Holiday rants

[Buzz Rules]

 

[Heigh-Ho]

THIS. Not DH or me, but DD. There are only 3 of us in the family, and this year DD worked (or will work) 6am-4pm on Thanksgiving and the day after, Dec. 24, 25, 26, and Dec 30, 31, and Jan 1. I know she's the "newbie" at work, and as she works at a nursing/long term care home it needs to be staffed, but jeez... did they forget that she has family who'd like to see her on the holidays?

It's probably more that she's new and the other workers paid their dues in the past. Give it a few years and she'll probably be able to get one of those time periods off

 

[Starport Seven-Five]

It's probably more that she's new and the other workers paid their dues in the past. Give it a few years and she'll probably be able to get one of those time periods off

We treated each other like members of a team everywhere I worked. Would never imagine sticking others with every undesirable shift.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

We treated each other like members of a team everywhere I worked. Would never imagine sticking others with every undesirable shift.

I don't find what the other poster said to be off nor do I think it's an indication of not being a member of the team. I'm not even sure how that could be seen as not being treated like a member of a team. It's just the way a lot of employment is based off of with seniority taking a primary role. I think that's more common than assuming someone doesn't have kids so they don't mind working. I've never had that level of pettiness but I'm sure it happens. I remember when I started at the call center everyone got the 10:30am-7pm shift when they started out. When I was in retail there was more petty behavior depending on the manager; bad manager played favorites, better managers looked at availability, performance, and past time off requests. Of course in retail we also had blackout days period. Black Friday was always one.

It wouldn't be an undesirable shift to everyone. In the PP's case if everyone who had been working there for years wanted those days off and the company was about seniority well that's the way it goes. Better that than try to dig into someone's personal life. Maybe what the PP's daughter can do is see if someone is willing to trade shifts. It's at least an option.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Newer rant--mixed messages about gifts.

We gave, per request, father-in-law christmas gift lists. On it was a standing heater from Costco. About a week later they told us the heater was out of stock. My husband (and well I too) interpreted that to me no go for that so he bought his own (about the same price as the one from Costco). I didn't even know until it arrived. Then we find out they bought us a heater anyways when he told them "hey just wanted to let you know I got a heater". They acted miffed but really I can understand the confusion.

My husband would have never bought one had he not been told the one he put on his list was out of stock. They could have told us later when the gift was opened. Sooo now they made it sound like they would return it, well honestly it actually wouldn't be an issue to have 2 because one can stay in the garage and the other can stay in the office where it is whenever my husband works from home) but now it sounds like they'll take it back just to take it back. IDK it blew up into something we didn't think would

 

[Starport Seven-Five]

I don't find what the other poster said to be off nor do I think it's an indication of not being a member of the team. I'm not even sure how that could be seen as not being treated like a member of a team.

Everywhere I've worked we did what we could to "spread the pain around" instead of penalizing someone for something dumb like being the latest hire. I know there are places that operate like this but always seemed like an awful way to build a relationship with your coworkers.

One of the places I worked required lab coverage between Christmas and New Years. We rotated that week around the lab annually as everyone wanted those couple days off to have a continuous break.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Everywhere I've worked we did what we could to "spread the pain around" instead of penalizing someone for something dumb like being the latest hire. I know there are places that operate like this but always seemed like an awful way to build a relationship with your coworkers.

There's only 1 place that I could imagine that working in my past employment life and that was because there was only 4 to 5 of us assigned to that location. Most of the companies were too large, with too many employees to leave things up in the air. Clear concise metrics were appreciated so long as favoritism didn't creep in even if sometimes it just sucked having to work when you really wanted to be off. That didn't mean you couldn't try to trade shifts with people though that was retail. When I was at the insurance company shift bids and time off requests done during PTO Bid was 60% seniority/40% performance. Flex time (though it was quite limited when I first worked there then it eased up) still though there were limits to that and it wouldn't have applied to the PP's situation. I'm sorry you view it as penalizing and dumb.

 

[Travel60]

I wish I could do this; I'm too much of a people pleaser. I always give a dollar but am inwardly annoyed. It also irks me when a company solicits donations from its customers and then announces that "they" donated a million bucks or however much to whatever charity. "You" didn't donate it, "we" did!

I'm all for supporting charity, but my family likes to sit down and review the specs for an assortment of charities and decide which ones we want to contribute to. And we don't support charities whose CEO earns more than my husband and I combined.

It's very easy to say "Not today". No one is judging you.

 

[LadyBeBop]

THIS. Not DH or me, but DD. There are only 3 of us in the family, and this year DD worked (or will work) 6am-4pm on Thanksgiving and the day after, Dec. 24, 25, 26, and Dec 30, 31, and Jan 1. I know she's the "newbie" at work, and as she works at a nursing/long term care home it needs to be staffed, but jeez... did they forget that she has family who'd like to see her on the holidays?

I used to work with someone whose husband was the "newbie" in the five-person office. Even after 20 years. Due to lack of seniority, he could never get Christmas week off. Christmas, yes. But not Christmas week. My co-worker was originally from Texas. Her parents still lived there, and they were always upset that their daughter could never spend the holidays with them.

 

[Lilsia]

I used to work with someone whose husband was the "newbie" in the five-person office. Even after 20 years. Due to lack of seniority, he could never get Christmas week off. Christmas, yes. But not Christmas week. My co-worker was originally from Texas. Her parents still lived there, and they were always upset that their daughter could never spend the holidays with them.

I've seen a lot of the "last man hired gets the shaft" in my years. I think that is Ok the first couple of years, but you should be able to rotate the holidays after that.

 

[wilbret]

When my kids were babies, I always tried to park my car next to a cart corral for exactly your reason.

I hear of stores assigning parking places close to the front for families with small children. No thanks. I really want those places next to cart corrals assigned to those families.

I would do the same, or I would take the kid to the return and carry them back. Three kids all 2 years apart, got pretty good at it. lol.

 

[adkkev]

I was a grocery store manager for over 19 years and I never ever had a holiday week off. It was verboten in our company. I had Christmas Day off because we were closed but worked every other holiday. It is really not a family friendly business.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

The girl who celebrates no holidays due to religious reasons is constantly requesting time off around every holiday without any regard for her direct coworker. The rest of us gather and go over who wants what and we work it out amongst each other. We would rather do that then let management make the call. This particular girl does it to be vindictive. She flat out said once that she was going to request the entire week of Xmas in June so the girl with two small kids couldn’t take it off. (They cross covered each other) The reason was “she gets on my nerves” which IMO was really code for “I’m jealous of her.” (That’s a whole other issue) She’s also stated that she doesn’t want to be the only one working while everyone is home.

I’m all for people taking PTO when they want especially when your kids are off from school but don’t be a butthead about it. She doesn’t travel during these times. She’s not doing anything. I believe she does it to screw with the others. She’s not part of my crew so it doesn’t interfere with my time but it annoys me to no end.

The only thing she celebrates is her wedding anniversary and they go all out. I wouldn’t be surprised if next year someone takes that whole week off before she gets a chance to.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

The girl who celebrates no holidays due to religious reasons is constantly requesting time off around every holiday without any regard for her direct coworker. The rest of us gather and go over who wants what and we work it out amongst each other. We would rather do that then let management make the call. This particular girl does it to be vindictive. She flat out said once that she was going to request the entire week of Xmas in June so the girl with two small kids couldn’t take it off. (They cross covered each other) The reason was “she gets on my nerves” which IMO was really code for “I’m jealous of her.” (That’s a whole other issue) She’s also stated that she doesn’t want to be the only one working while everyone is home.

I’m all for people taking PTO when they want especially when your kids are off from school but don’t be a butthead about it. She doesn’t travel during these times. She’s not doing anything. I believe she does it to screw with the others. She’s not part of my crew so it doesn’t interfere with my time but it annoys me to no end.

The only thing she celebrates is her wedding anniversary and they go all out. I wouldn’t be surprised if next year someone takes that whole week off before she gets a chance to.

I actually think a combo of seniority and performance would probably help in that. Obviously that's not what you want and isn't what appears to largely be working with you and your coworkers but that's exactly why people complain about unfairness. The fact that all these other reasons get added. If this person was stellar in her performance and had been there long time then it probably wouldn't correct anything but if she had issues with performance or otherwise that would probably serve as a reality check for her. As is left up in the air there will be chances that someone is just a jerk to be a jerk (which this girl sounds like it )

FWIW in the grand scheme it shouldn't matter if someone celebrates something for religious reasons or not. I'm not religious when it comes to Christmas but I would like to spend Christmas with my family and I wouldn't like it if someone threw out "well you don't celebrate it religiously so you don't mind working do you because I actually do celebrate Christmas for religious reasons" That's basically like the whole issue the PP brought up with assuming because someone doesn't have kids they'll be fine working. I know you didn't necessarily mean it that way.

 

[SirDuff]

I actually think a combo of seniority and performance would probably help in that. Obviously that's not what you want and isn't what appears to largely be working with you and your coworkers but that's exactly why people complain about unfairness. The fact that all these other reasons get added. If this person was stellar in her performance and had been there long time then it probably wouldn't correct anything but if she had issues with performance or otherwise that would probably serve as a reality check for her. As is left up in the air there will be chances that someone is just a jerk to be a jerk (which this girl sounds like it )

FWIW in the grand scheme it shouldn't matter if someone celebrates something for religious reasons or not. I'm not religious when it comes to Christmas but I would like to spend Christmas with my family and I wouldn't like it if someone threw out "well you don't celebrate it religiously so you don't mind working do you because I actually do celebrate Christmas for religious reasons" That's basically like the whole issue the PP brought up with assuming because someone doesn't have kids they'll be fine working. I know you didn't necessarily mean it that way.

I interpreted that not as, due to religious reasons, she actively doesn't celebrate the holiday. I know a friend that I grew up who was a Jehovah's Witness didn't celebrate the holidays because it was against her religion.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I interpreted that not as, due to religious reasons, she actively doesn't celebrate the holiday. I know a friend that I grew up who was a Jehovah's Witness didn't celebrate the holidays because it was against her religion.

That could totally be the case. I was going off of the wording was "The girl who celebrates no holidays due to religious reasons" so still celebrating the holiday just not because of a religious background. But even if the girl just flat out doesn't celebrate Christmas for example that would be like my sister-in-law's boyfriend who is Muslim expected to work on Christmas just because of that. In the PP's situation take turns would be more appropriate to be more fair with the system they have set up but not necessarily the other reasons as you'd end up on the opposite side of the issue but still the same issue.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I actually think a combo of seniority and performance would probably help in that. Obviously that's not what you want and isn't what appears to largely be working with you and your coworkers but that's exactly why people complain about unfairness. The fact that all these other reasons get added. If this person was stellar in her performance and had been there long time then it probably wouldn't correct anything but if she had issues with performance or otherwise that would probably serve as a reality check for her. As is left up in the air there will be chances that someone is just a jerk to be a jerk (which this girl sounds like it )

FWIW in the grand scheme it shouldn't matter if someone celebrates something for religious reasons or not. I'm not religious when it comes to Christmas but I would like to spend Christmas with my family and I wouldn't like it if someone threw out "well you don't celebrate it religiously so you don't mind working do you because I actually do celebrate Christmas for religious reasons" That's basically like the whole issue the PP brought up with assuming because someone doesn't have kids they'll be fine working. I know you didn't necessarily mean it that way.

She doesn’t celebrate any holiday. Like PP mentioned she is Jehovah Witness.

None of us wants management to dictate our time off. That’s why we gather and decide. The nurses do the same. We all feel it’s better this way.

I have no issue with anyone taking time off even if they don’t celebrate a holiday but there’s no reason to be vindictive about it.

This girl had the seniority over the girl she “bullied.” That girl left. Now she is left with someone who has seniority over her and she does the same thing to her now. She requests all of her time way ahead and now she’s left with the scraps. I’m glad they aren’t part of my coverage team.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

She doesn’t celebrate any holiday. Like PP mentioned she is Jehovah Witness.

None of us wants management to dictate our time off. That’s why we gather and decide. The nurses do the same. We all feel it’s better this way.

I have no issue with anyone taking time off even if they don’t celebrate a holiday but there’s no reason to be vindictive about it.

This girl had the seniority over the girl she “bullied.” That girl left. Now she is left with someone who has seniority over her and she does the same thing to her now. She requests all of her time way ahead and now she’s left with the scraps. I’m glad they aren’t part of my coverage team.

Yeah I'm sure it's the outright rudeness and purposefulness there. I don't know why some people have to be that way but for whatever reason they love to get their kicks out of it.

 

[Lilsia]

nvm

 

[Kitty 34]

Covid