Work and Change

Things at work are in an uproar. We have been working short staffed for about three years and have been doing mandatory overtime for the same three years. When the administration put out the last employee satisfaction surveys many people in the dispatch center voiced their discontent in those forms. Now they are surprised that the administration is trying to do something about the problems. There is a schedule that has been proposed that is causing most of the uproar. The center has been on a 10 hour 4 day week schedule for just about forever but the proposal has the day and swing shifts on a 8 hour 5 day schedule and the grave shift remaining on the 10 hour 4 day schedule.  This is supposed to remove a big portion of the overtime. Most of us don't think that it will but what most of us don't want to understand is that this is a proposal only at this time and was meant to start a discussion about shifts and hours. Well, it has certainly done that.

What most surprises me is that so many people have taken the proposal as a personal affront. Part of the problem is that the proposed schedule was done by a manger from another department. There has always been bad feelings between the two different departments and I believe that many people view this as a take over attempt by our rival. I'm not sure what I think about that but right now I don't believe that it is, though it sure has people on edge. The other thing is that we did do an 8 hour 5 day schedule about 12 years ago and it was a disaster of sorts. Almost to a person we refused to do overtime on our 2 days off, go figure. We also know that since we are under staffed right now there will be overtime with the proposed schedule. You can see where this is heading. Since most of us will not voluntarily work on our days off they will have to make the overtime mandatory which will defeat the reason for going to it in the first place. 

Since most of this is because we are under staffed why don't we just hire and train more people. We have been doing that constantly for the last 4 years but we just can't seem to get ahead. This is a hard job to do and the training and the nature of the job scares lots of people off. We have also lost many good people to other divisions and departments through transfers. It seems that every time we get people out of training and plugged in other people move on. Our real problem is retention. It is hard to retain people in a 24/7 high stress job with seemingly endless mandatory overtime and also no real chance for advancement. 

The day of our meeting with the management team I stopped for coffee at one of the numerous stands in town. As I got my 20 ounce white chocolate mocha I said "well maybe I can now face this meeting". The young lady who made the drink looked at me and said "Don't face it. Embrace it." At first I thought how trite. But as I drove on in to work I started thinking why not. For 24 years we have done nothing but talk about our problems but rarely have we done anything to address them. Well, here is our chance. I want change. I am sick to death of the same old same old. I don't care what we do but we need to do something. Bring it on, I for one am ready for change. Lets try to make this place better.