"that's not my job" and "collateral damage"

[samuelle]

i hate my job. actually, let me amend that - i like my job but i am seriously beginning to think my coworkers are ugly people.

here beginneth the rant: (in four parts)

I.

at the shopping center where i work, we just received the funding for two automatic difibrulation units. with their installation came an optional $10 training session - paid for by the office for the mall employees. where i work, there are five of us "guest services agents," five office management staff members, and thirteen people on the maintenance crew, making a total of 23 potential trainees. training started today and can you guess how many people are doing the training? seven.

i was having a hard time understanding why no one else had signed up for a pre-paid CPR/AED training, so i asked one of the maintenance guys tonight. and he proudly explained to me that the maintenance crew, with the exception of one person, had decided to boycott being trained because they think that the home company would be hesitant to back them up in the instance that they used the technology without the desired outcome.

so i asked him if there was someone having a heart attack collapsing on the floor in front of him, would he help the guy or just watch him suffer? he told me that he supposed he would help. so i countered by asking him whether he thought he would have a better chance of helping that guy if he took the training. "probably." then how can he not get the training?

if he's going to help someone out anyway, why is he, and so many others, so caught up in these purported corporate politics that they fail to understand that by not taking this training they become a bigger liability than they believe they would be with the training.

"we don't want to do anything to help a company that we don't think will support us."

i was trying to impress on him that being able to help someone and have the skills to save a life should take precedence over a potential situation and he told me that until it's required of him as an employee to take the training, he doesn't have much interest in the whole thing because "it's not my job."

II.

the same "that's not my job" was uttered today by my boss. on a much smaller scale, but frustrating nonetheless. a business across the hall from our office recently started receiving the local paper. to save on bags, the paper delivery person packages it with ours and someone from the other business is supposed to come over and get it in the morning.

due to some heavy cutbacks, that business is kind of in disarray and remembering to pick up a newspaper is not the highest priority, so my boss has been collecting their papers in stack. their office door is maybe 20 steps away from ours and their employees walk by many times a day, but my boss refuses to either deliver the papers or stop one of their employees to pick them up.

she actually reprimanded me when i offered to take the papers over there myself. "it's not our job to deliver their papers." i pointed out to her that it's technically the newspaper's job to deliver them and she agreed to this arrangement, but she continued to snipe at me, telling me that i "better not" take them their papers. god forbid i think about doing them a favor!

and it's a friggin' stack of newspaper! i can't imagine that it would be a bigger inconvenience to take 1 minute to walk over there in the morning than to rant to me endlessly about a stack of paper!

III.

and quick note about "collateral damage." from the mouth of my fifteen-year-old brother-in-law comes spouting all sorts of things, but lately he's becoming politicalish and socialistish and in the mean time he is learning how to make political and social stencils so that he can tag our downtown.

so we commence to arguing last week about why tagging buildings downtown is probably is/is not the best way to get a message across and how it's more than likely going to piss off the same people he's hoping will get his message. i point out that unless he is specifically protesting a particular shop, then it is a horrible idea to tag a random building because then it's going against the store owner, who has to remove it from his building. "it's collateral damage" he claims, and that it is a necessary evil in any struggle.

also, he and his friends are plotting to steal the military support magnets off of other peoples' cars. he says that he knows it's stealing, but it's okay because it's a political statement. more of this "collateral damage." but all they want to do with them is hang the collection on the wall and probably laugh about it until it loses its novelty.

he's really not a bad guy, but lately he's been taking this private protest thing to uncomfortable extremes.

IV.

"that's not my job" is an ugly phrase. i didn't mean to go on as i have, but i've just had it with all of these people. i realize that it can seem quite natural to be opportunistic and self-interested in some matters - many situations practically dictate it - but i don't know how much this... silent protest or supposed martyrdom will accomplish.

if the maintenance staff is concerned about liability issues, bring it up with management. if my boss is tired of having a stack of newspapers next to her desk, say something to the other business or take the papers over and make them aware of the concerns. don't steal from people who are peacefully expressing what they believe for your own amusement or taint a potentially worthy social cause by attaching the defacing of property with it. step outside of your job description and personal desires for two seconds and have at least a moment's consideration! agh!

complaining does not equal change. it doesn't help anything to think about protesting or social change in front of the television if you're not going to do anything about it.

i am certainly not an idealist and i can't claim to always do the right thing. i wouldn't even call myself overtly friendly. but on the other hand, this stuff seems like common sense. am i way off base here?

here ends the rant.

[gregamiepgy]

Originally Posted by samuelle

complaining does not equal change. it doesn't help anything to think about protesting or social change in front of the television if you're not going to do anything about it.

...but it sure does help you to de-stress! it is astonishing that the workers who get free applicable lessons which might help them not just with customers but their own families and friends would choose to distance themselves from the lessons.

why don't you leave a post-it on the front door of the other business reminding them to pick up their papers? don't think there's any way you could drive the "kind gesture" principle into your employer's brain. NOT saying that it's ethically right the world has indeed come to this.

[Michelle_From_Wales]

Originally Posted by samuelle

here ends the rant.

And do you feel better for it??

[cille]

gosh, your work envirenment sounds a lot like mine. there's nothing better than brushing the responisbility off one's shoulders when one can, apparently - and the rest of the time you can moan. sometimes i'm afraid of turning into one of them. hey, let's make a work place together, samuelle ! our basic value should be kindness.