Exploited And P****d Off!

I thought about that too. I wondered maybe I could do some bike mechanics, buying and selling bikes while also hiring out my boat. You know, wheeling and dealing. Do I really need money is what I ask myself.
My present job makes me a lot of money but I have no time. You know, I slept just 2 hours last night as today I have to squeeze in some training and it's killing me.

desert_RAT said:

Sounds tuff. Just find something you can be self employed at. that's what I do. I ride every day as a result.🙂

Carrera said:

Advice please! What can I do about my employers exploiting me? These days all my time is consumed by only one thing, work, work, work! The problem is I have no free time either to cycle or hardly ever work on my boat.
True, I'm earning good money but where is the social life (or even a decent night's sleep)?
Tomorrow I have a plan: :p I'm going to phone in with some excuse such as sickness or maybe a fictitious funeral. In fact, one of the guys I work with tried this tactic and would keep phoning in with news of some fictitious bereavement or other till they figured his great uncle had apparently died on more than one occasion. 😄
Seriously, though, these people are like crocodiles. The more you meet their demands, the more they want and are never satisfied. They dangle a promised day-off on the end of a string and just when you think you've got that rest in front of your nose, it's cancelled.
None of us dares pick up the phone on a day off.
Should I simply pack the job in or should I stay miserable just for the sake of a good wage? 🙁 I need to be able to ride my bike and for that I need free time!

My husband quit his last job when they decided to institute mandatory Saturdays and forced him to carry a company issue cell phone. No money is worth giving up your life and companies seem to have no understanding that forcing people to work unreasonable hours does nothing to improve their productivity.
I don't know about the UK, but here most IT workers, the hubby is a programmer, are considered to be "highly compensated workers", sure thats true enough, but what it really means is that you area salaried and therefore not covered by any of the wage laws meant to protect workers. What it should mean is that you have a skill that is in high demand so you are worth more, but no - you get no overtime, there are no limits on the amount of time your employer can expect you to work and no protection from being fired for not working explatoitive hours. The only thing that they cannot do is prevent you from leaving the building to eat if they do not provide meals. The sad thing is that most people put up with this. It was only a few genereations back that our grandfathers and great grandfathers fought to have fair labor laws and our generation is giving it all up again. Its sad really.

Hmmm, I've been known to have been made to work for 368 days in a row, non-stop and long hours and often all night (and the next day) and having not seeing "the fam" during the whole duration. And my pay, though comfortable, is certainly nothing to write home about. And I've got 3 degrees and an additional highly technical skill qualification.

Oh well, the cycling is all that much better in the years I actually get to do it! 🙄 Now if it would only hurry up and warm up a tad more in my present location.

Carrera said:

Advice please! What can I do about my employers exploiting me? These days all my time is consumed by only one thing, work, work, work! The problem is I have no free time either to cycle or hardly ever work on my boat.
True, I'm earning good money but where is the social life (or even a decent night's sleep)?
Tomorrow I have a plan: :p I'm going to phone in with some excuse such as sickness or maybe a fictitious funeral. In fact, one of the guys I work with tried this tactic and would keep phoning in with news of some fictitious bereavement or other till they figured his great uncle had apparently died on more than one occasion. 😄
Seriously, though, these people are like crocodiles. The more you meet their demands, the more they want and are never satisfied. They dangle a promised day-off on the end of a string and just when you think you've got that rest in front of your nose, it's cancelled.
None of us dares pick up the phone on a day off.
Should I simply pack the job in or should I stay miserable just for the sake of a good wage? 🙁 I need to be able to ride my bike and for that I need free time!

Well life needs balance,however I would not advise making rash decisions. Be patient ,make a plan and execute it in a reasonable time.
Unless you are born very fortunate life is a balance of earning money and having enough time to spend it.
There are lots of windows of opportunity in the world. Just don't jump out one until see look where you are jumping.

This is why there are riots in France after the Government announced plans to deprive young people of working rights. And I mean rights - there is bloody murder out there on the streets with clashes between protesters and police. No sign of the French youth giving up either and they mean to fight.
But, sure, this is my situation and there's a power struggle between myself and my female boss who probably needs me as much as I need her money. She herself knows nobody else would put up with the time constrictions the firm imposes and she knows I'm reliable and reasonably hard to replace.
As for me, as I say, the money is useful and I can buy stuff for my bike, afford to run a boat and eat out a lot.
Once somebody told her what I had said to the effect that I had shared work was like feeding crocodiles and no matter how much you did or gave, the company would never be satisfied and would want more. It's true as well. Holidays are a distant mirage used to dangle before you so you foolishly come to believe that holiday will materialise. Then, it's cancelled at the last minute.
I used to night-ride after work but now I can't do that as I'm doing 14 hours a day at work sometimes. Instead I have to do weights for the time being and then cycle every day to work and back.
But to cut a long story short, I'm really seriously thinking of quitting. I yearn to wake up in the morning with nothing else to worry about except where my training run will be and then just work on my boat restoration.

Eden said:

My husband quit his last job when they decided to institute mandatory Saturdays and forced him to carry a company issue cell phone. No money is worth giving up your life and companies seem to have no understanding that forcing people to work unreasonable hours does nothing to improve their productivity.
I don't know about the UK, but here most IT workers, the hubby is a programmer, are considered to be "highly compensated workers", sure thats true enough, but what it really means is that you area salaried and therefore not covered by any of the wage laws meant to protect workers. What it should mean is that you have a skill that is in high demand so you are worth more, but no - you get no overtime, there are no limits on the amount of time your employer can expect you to work and no protection from being fired for not working explatoitive hours. The only thing that they cannot do is prevent you from leaving the building to eat if they do not provide meals. The sad thing is that most people put up with this. It was only a few genereations back that our grandfathers and great grandfathers fought to have fair labor laws and our generation is giving it all up again. Its sad really.

I figure I've been avoiding making rash decisions for the last 4 years. 🙄 True, since I worked for my current firm I've bought a whole load of bikes and my own boat as well as storing up money for a rainy day. But what happens is people get taken over.
We have 2 "A"class mugs in my branch who work all the hours they're asked to work and simply rake in the money. Both smoke like chimneys and hand over their wads of cash to the wives at the end of the week. They do no exercise and, to be frank, it shows.
Gradually I suppose they were sucked into the cycle of long hours and an unhealthy lifestyle.
At any rate, I made a total of how much time I put in myself over the last 7 days and it came to 76 hours away from home! :eek: To my shock, I discovered the days directly prior to that I had also been working.
I wouldn't say my empoyers are bad as such but they don't seem to share my particular ethos of work mixed with recreation.

jhuskey said:

Well life needs balance,however I would not advise making rash decisions. Be patient ,make a plan and execute it in a reasonable time.
Unless you are born very fortunate life is a balance of earning money and having enough time to spend it.
There are lots of windows of opportunity in the world. Just don't jump out one until see look where you are jumping.

Bike mechanics now seem a whole lot easier. I'm now on diesel engines and will have my work cut out for me.

desert_RAT said:

Yes I could work more and make more. However, you have to decide what is important. I work from 4am-11am daily and I'm done. Self employed and make pretty good money. I'm thinking of opening a bike shop tho🙂 Of course I will have to hire a good mechanic. My repair skills are not that well seasoned. Then I could do nothing but bikes😄

desert_RAT said:

Yes I could work more and make more. However, you have to decide what is important. I work from 4am-11am daily and I'm done. Self employed and make pretty good money. I'm thinking of opening a bike shop tho🙂 Of course I will have to hire a good mechanic. My repair skills are not that well seasoned. Then I could do nothing but bikes😄

It is difficult to buy those lost days back in later years no matter how much money you make.
Stop and smell the roses philosophy,I guess.

Carrera said:

Advice please! What can I do about my employers exploiting me? These days all my time is consumed by only one thing, work, work, work! The problem is I have no free time either to cycle or hardly ever work on my boat.

You must work to live not live to work.

Here in the U.S., we have a term for people who SNAP! when their bosses work them so much they can't ride their bikes. It's called "Going Postal".

If I were you I would do a 'Ferris Bueller' fairly soon. Pick a nice weather day and go for a long easy paced ride on your bike.

Lw

i feel your pain, and i'm self employed!
waittaminit, so are my riding buds...

Carrera said:

Advice please! What can I do about my employers exploiting me?
the sake of a good wage? 🙁 I need to be able to ride my bike and for that I need free time!

desert_RAT said:

You should only post if you have a point.🙂

........which begs the question - what point have you, made since rejoining here last Tuesday?

desert_RAT said:

Many, many points my friend. read up. Educate yourself.

Oh, and I thought you were gunna BAN me. No. Not the BAN. :eek::eek:

Did you realize I did nothing to call for such action?

I terminated your account last week - when you were registered as Idaho......

I'll decide when to terminate you in this latest incarnation.

career advice from a chicken shagging yokel, lovely..

there isnt a great demand for slopping chicken [censored] into plastic bags all day in Staffordshire, but i am sure Carrera appreciates the advice.

desert_RAT said:

Sounds tuff. Just find something you can be self employed at. that's what I do. I ride every day as a result.🙂

Carrera, i feel the same mate...

it depends on what you get from yor job...there is more to life than working for good money, do you like your job or do you feel like you wasting your life?

get out if thats the case..

what is your line of work?

Carrera said:

Advice please! What can I do about my employers exploiting me? These days all my time is consumed by only one thing, work, work, work! The problem is I have no free time either to cycle or hardly ever work on my boat.
True, I'm earning good money but where is the social life (or even a decent night's sleep)?
Tomorrow I have a plan: :p I'm going to phone in with some excuse such as sickness or maybe a fictitious funeral. In fact, one of the guys I work with tried this tactic and would keep phoning in with news of some fictitious bereavement or other till they figured his great uncle had apparently died on more than one occasion. 😄
Seriously, though, these people are like crocodiles. The more you meet their demands, the more they want and are never satisfied. They dangle a promised day-off on the end of a string and just when you think you've got that rest in front of your nose, it's cancelled.
None of us dares pick up the phone on a day off.
Should I simply pack the job in or should I stay miserable just for the sake of a good wage? 🙁 I need to be able to ride my bike and for that I need free time!

Mountain Pro, I'm kind of on strike - what you call a personal strike.
Better said: Today I should be working 14 hours. Yesterday I should have been working 14 hours.
The fact is today I have worked exactly zero hours and yesterday I also worked zero hours.
As the saying goes.......
"You can kick a dog day after day, month after month and year after year till that dog turns round and bites!" 🙂 :p 🙂 :p
The truth is I can't take any more work, work, work and no rest. My employers are like crocodiles 🙁 and no matter how much I may believe if I can just reach that one promised day off I'll be able to rest, it's a fool's delusion. They will always want more!
So, we'll see what happens. So far, I've been resting, sleeping, having the odd drink and chilling out.
Stuff em! :p 😉 :p 😄

MountainPro said:

Carrera, i feel the same mate...

it depends on what you get from yor job...there is more to life than working for good money, do you like your job or do you feel like you wasting your life?

get out if thats the case..

what is your line of work?

limerickman said:

........which begs the question - what point have you, made since rejoining here last Tuesday?

I have been self employed 22 out of 25 years of my "working years." Being self-employed does not mean less hours.Most self employed people put far more hours in then employed people....
The key is to simplify..... I did, and now I have free time. There are ways to do this ....
1..... Don't get invovlved in other peoples chaos.
2..... Concentrate on only important things.
3..... Don't get bogged down in cycling things. Two bikes are more then enough , unless you are a competitor. Streamline your bikes and you also
streamline your maintenance and other things that take time from riding.

Carrera said:

So far, I've been resting, sleeping, having the odd drink and chilling out.
Stuff em! :p 😉 :p 😄

Good for you... I remember those 14 - 16 hour work days all too well.

Bueller.... Bueller... Ferris Bueller?

lw

The bikes haven't helped in many ways. I seem to have a kind of jinx in as much as my bike will basically disappoint whenever I have a ride planned. Funnily enough, it always seems to be the front derailleur rattling. I'll wind up dismounting, getting my tools out and trying to reset it all. I can get the settings perfect after a lot of messing about but the rattle will creep back after 3 weeks or so.
Yesterday I got a puncture which is unusual for me as I don't puncture so often. Then a few short weeks ago I was rushing to work for a 14 hour shift and got myself bulldozed by a taxi that ploughed into me but, amazingly, I just bounced off the upper part of the cab and landed on the road in one piece.
Anyway I have 2 bikes and, yes, two is enough.
Actually, with regard to work, my employers aren't really so bad but what happens is we are very short-staffed. Sometimes work can be fine but when we have a staffing crisis I can be working up to 80 hours in one week.
Oh well, hopefully it will all pick up and I can be back into riding in summer.

wolfix said:

I have been self employed 22 out of 25 years of my "working years." Being self-employed does not mean less hours.Most self employed people put far more hours in then employed people....
The key is to simplify..... I did, and now I have free time. There are ways to do this ....
1..... Don't get invovlved in other peoples chaos.
2..... Concentrate on only important things.
3..... Don't get bogged down in cycling things. Two bikes are more then enough , unless you are a competitor. Streamline your bikes and you also
streamline your maintenance and other things that take time from riding.