After years of working in corporate America, there are a few things that really trigger me.
One of those things is Emails with the words, “Mandatory”, “Comply”, “You Must”, “Required”, and my favorite is “Compliance is Mandatory”.
You see, these words or phrases never herald good news for any employee.
The term; “Mandatory Overtime” Only occurs in corporate email in the Summer when you’re planning a vacation, or in Fall/Winter before Thanksgiving or Christmas. That’s been my experience, your milage will vary.
Much like COVID’s 10 days to slow the spread there’s always a time component. Corporations always start with 30 days but all the employees know that’s complete bullshit. Whatever failures in planning that led to “Mandatory Overtime” in the first place are cumulative failures that cannot be resolved in 30 days and are much more likely to require 90 to 120 days.
But the HR department and management in general, lie in hopes of not having a bunch of people simply walk off the job.
Invariably Paid Time Off will be impacted and your employer will be looking for some kind of proof that you have a trip planned or are going in for surgery. The last company I worked for even added penalties if you were sick during Mandatory Overtime. They also had one guy drop dead at his desk because he was so terrified of losing his job, he neglected to seek medical assistance for a heart attack. Instead, he drove to work and died at his desk. Did the company relent? Hell NO! There were also miscellaneous people who went out on stress leave never to return.
If you’re a salaried employee, mandatory overtime actually reduces your hourly wage because you get no bonus or incentive to put in those hours. Usually, salaried employees don’t have enough “time in position” to benefit from stock options either. So even if the company succeeds due to salaried employees accepting their reduction in pay, there isn’t any long term benefit to them. But the executives see huge bonuses, and get plenty of accolades, even though they weren’t included in the “Mandatory Overtime” edict.
Having been in exactly the position above more times than I can count. The word “mandatory” has become a triggering word to me.
Over the years, “Comply”, “Compliance”, and “Must” have also become triggers for similar reasons.
“You must comply with the new standard”, means that you as an employee will have to set aside time to attend training. Often that time is supposed to be given to the company during some kind “lunch and learn” but the truth is you’re still working even though you’re not technically on the clock. After all, “this new training is for your benefit,” uh right…
If the training is from HR, it’s not for your benefit, it’s so the company can cover their ass.
Training of this type often includes: Sexual Harassment Training, New policies, (I assume new pronoun usage these days), Cheapening of Insurance, or Workplace Safety.
All of these sound like great things, until you read the fine print when you sign that you’ve taken the “Training”. 99% of my experience is that HR is making modifications to the terms of your employment and providing a mechanism that allows any perceived slight to be grounds for termination. Couple that with so called “Zero Tolerance Policies” and well being a white male… You’re screwed!
HR is not the employee’s friend and hasn’t been for decades.
Which leads me to my triggering this morning.
The California EDD sent an email that says in part;
“Urgent: You Must Verify Your Employment or Self-Employment for Your PUA Claim“
“Even though your Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) benefits have ended, federal rules require you to provide documentation to prove that you were, or planned to be, self-employed or employed at some point between 01/01/2019 and 11/15/2020.”
They start the email by SHOUTING my name because apparently, the state of California doesn’t know how to use lower case.
They direct me to the State of California’s shitty website which is always a pain in the ass to log into, and is in fact, such a pain in the ass that I stopped using it, opting instead for snail mail.
Triggered though I am, I’m curious to know what the hell EDD is talking about and what kind of documentation they’re asking for, so I try to log in anyway. Don’t they already have all that documentation? It should be in their files.
The login inevitably fails and I’m locked out of the account for an hour. What’s new? EDD couldn’t program their way out of a one bit puzzle.
In this particular case it also looks like they’ve changed or updated their login page and are now showing me a security picture of a die and a comment that says 1997 Chevy.
This leads me to wonder if the login is fucked up or if someone has been playing around at stealing my account. Neither would surprise me with California EDD.
As an aside, I’ve applied to work for California EDD on several occasions since it’s obvious they could use someone testing their shitty software. They, like every single other potential employer, promptly ignored my application.
Honestly, at this point I’d be happy with a response from any potential employer that said literally, “Fuck off you piece of shit!” At least then I’d know where I stood.
While EDD was sending me money, I felt compelled to respond to their shit. Technically since they were paying me, I considered myself an employee. But now that they’re not sending me money, and I’m still unemployed…
I’m much less inclined to go out of my way to deal with them.
I’ll wait another 30 minutes and try again. If I still am unable to log into the web site I’ll have to decide to ignore them, or contact my state representative’s office. In the past the representative’s office has been the only way to make headway with the EDD.
I hate having to involve them in this bullshit but I may have no choice.
