Aug. 20, 2011 at 5:10pm with 5 notes
Everlasting Peace

I wish humans had the ability that Vulcans have; Vulcans can transfer their own memories when touching someone’s temple with their fingertips. If I could, then I’d touch all y’alls temples and want to fill you in on my summer with Vorsteiner.

It’s been such a whirlwind (both good and bad!), but one of the things I hated most about working here was that I witnessed four people get fired. And each time it is so amazingly sad. It never comes to the point where I am not phased anymore. Ever. One guy was fired because he didn’t move fast enough in the warehouse/shipping docks. Like literally when I say move I mean our CEO thought he was just too slow mph-wise. I thought that was some injustice.

Another guy was fired because the company had no use for him - too many people were already employed doing the bulk of the work, so this guy just floated around cleaning a single bolt with his microfiber towel or shining the racks of the shelves that the inventory rests on. It was sad because he cried as he was leaving and he is a very burly looking man.

Another guy was fired because he really was unfit to work in an extremely fast-paced, stress-filled environment like Vorsteiner. He was hired as part of sales staff and every 3 minutes he was outside smoking. He was fired after only his fourth day at work. I was in charge of training him and it was really sad to see him struggle so much. As a company, you really do want to see your employees succeed (meaning, “my boss is out to get me” is so untrue) because

  1. Training people is EXPENSIVE because people are using precious company time to do the same amount of work just 5x more slowly
  2. Cutting severance checks all the time is EXPENSIVE
  3. Going through hundreds of resumes, receiving phone calls regarding the job opportunity, receiving “follow up thankyoufortheinterview” phone calls, interviewing plenty of incompetent people, and hiring that one diamond in the rough while trying to maintain your busy work schedule is as annoying as loud Asians in the library are to Alexandra Wallace. I could record a video as well. This also leads to loss of company time which is, as I’ve said, EXPENSIVE

And finally, just yesterday, my boss/supervisor/operations manager was fired. She was different because she could handle the stress well on the outside, but inside I think she was just crumbling.. nothing was getting shipped out and one time I looked over at her desk and she was sitting blankly staring at her computer making those little squares with her mouse on her desktop.. the ones that disappear right when you let go of the left-click. I was angry when I saw that because I realized she was delegating 100% of the company’s operational work to me, a lowly intern, but I also felt very sad for her. Shipments kept getting put off and customers would call complaining that Vorsteiner’s lead times have nearly tripled within the last seven weeks… exactly when my supervisor was hired….

The worst part about my operations manager getting fired was that I had to drive her home right after she got fired. Yeah you read that correctly. I had to drive her because a couple months ago when she was unemployed she sold her Nissan Altima in order to keep up with rent. When she finally got this salaried job at Vorsteiner she was ecstatic and immediately started saving up to buy a cream colored Mini Cooper. The CEO didn’t want her boyfriend to come pick her up in case he caused a scene, so I was delegated the AMAZING OPPORTUNITY of driving her.

While on the way to her apartment, she asked if we could stop by a liquor store called Quick Corner, but spelled “Kwik Korner,” and she picked up Rice Krispies cereal only because there were no Corn Flakes. She asked the guy behind the counter for Marlboro Lights 100’s, and then said it was for her roommate. And then we got back in the car and drove the thirty seconds to her apartment and within those thirty seconds she started tearing up, biting her lip, tearing up again, biting her lip again, repeated many times. I wondered what I had done to have to drive her home; I’m related to the two CEO’s who fired her so I was put into a tough spot, don’t you know? But more than that, I wondered how I would feel if I received an amazing job as a writer at NBC Universal and began saving up to pay off my student loans, only to be let go after seven weeks. And the only reason why I started wondering how I would feel is so that I could try to fathom how she was feeling.

I’ve seen a lot of things working at Vorsteiner, and the biggest thing I see time and time again is how much faith people put in their own hard work and in their jobs. We think ours jobs give us security. We love every other Friday because it’s payday, and we walk out of the office so incredibly jubilant with a little check in our hands. It’s unnerving because when it’s all gone — when you get fired, when you run out of that cash flow, when you suddenly don’t have that phony carbon copy of security — what happens next?

Filled with much gratitude that Jesus is here. And that he’s alive. If I am jobless until the year 3000, who cares? Just give me Jesus!

  1. mandu said: Opportunities of a lifetime jen!
  2. jeum posted this