Pros
12 hour shifts meant 3 days of work one week and 4 the next, giving me more days off.
Cons
I worked 48 hours one week and 36 the next, only to get paid 42 hours each week. Everyone in my department was perfectly fine with being shorted $670.80 in overtime pay for a year's work ($12.90 base pay × 42 hours [including overtime pay] = $554.70, $12.90 base pay × 48 hours [including overtime pay] = $670.80, $12.90 base pay × 36 hours = $464.40, 84 hours over 2 weeks at 42 each week = $1109.40, 84 hours over 2 weeks at actual hours = $1135.20). That is $45.80 more than one months rent for me! The training pay was $15.00 per hour, which equaled $120 scimmed from my paycheck the 2 months I was at that rate. Production pay was next to impossible when I went to my shift after training. I was told from the very beginning (the interview), that the other tech had been there for a year and did not know how to do anything. When I arrived on the shift, it became very clear that he didn't. He, in fact, knew less than I and I only had 3 months of training! I was told the only reason he was still employed is because of his lack of absences. Not long after starting my shift, I found the supervisor to ask if the other tech had went home early because he had been gone for nearly 30 minutes. The supervisor responded, "well, if he left, he didn't tell me." He paged the other tech for about 5 minutes and the tech showed up 20 minutes later. It wasn't uncommon for the tech to leave for 20 minute bathroom breaks multiple times on the shift. I was told, when I started, that I could clock in up to 15 minutes early and up to 15 minutes late without getting in trouble and that I had to be clocked in and starting work 5 minutes early each day. After about one week, I began to notice that the time clock would record my clock in time, but instead record 7:00 as my start time instead of 6:55. When I approached HR regarding the matter, they made it seem as it was no big deal. That equals $19.35 a month (20 minutes for a 4 day week = $6.39 [$12.90 × 1.5 = $19.35 × .33 = $6.39], 15 minutes for a 3 day week = $3.23 [$12.9 × .25 = $3.23]). With the training pay rate of $15, that was $44.72 skimmed from my training pay. The same thing would happen if I clocked out late. It would show where I clocked out if it was after 7:00, but the stop time (in a separate field) would record 7:00. It would only record the correct time in the stop field if it was at least 7:20 when I clocked out. Most days I didn't get to clock out and leave until about 10 minutes after because of the last minute things that had to be done. Unlike the docking of overtime pay (that only affects 2 departments because they are on 12 hour shifts), the unethical system generated start and stop time overrides affected the whole plants hourly employees (nearly 200). The department head always kept an aggressive tone. There were a couple of times I had to tell him to calm down before I continued because of his overly aggressive approach to giving instruction. The plant was unable to go 60 days without someone getting into an OSHA recordable accident during my employment and for some time prior to my employment. The safety director stressed every month in the monthly safety meetings the leading cause of accidents in the workplace are employees rushing to complete a task. Most employees are paid based off of production. It doesn't seem to interest the company in changing their pay practices in the interest of safety to fellow employees. During my time there, there was one employee who was hit and pushed some distance by a forklift rendering her unable to return to work for some time. When she did return, her arm was confined to a sleeve. My advisors at my technical college advised me that the company is no place to work at for more than one year. I laughed when I received the retirement package and saw there was no matching for employee contributions. I asked fellow employees how they felt about it and most either didn't know what I was talking about or didn't care. No sick days are given, only vacation time which you are supposed to request in advance.
