Since I'm Out...

I may as well open this up for people still in the grips of PTL right? Introducing....

Done

No more. This was my last day. I'm elated. I'm getting drunk...

The Relief of Not Caring

I'm sitting in my office, looking up insurance plans and part time jobs that I can make myself useful in until April. It's a surreal experience. I now get emails that would have sent me into apoplexy and I don't care. I don't care if we lose money this month or this year and I really don't care who is taking the blame. It's a giant relief, for now. I'm in a weird haze of feeling better and feeling completely pissed off about the whole situation. It's liberating to not respond to emails, not answer my phone and let the debt pile up for my main accounts. I hope they all go bankrupt. I'm glad I don't have to talk to people that otherwise wouldn't have contacted me because they need a cheap truck. I'm no longer a dealer, and I'm about the quit the stuff too, in 11 days.

So, if you are looking for a cheap truck, take this advice. Get a quote from Budget, UHaul, and Penske. Take the lowest one to Penske, have them match the rate, then whip out your AAA card to get an extra 10% off. I'd say that you are going 500 miles so they give you a low mileage rate, but then go as many as you want and the rate won't change. If you have any issues with your truck, demand a refund, they will eventually cave if you complain enough. Trust me, I know. If its a one-way, just make up a number that UHaul gave you, say half as expensive as Penske, I'm pretty sure they'll match the rate.

Anyway, I really don't care to hurt Penske, its actually a good company. But is it inhuman to want revenge? I've been watching too much Dexter...

Keep it real,

JK

The Decision

So I think I have decided to resign/get fired in the next two weeks. I'm done worrying about Penske. I'm done waking up in a sweat worried about my job. I'm done needing Xanax to calm down my anxiety. I'm done trying to explain myself for every decision I make.

My boss Mark is a small man. He's big in stature, in fact he's rotund, he's a walking Epcot as Dennis Miller might say, but he's a small man. Every colleague that came before me has understood that. Not everyone had a sinking economy to get blamed for though. I'm not the only one that's hated his guts, in fact most of the employees in the place do. He doesn't know, or doesn't care, but in my conversations with everyone else directly under him, we're all in agreement, but I was the only one that refused to debase myself for his approval. His assistant Jon is trapped. He wants to be a school teacher but can't muster the courage to quit. He has his own opinions but chooses to parrot the party line to please the big man. He's a coward. Maybe I'm a coward for quitting. Maybe, but it's better. It has to be.

JK

Power Play

So my area had over 300 lay offs on Friday, I was one of them. But my boss decided that in true asshole fashion, he needed to power play the situation. He offered me two options:

1. Resign in two weeks
2. Take a demotion to the job I started at

Here's the thing. If I resign, I don't get unemployment protection. So not only is he taking away my stream of income, but he's trying to block my ability to collect on unemployment, which I've paid into for almost 4 years. I'm forced with a decision: I can resign, find another job and move on until April when I was planning on quitting anyway. I can take the demotion and work until I find another job where my blood lust isn't as apparent. Or I can try to get fired so I can get unemployment while I look for part time work.

Oh, and he actually said that he "wasn't trying to squeeze me out..." while he was squeezing me out. The audacity was palpable. This is a man that has driven his district into the ground while I've only seen profit in my product line. I'll get back to this at a later time...

More importantly, who wants to party?

JK

In Tough Times...

So these days the company makes a lot of decisions about the tough times we are in. Layoffs, cut backs, LEAN thinking...

But lets be clear that the cut backs only extend to those that are expendable to the corporation. For instance:

We spent 15 million dollars on a new facility in 2008. Flat Screen TV's for the break rooms, state of the art shop, brand new furniture etc...The picture displayed in my office on the wall...guess how much it cost...WRONG... 6500 dollars. There are probably 30 of those in the building.


BUT WAIT! We have to cut the following:

1. All OT for my hourly employees (that's basically cutting away about 15% of their income)
2. Cutting driver hours to 25 hours a week (they averaged about 35-40, don't get benefits and get paid about 12 bucks an hour.)
3. No more holiday parties.
4. Don't change the oil in your car until 8000 miles.
5. Reimbursement for driving miles during business hours was cut (it now stands about .10 a mile)
6. I was denied a $500 dollar party I wanted to throw for my employees at the end of the year.
7. Layoffs in the shop

Etc...

Even with all those cuts, you could have saved MORE money by not buying those bloody truck pictures!

108 days to go.

JK

CYA emails

I just received five emails in the span of 2 hours; all saying the same exact thing, all copying everyone else on their emails. The "Cover Your Ass" emails are common here. Here is what happened with these emails:

1. I get a report from corporate with the stated usage of a product that is supposed to save us money. My district doesn't use said product as frequently as other districts in our area.
2. I respond to my employees stating that we need to use the product.
3. I then get an email from one of my three direct bosses stating "Get with the program and start using the product. We can't continue to be this careless about an easy program." He copies all my bosses, me, and my employees
4. Next I get an email from another one of my direct bosses (mind you that he had been copied on the previous email). He states that we need to "get on the boat with this program" and that we need to "report out to him by the end of the day as to how we are going to increase our usage." He copies all my bosses, me, and my employees.
5. I just got another email from my main boss stating that "we need to start using this product everywhere" and reiterating "carelessness will not be tolerated in 2009." He copies all my bosses, me, and my employees.

So one issue, 5 emails on the same issue, all saying the exact same thing. No wonder I get 200 emails a day.

JK

Diversity Training

About five months ago, I went through diversity training at Penske. Considering the company (particularly my division) is predominantly white males, older white males at that, I knew that this could be an interesting session.

The trainer started by writing the words "Black," "White," "Asian," "Hispanic," "Middle Eastern," and "European" on large white flip charts. She then instructed us to write, with black markers, the first negative thing that pops into our head when we think of that ethnicity. Yea...awkward.

The first guy I saw got straight up and wrote the word "LAZY" under the "black" column. He was about sixty years old; old enough to remember segregation, but apparently not old enough to understand slavery. He proceeded to scribe "right" under the white column, "the enemy" under the Asian column, "terrorist" under middle eastern (this was a common theme), "cowards" under Europeans, and to cap it off he had a twofer for the Hispanics with "illegal" and the old standby, "LAZY."

Can't blame the guy for following instructions.

The general outcome of this exercise was that older people have some pretty strong feelings about other races, and that younger people couldn't find a way to write anything negative, which explains why the word "disadvantaged" was written a multitude of times.

I guess I don't see the point of this exercise. So you've established that everyone is a racist and a bigot; Congratulations...can we go home?

What came next was a series of absolutely precious diversity films. I can't really explain how awesome they were but they basically consisted of skits involving two white guys and one person who is "different." The two white guys proceed to make casual, but hilarious "racist" or "intensive" comments. My favorite involved a Jewish guy (apparently all Jews are Hasidic, have locks, long beards and wear yarmulkes), who is sitting at his desk working on a report. The token aloof white guys are looking at some sort of communique and mutter "these numbers are all wrong...just look at that expense...that's not kosher..." The Hasidic Jew just shakes his head.

But Penske really does need Diversity Training. I just wish it was more about the struggles some people face day in and day out rather than a bunch of absurd drills and movies. I really think the main target audience for this training should be our customers. Good lord have I heard racist comments in my years here. Here is a smattering of the choice bits:

1. I was on the counter one day and a customer came in for a truck. I proceeded to do the paperwork and have him sign all the documents but before we went outside he said, "now, I don't want a truck made by no damn Japs!" He was about 35 years old so I think the sting of Pearl Harbor had worn off, so I assumed his objection came from the insane, but common aphorism that if you are a true patriot, you will "buy American," especially automobiles. Toyotas and Hondas, safe, fuel efficient, aesthetically pleasing and moderately priced cars that are built in plants the the American South East, those just won't do.

2. I have been called a "dirty Jew" on three occasions. Once on the phone with an Italian customer who I was refusing service to due to him stiffing us on a bill. He asked my last name. I told him. He said, "you dirty Jews are all alike." The second time was with a similarly surly customer that again I was refusing service to. He asked my last name, I told him and he said "Ahh, I see whats going on with Israel." I was baffled so I asked "What is going on with Israel?" He said, "You dirty Jews don't want to help anyone but yourselves!" The third time was from the first customer I mentioned to a co-worker of mine. He said "last time that dirty Jew you have working for you wouldn't rent me a truck!"

3. In trying to collect money from a deadbeat (this is my primary job), I ran into a company that will be called for this blog, Warren Cartage. He owed us $44,000 dollars and didn't seem to see the severity of the situation. I met him for lunch to discuss how we were going to attack the debt. During the lunch, he made comments about his black drivers that would make Archie Bunker blush. He capped it off by saying "and now were about to elect an eggplant to the presidency." That was the end of the lunch. I've never wanted to spit in any one's face more than at that moment. He also said that African Americans smell bad and are lazy...I went to a training with someone who would get along with him famously

4. In my capacity as a manager, one of my roles is to hire people. I have been told by my bosses on many an occasion to hire "diverse" candidates. I've had many candidates that my boss has steered me away from because they don't fit a certain mold. Qualified and eager candidates don't get a call back from my boss because of the color of their skin. Either way you slice it, that's bogus.

109 days to go...

JK

My Desk

This is my desk. As you might notice there isn't much on my wall or on my desk. This is by design. If I need to split, I can grab everything I have one box and leave within seconds.



JK

I received this book at a Penske training. It was supposed to "inspire" me. It did...





JK

The Dregs -- 110 days to Go

This blog is devoted to my remaining days at my current job, Penske Truck Leasing. I hope to vent and waste time so that my one hundred and ten days left employed here are less imposing. I've worked here for three and a half pain filled years and I am in the home stretch to freedom. No more reports, no more threats about my job, no more pointless training sessions, no more big business, no more anxiety. I suppose I made my bed in this regard. I majored in business, well, rather, I majored in being in a band, and got my degree in business. I figured it would allow me to do "whatever I wanted." Ahh youth...

But I can't complain too much. There are people in much worse situations than me. I still have a job that pays me OK and in this economy that's nothing to scoff at. However, self indulgence is par for the course in blogging so I guess I will lay up. I hate this job. I genuinely dislike my bosses and most of the people I work with, I don't enjoy the industry, I don't like how people are treated in big businesses.

I'll tell some stories about my experiences here, relay some emails I have received, describe what I do day in and day out. It's probably boring for you, but this blog isn't for you. Most aren't.

The Dregs is the worst of something i.e. the remaining liquid at the end of a beer or glass of crystal light...the backwash if you will.

Penske Truck Leasing is the backwash of businesses...the tough crust of careers...the excrement of employment.

Voltaire said that “The British are like their own beer; froth on top, dregs at bottom, the middle excellent." So is Penske. It started with a good paying job that helped move us to Chicago. The hours were good, I liked my boss, it was easy. The middle was the best once I got promoted. I had much more freedom, used it, and was successful at my job. I got promoted again and its been the dregs ever since.

110 Days,

JK