I agree. I can't stand the corporate world... ya sell your soul to some stinking company that can kick you out the door at a moments notice. Man, that's living!Eric Summers said:
I also write on the clock and print my stuff but I put in a heck of a lot more than 2 or 3 hours a week. I also have to cater to a pack of morons who don't have a clue about how much work it takes to give them the things they want and then listen to them b*tch when I can't do it in two days. They also seem to think I am their personal programmer and they call and email me direct instead of going through proper request procedures. Also, I am chained to the office in my free time, 24/7 on call and a nice laptop to make sure I can remote in. That said, I feel no guilt about using their paper and printer and writing on their tab every chance I get.kuatolives said:
Minus the sexual harassment, I'm with you.kuatolives said:
Eric Summers said:
The one perk of my job... my new boss is a bud... he knows I write... I have his blessing to write if my work is done... I also know he screws off on the clock on a regular basis... told me he puts in about three hours a day on the net. I have never fessed up to writing on the clock, lol, nor will I.soloset said:I'm pretty sure I couldn't work with any competency on a piece while constantly looking over my shoulder to see if I was about to be sacked for malingering. Or worse, that my boss might catch me, say, writing a sex scene instead of working.
And I'd feel too guilty. Because it's dishonest, even if they treat you like dirt. Although I've definitely had jobs where I was tempted to take a stapler on the way out.
I didn't have to worry about any of this at my last job, because they had a lovely non-compete that gave them the rights to anything I produced on the clock with their equipment.
Originally it was an internet-downloaded boilerplate that specified anything (software, fiction, anything) I created at any time while employed there; that should have been my first clue I was dealing with morons.
expatbrat said:
Rllgthunder said:
Eric Summers said:
Andre_Laurent said:
It's funny, even though he is a bud and I know his "sins", I'd never tell on myself. I've seen management positions do things to people before. Trust isn't something I have in the work place, ever. I've learned over the years, that the less you talk and the more you listen, the better off you are.soloset said:That always makes it weird! I worked for this awesome lady once who didn't care what I did when the work was done as long as my work was done well. Her bosses did, though! I made the personal choice not to write at work then, too, but it was a temptation.
To the OP: The only thing similar I can think of is the summer I was working for a large retail chain and two people died of heart attacks on the salesfloor over a span of about three weeks. We were getting a lot of pressure from above, and the managers weren't above using blackmail to squeeze out unpaid overtime.
I changed our diet and made a vow never, ever let that happen to me. I also took a hard look at my job and our finances and figured out exactly what "bad things" would happen if I were fired. Turns out, not much besides needing to find a new job fairly quickly. And here I'd been thinking the sky would fall in and hyperventilating over it.
