MINDLESS MUSINGS

“We’ve got some big contracts coming up, so there’s gonna be heaps of overtime! Take a look at our other depot when you get a chance; they’ve been doing 12 hours most days. You won’t see an old car in their car park!”

Paraphrasing a manager during a depot meeting long ago

This was meant to be a motivational speech I suppose, and for many I’m sure it worked wonders. Especially the overtime hogs who were almost always the laziest workers in the joint! Forever having smoko breaks and miraculously vanishing whenever the shit hits the fan.

One trope that always amazed me was when the effort-allergy sufferer used their extensive hours as an excuse to do less. “I’ve been here since (fill in a time for which this person undoubtedly gets penalty rates and thus more money than others on the same shift for). Not once in my 30 odd years of work have I heard a boss suggest that one of these passengers cut back on their overtime.

“Maybe you’re overdoing a bit. All that lurking around on the sidelines must be exhausting. Maybe just do your core hours for a while; build your energy back up. You won’t be missed.”

If you have been reading my stuff for a while you’ll already know I was one of the stupid people who thought we were expected to get the job done. This was one of those ‘work till finish” gigs, so the sooner you get it done the sooner you get out. Not a great incentive for people looking to milk overtime.

Me and any other dopes are up there rowing our asses off and these guys are dropping anchors left right and centre. Talk about working at cross purposes. Volume often waxed and waned throughout the year, and we could never be on the same page. During a quiet period, they would curse us for finishing on time. Mind you, when I say on time, there was usually at least an hour or more overtime regardless. Never enough for them:

“Time and a half? That’s shit! I want double time! I want tea money!”

During a peak period, we would curse them for putting on the cloak of invisibility and doing all in their power to drag the chain. It was an impossible gulf to bridge. People who wanted to squeeze every penny versus those who value what little free time they could get.

“Just come and sit in the lunchroom with us.”

“I wanna finish this shit and knock off.”

“Don’t expect me to help then.”

This was a union yard if you hadn’t already guessed. The supervisors were fighting an uphill battle wearing greasy shoes trying to get the double-time bandits to take the hand brake off. So they would inevitably ride the simple fools who wanted to clock off at a reasonable hour while the human hinderances went on their third lunch break. Interesting vision of unity.

A quick tangent which will make sense soon: A mate of mine was one of those home loan comparers and he sat down with me one evening with his laptop. After going through all the figures, he concluded that he could approve me for a sizeable loan. However, he added that as a friend he would not recommend it because my earnings were reliant on overtime and that could vanish rather quickly.

Like I said before, we always had overtime, it’s just that we didn’t have the copious amounts the milkers were after all year round. Considering I had no desire to be doing regular 12 hour days; I decided to opt out of becoming a homeowner. Not more than a year or two later my mental health took a severe downturn, so the overtime would be off the table sooner for me than the rest anyway.

Looking back, it is a strange paradox: I didn’t have the energy to exploit the overtime because I worked more than my fair share thinking I was picking up the slack for the deadshits. They would have loved nothing more than for me to relax with them and let someone else do the hard yards. It wasn’t pure laziness per se; it was strategic inefficiency, a wage maximisation ploy. In their eyes the company made plenty of profit and they were merely getting their noses into the trough.

Unfortunately for me I hated the idea of not pulling my weight (I have no idea how that translated into me running myself ragged other than naivety). I also hated the idea of spending almost every waking hour at my job. The conversation was hardly riveting in that fucken lunchroom and there was only a couple of people I actually enjoyed talking to.

Another bizarre behaviour I witnessed was that around half of the extra-hour-hogs weren’t doing anything constructive with their earnings. Sure, half of them were paying off a home or even dabbling in investment property. A few were world traveler types out gallivanting and looking for adventure, but a startling amount would piss it away on either booze, drugs, prostitutes or gambling; or all the above!

I imagine this overwhelming urge to indulge was a reward for the hours they sacrificed. A cruel vicious cycle. The other overtime extenders would spend the money they gave away hours of their life for on luxury items. Fancy cars (just like our manager promised!) and clothes, jewellery and all manner of big boy toys: Jet skis, pool tables, trail bikes, hot tubs, home theatres; whatever the latest status trend happened to be. “I deserve it.”

The gravy train continued for maybe another decade, but the winds were definitely shifting. The days of good money for next to nothing were coming to an end. New legislation was tying the unions hands, and the smaller operators were being merged into huge corporations. The great purge in pursuit of profit was beginning.

Most of the old timers got their homes paid off and maybe even a nice nest egg or investment property. Many who bought in when I didn’t were at least lucky enough to have purchased before the prices skyrocketed and managed to pay a large chunk off before the overtime dried up. Many have a second casual job or some kind of side hustle desperately trying to attain homeownership; the rental market is an absolute nightmare!

The era of near endless overtime and frivolous penalty rates is pretty much over now. Unless you are one of the dinosaurs riding the wave of an old school agreement that can’t be reneged (yet) you have to make do with whatever crumbs fall your way.