I’m thinking about quitting.
I work with a forklift moving stuff between several warehouses. My manager doesn’t want me to do extra hours. Fine, then I want to go home exactly when my shift ends.
My shift ends at 5 pm. Before going home I need to take the forklift to a garage 10 minutes away and to recharge it. Then 5 minutes to walk back to the office where I clock out.
On my last shift, I received 2 assignments at 16:30, starting at 16:45 because trucks weren’t already there. Obviously, even doing just one of them means extra hours will be made.
I informed my manager sending her a message with our notoriously unreliable smartphones (issue for another day I already complained about). First I asked her if she wants me to log extra hours today. No, she said, then I told her if I have to do even just one of those assignments, extra hours will be logged in. Then she called me, accusing me of bothering her for the last 10 minutes and demanding to know where I was. I was already waiting for the trucks at 16:35, when she called me, but trucks were not there.
She then sent and deleted several other, smaller assignments at a rapid pace. As soon as I was starting one she would delete them. This happened 3 or 4 times.
She settled for a small one and even with this one I logged in 10 extra minutes, leaving my workplace at 5:10 pm.
What I want to tell her:
Are you aware you give me contradictory orders? If my shift ends at 17:00 and I need 15 minutes to take the forklift to the garage, if you give me an order at 16:45 I’m obviously going to do extra hours. You have clearly stated you don’t want to pay me any extra hour, which is fine by me, but then why do you keep me sending orders at exactly that hour? If you don’t want to pay me any extra hours my last assignment has to be finished at 16:45. Otherwise I’m logging in extra hours.
I don’t see how this can end well, but something has to be done. It’s not the first time she’s reacted so emotionally and I’m tired.
Before I quit I’d like to try and see if a rational conversation with her is possible. Then at least I tried.
In my experience trying a rational conversation will not help. You are assuming she is acting from a rational place.
She wants you to clock out and finish the assignments off the clock. She will never say this. And may not even be willing to admit this to herself.
Or she just wants an excuse to be angry. She knows these are ridiculous and knows they will result in her anger but she likes that feeling.
As someone said, her boss would be the only option if you want to stay at the job - hoping that they also have problems with her and would be willing to step in.
This is a wild perspective that is probably true in cases of smaller companies or instructions directly from poor ownership and inexperienced managers.
Managers that allow or encourage people to work off the clock in most cases are putting themselves at risk. God forbid somebody get injured or contact the department of labor. Great way to lose your job.
Sounds to me like she’s been given an order to cut overtime, which is going around at so many companies recently, and she’s probably stressed because the situations that OP describe make that very difficult.
Makes sense that she was going through picking jobs and cancelling them while trying to find something that would fit the reduced timeframe. Ultimately sounds like that wasn’t possible. Unfortunately it also sounds like she is unable to effectively communicate this to her leadership or has already tried and been dismissed.
OP, I’d recommend trying to express to her that you understand she is trying to abide by the directives given to her, share with her that you are also, and see if you guys can work out a better plan. Maybe encourage her to share the issue with leadership if she hasn’t already. Might be smarter to not assign any jobs post 16:30 and just eat that half an hour if the people above her aren’t looking. Maybe less gets done, but then she’s not getting in trouble for OT. Unless she’s the owner, safe bet that her emotions stem from the emotions above her or fear of repercussions to her own employment. That or she is just inexperienced and hasn’t yet learned what all middle managers eventually do, it’s somebody else’s money