Paying For It

I haven’t mentioned on this blog before that whilst in one of my depressed Oh-God-Why-Am-I-A-Cleaner states, I got tipsy at work on some wine that was left in the fridge. It had been left over from a wake at the office for one of their work colleagues. Classy or what?! (Me I mean). [http://flirtanddirt.blogspot.com/search/label/drinking]

I wasn’t proud of myself but I was really down at the time. (No excuse!) What’s worse though is I kept doing it. Not right away but I “got away with it” once so I did it again. I’m not even sure how many times it was. I think it was only when I was feeling upset or depressed, but it was a few months ago and I honestly can’t remember the reason each time I did it, or how many times it’s been now. I don’t think anyone noticed. If they have they never said anything to me. It didn’t make my work any easier in terms of getting it finished in time but man I have to say I loved not giving a shit while I was there.

It did catch up on me though. There was a cask of red and one of white. I got through them both. Obviously I couldn’t take the risk of being caught or someone noticing they were empty – although truth be told someone many have noticed or had a few illicit sips themselves. If they did notice the dwindling supply I don’t think they knew it was me who was taking generous swigs.

It was nearly time for me to go overseas on a short holiday and I decided I couldn’t leave the nearly empty casks as they were. Too risky. So I went out and bought some replacements. Now those fridge casks are rather bulky so I had to take one in at a time. For some reason I thought I’d have to pay $50 or more, which almost put me off it, but then when I want to my saviour Dan Murphy’s I found they were about $14 each. (Something like that anyway). Bit of a bitch carrying them both home but the guilt got me through it. When I was in Dan Murphy’s I thought it’s cask wine and it was for a work related occasion, of course it wasn’t going to be expensive!

The wine isn’t the only way I’ve been paying for it at work. I’ve been extremely fortunate to go overseas for short holidays three times this year. (Don’t worry I won’t be able to do it again for ages). EVERY time I do I pay for it. The first time I honestly could not believe the amount of work I had to do to get on top of things. But what makes it worse is that morning I was called and asked to do a shift at the City Baths as well. It was my mum’s birthday the night before so I had been drinking. I wasn’t drunk or hung over but I wasn’t ready to get up when I got the call either. I found out that my boss’s husband had suggested they call me the night before but she decided against it. It would have helped! I would have gone to bed earlier for one thing. So basically I had one of the longest days at work in my life. Maybe 14 hours. Not just because I had to work an extra (full time hours) day shift but because I needed to do overtime on my regular shift. I can still remember thinking when I got to my regular job, “Did they do ANY cleaning when I was away?” I sent a rather blunt text message about needing to do the overtime and I actually got paid for it, the only good thing about that day.

I’ve had the occasional night off before too. I stress occasionally. And when I come back the next day there’s a tendency I’ll be given an extra lot of tasks for that night; for example cleaning out the two refrigerators. In my old cleaning job I never had to do the fridges or the microwaves, but for some reason I do here. [By the way it’s the same cleaning company]. If you do it properly, and I do try to, it can be a long and painful process. I’ve done a big clean of them twice and I’m pretty sure I cried both times. It takes so much time. I hate the fact that you’re faced with food that you don’t know whether or not you can throw away. Sometimes they are left in nice Tupperware containers but you can smell and see the food is off. I end up throwing the whole thing out. It doesn’t seem right but even after a through clean would you really want something that housed that much mould in it?

I’m wondering if my boss is being a bit passive aggressive towards me when I ask for time off. (I’m just not clear on the definition of passive aggressive even though I did look it up online. From what I can gather if it isn’t it’s pretty damn close). I know I’m asking a lot, especially this last trip, but like I said already, every time I take even a day off there seems to be a shit load of extra work to do. Here is another example: a few days before my last overseas trip I was informed of a new task. It was just dusting but there was an awful lot of it. I forget the word they used for this piece of furniture so I will describe what it is instead. Under the desks there is a set of drawers that happen to be on wheels so you can position them wherever you like in your area. Most people keep them under their desks. All of these had to be pulled out and dusted. I was never told about this before but the tone I was told about them in suggested it was my fault that I hadn’t been doing it regularly all this time. (Okay I am a bit sensitive to what seems like constant criticism to my work efforts but seriously 99.9% of the time the only feedback I get from my boss or supervisor is what I’m doing wrong. I resent it because as much as I hate this job I try so hard to do it properly and thoroughly). I did manage to finish it all off in time but boy it meant finishing late again. I mentioned this to my boss and I got some overtime pay for it but really I should have been paid all of it. Man overtime and not being paid for it is another story! And partly been discussed on my other blog. (Follow the link if you dare!)

I haven’t been back at work that long from my last holiday; maybe a week and a half. Tonight (well actually last night now) was the first time I finished on time. I do feel on top of things again, which I guess is good. I did have a drink on Monday but I resisted it on my last shift. I think I can stop now. I really don’t want to buy another set of replacements and fingers crossed I’ll be moving on soon.