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I don't rant much (except in person) about my life. Particularily to the online community. First off, you guys honestly don't care. Second off, I hate to sound like a whiner. In spite of having to manage and maintain my own personal lifestyle, get a job, and forge my way in life, and the constant travails which assault my position, I honestly believe that by not venting (often) I at least maintain a sense of dignity, a sense of honor, or a sense of at least self worth that rises me above the masses of livejournal addicts, drama queens, or basically people with a holier than thou attitude that honestly believe themselves the center of the universe. While others may find my particular speechings and phrases to be over the top, arrogant, smug, or otherwise, that is upon their own faulting. Of course, this is not the subject matter of the rant.
Before I begin to expunge my thoughts here, let me first describe exactly what I do for a job. In layman's terms, I test meat. I utilize all those nice and nifty gadgets you use in biology and chemisty classes at college, such as gel electrophoresis, PCR, and so on, to verify the water content, fat content, and pathogenetic possibilities which infect our meat.
In short: I make sure that your meat is really what it says on the label.
Our company comprises of a few technicians like myself, who test small aloquots of samples, no more than a pound a piece. Each of these small samples represents about 2 tons of meat. We test about two hundred samples a night. Per customer. So approximately 800 thousand pounds of meat. We also have customers for jerky, con agra, and other major distribution centers, so let's just say my day job is ensuring the health and well being of about a million people.
Not shabby. But if a single sample does go by me, that's about 10 thousand lawsuits that can potentially pop up. And i'm not making hyperbole with this.
When a meat sample is considered positive for O157, Salmonella, Listera Monocytogenes, or other pathogens, the meat packing plant must of course, cook it to hell. they then send this overcooked meat to local schools, chef boyardee, and other canned meat products (sorry, not SPAM, try something cheaper) and then is fed to such folks. This includes even the dog food we test, because hobos in the city will literally eat pet food if they can.
Now that you might have a glimmer of the stress that is my everyday job, let me explain what happened.
You see, if my company (and by extension the workers) makes a mistake, letting a positive sample through, or falsely identifying a positive that's really a negative, we have to pay for our mistake. Considering the volumes I've just stated, one can understand just why I'm none-too-pleased by this.
And as kharma would have it, someone messed up.
A possible positive was bleached and thrown out before we confirmed.
What did you have to do nelo? piss and moan?
Why yes, dear readers. I spent the last four hours of my work day, marching down to the head office of the damn plant. I was talked at by a person who makes easily five times as much as me, as I was the person who had to tell these folks that my coworkers were incompetant. I was told just how much I was an idiot. I was told how much I was the dumbest ******** I could be. I was told just how much money this was going to cost them, and how much to cost me. And I had to sit and take it. As I told them information back, I simply was given the rights as if I was Bernie Madoff.
When upon returning to my workplace, I naturally got to see two workers be told that they were "probably" going to be fired. Blatantly. Of course, the one who messed up is actually a really great guy. A person who puts hard work and effort into his job. He threw out one. Tiny. Bag. in error. And now faces being fired. I of course have to sit and watch this, and listen to how my supervisor is having me promise her that none of this will happen again. None of this will ever be an issue.
The tiniest glimmer of hope that I have is because of the particular abilities I had in the negotiating table, and trying to explain that we were messups, apparantly we got a lucky break and the plant will not charge us full price of the meat, only the cost of cooking. So the small silver lining in an already black cloud.
So today, after realizing that in the last three weeks, i've almost made 40 hours of overtime (a new high record - it's about 13 hours overtime per week, 2.5 a day), and being yelled at by people of corporate paygrades, and of course the internet drama that surrounds us all. To the folks over there with a full night's sleep. To the folks that feel their tiny ego's are crushed because their knowledge or intellectual superiority might be threatened by facts and logic. To people who ******** think I sit on my a**, do nothing, and act like a popous a** for the fun of it. To the people who wonder why I can talk back to my direct supervisor and get away with it, when in reality, I have to bust my hump to do jobs i'm ill suited for....
Feck off. Today was a bad day. I am complaining about it. And you know what? I'm all the better for surmounting this damn obstacle than any of you twats might fecking know.
So Ha. Ha. HA.
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