Smacked a tree branch with my mirror while driving my mail truck, and then my postmaster found me during an observation with my doors unlocked during a park-and-loop a couple days later and saw me rounding a corner with my shoulder belt undone the next day. Three serious safety strikes. I think I’m cooked.
He did do disciplinary interviews with me without union representation present even though I requested it. He said as a probationary employee I wasn’t entitled to it. I had called my union rep before he spotted me without the shoulder belt so I’m working with them to fight it but I feel like they got me dead to rights on termination even with the union violations.
I feel like absolute dogshit. I got fired from another job last year, for bullshit reasons while they were finding anything they could to fire longtime employees left and right to replace them with corporate flunkies who’d do what they’re told. I got a job at a fast food chain only to get my hours cut to nothing due to snapping back at my boss when she’d micromanage me and yell at me for shit that wasn’t my fault and contradict herself etc. etc. I keep fucking up in preventable ways and I can blame my ADHD all day long but the capitalist reality of the situation is that nobody gives a fuck about my reasons, they care about my ability to make and manage money and in that regard I’ve always been a miserable bottom-rung social failure for the entirety of my life. I’ve never moved out, I never got a degree, and I can’t seem to hold down a job anymore.
If the union lets me go back with re-training that’d be a godsend, but if they don’t I don’t know what I’m going to do. I feel increasingly unemployable the older I get, degrees have never been more worthless in this country, and I don’t know who the fuck would want to hire a 40+ college grad when there’s plenty of 20 year olds out there eager to be exploited and capable of functioning for days without sleep.
My girlfriend is of course upset with me and reminds me that if we’re going to be long-term I need to stop doing stupid shit and putting my job at risk because she can’t carry the both of us on a dog groomer’s income no matter where we move to together. Not to mention I fell asleep at like 6 pm last night and woke up at midnight to messages of her being increasingly upset that I wasn’t answering her texts, bringing back feelings of abandonment she had with prior partners ignoring her for long stretches.
I haven’t told my mom about my situation as she’s on vacation and I don’t want to ruin that for her but the shame I feel is immense and the agony of waiting for phone calls not knowing what’s going to happen is ruining me.
I’ve always felt like I’ve never been able to stack up. Like life’s an endless list of constantly-changing chores that I’m too tired and slow to ever complete. Like I’m spinning plates. A bunch of plates on sticks. Go to the beach, look out that the ocean. Only instead of water, it’s plates on sticks. And I fucking suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck at it.
I just feel lost and worthless today and I needed to vent somewhere.
sending positive energy. hopefully you dont get fired
such bullshit we need to worry ourselves to insanity over keeping jobs we fucking despise (tho maybe you enjoy your mail job, i mean generally speaking)
I felt like this a billion times, comrade. It’s not your fault that the employment situation is shit. That small mistake happens, and really it shouldn’t lead to you having to stress employment. You only have to worry because dickhead bourgeoisie control our world and we’re all their slaves to be exploited.
He did do disciplinary interviews with me without union representation present even though I requested it. He said as a probationary employee I wasn’t entitled to it.
https://www.unitedpowertrades.org/Training/WR Training Formal Meetings NO video.pdf
Slide/page 29
The tenure status of the employee is irrelevant to the determination of whether or not they are in the bargaining unit. Therefore, full time, part time, probationary, and term employees all can constitute bargaining unit employees, assuming your CBA identifies them as being part of the bargaining unit.
Comrade this sucks and good luck to you. But until you get the pre 90 day boot, just slow down and take your time.
Don’t be a runner, follow the rules, it takes what it takes and you need to do it all safely.
He took my badge and put me on “emergency placement” which I took as a euphemism for “i need to do some paperwork to fire you”
Following rules is besides the point, i already failed to do that
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ sending you good vibes this all passes over and you can laugh about it in the future
Oh god dude, everything here is so relatable.
I was here almost 3 weeks ago. I did one of the dumbest things imaginable at work, and I would have fired myself and ended my career. I was supposed to do test pits towards the southeast of a school complex. I had the excavator dig on the west after going to the site multiple tomes to make my markings. The excavator dug through a waterline. They shut doen the school the following day. I can’t even go like southeast? But i thought you said weeest
I had just gotten this job, i had been doing dead end shit for 15 years. I’m supposed to be an engineer. I’m still here some how, I’d been shitting bricks about the call telling me my career is over, I am flat out too fucking stupid to even be allowed at a job site. I’m still here somehow.
I’ve gotten away with a few boneheaded mistakes before that probably cost my company a pretty penny, I’ve never even gotten so much as a talking to.
Obviously it depends company to company, but I find mistakes that aren’t made out of negligence will rarely get someone fired in a skilled job. If your employers are smart they’ll understand that an employee with experience - both good and bad - will learn from the mistake and be less likely to make it again.
Thank you for the reassuring words but….I knew it was supposed to be southeast. Days prior, I marked it where my mind had for some reason thought it was southeast. Half way through explaining to my boss we’d hit a waterline I had the realization that I hadn’t marked it southeast. The thought just popped in my head ‘oh yeah, I dug west’
Where do I even go from here, how do I even prevent this? Ok, I can make double sure I….I’m not fucking up where I’m oriented but what’s next, I start working in a different town because it just popped up in my head.
I definitely get OP right now, it sucks when you fuck up and it’s flat out your fault, and you can’t even excuse any part of it
sending all my energy hoping your union can back you up on this
i relate to your feelings about being neurodivergent under capitalism (also ADHD), feels like this shit system would be happy to turn us into hamburger if it could since all it cares about is being good at maintaining the machine enough for money line to do its thing
not our fault this shit is built so inhuman though & that small mistakes that anyone could make penalize us so heavily. try to keep your head up as hard as that is. if you can get another shot through your union and you pull through probation, it sounds like you’ve got a real nice stable career-track pension-type job in your hands.
sorry man
All the best of wishes. I know how it is. I’m glad I found a work from home that fits perfect with my adhd as long as I take my meds. Hope you find yours as well
That fucking sucks man
if you’re paying union dues you’re entitled to full union representation. How quantity that is varies office to office but if your local fucks you you can try and escalate it.
I joined the NALC back when I was in carrier academy
If anything getting fucked out of union rep might save me and get me sent back to defensive driving class and re-certification with a harsher test-giver or something
but as of right now I’m just trying not to spiral or do anything too unhealthy
Sending my best!
Go to the beach, look out that the ocean. Only instead of water, it’s plates on sticks.
I really like this mental image.
Good luck, comrade.
I’m so sorry, Comrade. That’s really hard and I’ve definitely been in those situations. I thought I was going to get fired from my current job for a couple of seemingly huge mistakes too.
If it at all helps, which I realize it may not, you don’t know yet how this will play out. You may be fired, but you may be allowed to continue working, you simply just don’t know.
If you can, then prepare for the worst, but when I’m in those situations I tell myself that all that stuff is only currently happening in my own head and I don’t know what’s going to happen in reality yet. Everyone makes mistakes, ADHD or not, PhD or not, and you made some mistakes. If things do work out, maybe just try to be extra cautious to avoid these situations again if you can but please try to not be so hard on yourself.
