I was the only contact. No one else knew their number.

The first couple was hiking in the Rocky Mountains. No cell phone service. They provided me with the phone number for the nearest ranger station at the end of their hike. If they didn't call me from a pay phone or their cell phone by X date I was to call the rangers and give their names, dates, and route hiked. That was it.

The second couple was touring for a few weeks in Europe. Neither friends nor family nor coworkers knew where they would be or how to contact them. I asked very specific questions about emergencies. They were clear: if there is nothing they could do about it, do NOT ruin their vacation. In other words, if any family members died it was too late for them to do anything, I was to let them know upon their return. IF any family member was in bad shape THEN I was to let them know so they could return and be with them if necessary. I did warn them that I would become a supreme A**h**e with their family if they put me in this box, so they'd better be darned clear. They were.

Might I suggest for those going on vacation and NOT wanting to be bothered find a friend like me who is willing to be an AH if necessary. Then purchase a burner phone with important numbers. That way you can call back in a one (1) way direction if necessary at a time of your choosing without giving up your special me time.

Regards,

Doug

PS - I don't like being the AH, I'm just willing to. They are my friends after all.

 

[BigRed]

Make the best of your time away FMJ.

 

[Cameramonkey]

In the HVAC industry cell phones are an issue.
the Company usually supplies them with some unique tracking on them. They have you nailed as to location. I had no issues with that. My problem was the people that did not keep a personal cell for thier business and used the Company phone.
when you hire in and get your phone the influx of stupid from it usually takes a solid month to cstop. Bill collection X wives/girlfriends and yes 1 X boyfriend. 1 was so bad with midnight calls and bill collecting I gave the phone back. They said you have to use it. I said no. No I don’t and had a new job the next day.
people and their habits.

The stupidest part of that? If it was only to be used by the company to contact the tech, obtaining a new phone number was trivial. And typically at no cost.

 

[Cameramonkey]

On the other side of the coin. When they change the overtime rules we switched a lot of low pay salaried employees to hourly. Due to those new rules the company took away a ton of cell phones to make sure that the hourly associates could not possibly work “after hours“ and get us into trouble.

They also chose to remove work cell phones from several salaried folks. Including our head IS analyst Who is the senior go to person for our main ERP system.

At 7PM Friday, our CFO reported to the CIO that the ERP system was down. Guess what? Nobody had the IS person’s personal cell phone to reach her after hours to take care of the problem immediately so that if it was anything catastrophic, we could have it back up by the end of the weekend for business operations to resume.

Luckily the IT manager is close friends with her and happened to have her personal cell phone.

The other downside to that switch was my travel team immediately shrunk by 75%. So if we ever had an acquisition, we couldn’t take those team members with us anymore To onboard the new team/hardware. They were salaried, but except for once every several years when we had a big acquisition, they only worked 8 to 5 Monday through Friday with the occasional after hours phone call.. (Lucky bastards)

 

[wtburnette]

Sadly I'm not management, if I were I'd be making some sweeping changes to the team. This guy that bothered me, I've had to coach on many aspects of our job multiple times.

He says he keeps notes....but on paper..scraps of paper that is shuffled all over his desk and he often can't find his notes and refuses to digitize them and keep a file on his computer for easy searchability.


He frustrates the hell out of me. Early this summer when I went to Florida to visit my mom for a long weekend he had to call me to ask me stupid **** he should know.


I'm really happy y'all piled in here joining the rant.

I used to work with a guy like that when I worked at a small regional airline in MN. Guy had already been there for a year when I hired on and after 6 months, I was the one constantly reminding him how to do our daily tasks...

I completely understand what you're saying there FMJ. After starting WFH, there just isn't separation in work and life brain time. No decompression from the stress of the day.

It's on us to maintain that separation. I'm very thankful that I have a job that doesn't demand any time from me after hours. When the end of my day comes, I shut down the laptop and know for a fact I won't hear anything else about work until I login the next day. I'm asked all the time if I want to put work email on my personal phone and my answer is always no. I have no desire whatsoever to constantly be alerted when work emails come in. I'm dedicated to my job, but my time is my time and I guard that time jealously.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

My good friends Padron and Gurka help with this problem.

I've found Blue Moon ale and Jagermeister are also helpful.

 

[Nazgul]

Worked on Industrial Equipment and we were on call. Minimum pay after hrs was 4 hrs double time, Sundays/holidays 6 hrs DT. Made some good money and had the option to not answer.

5 years before I retired I went in the office as a supervisor, had 37 techs to keep track of, great guys for the most part. The answering service had my work cell and my personal cell, I didn't give it to them my boss did. I answered calls 24/7, sometimes all night long. My wife was not happy. Weekends/ holidays/vacations didn't matter. We went to the beach one week and I got reamed for not answering my phone fast enough though I did answer it. Answered call sitting in the hospital room with my wife, in my tree stand during hunting season.

One Friday I started getting calls on the way home, had 37 calls up to 3:00 AM Monday. First thing at work I told them this is ridiculous and they I had to sleep sometime. They decided to break it up among 2 other dept. heads so it was only every 3 weeks. Didn't work, they had no idea were our techs lived or what customers they serviced. So they called me anyway. They did not like being called after hours at all.

Put up with it as I was nearing retirement. As soon as possible gave them their phone back and runaway. It was an excellent company with good people, I am confused how they could create a position like this and expect it to work.

Found out after I left they went through 3 people in rapid succession because they wanted to get sleep at some point and wouldn't answer the phone.

Don

 

[CindyE]

I guess I'm weird. I actually log in to work on my days off to keep up with emails. I just don't like going into the next day "blind". Of course, I set my Skype and Microsoft Teams to make it look like I'm offline, so I'm "incognito".

i check work emails, too, for the same reason. I used to not do that, until a couple of times, I came into work to some crisis, and thought, "wish I'd known that!". Sometimes I'm late for work because i spent too much time at home checking emails!

 

[femurphy77]

Sounds like you need to start documenting the issues and give them a written write up of issues they need to address. Maybe after the third write up they could be let go and replaced with someone competent.

That's the plan!

 

[Thor]

I'm 10 days from full retirement. I've been asked if I would still take calls....HAHAHAHA how much money do you have?

 

[fullmetaljesus]

I'm 10 days from full retirement. I've been asked if I would still take calls....HAHAHAHA how much money do you have?

Tell them you charge $10,000 an hour and you only charge in 3 hour blocks. Tht way you make $30k for a 10min oh be call.