Trouble at Work

Things have certainly gotten interesting as of late where I work. Our crew coordinator, which supervises and manages the activites of the crew, has gotten very difficult to work for. Even though we get paid lunch and coffee breaks, they are only supposed to be ten and 20 minutes respectfully. We've always stretched them out to a half hour at least and never received any backlash for it. In fact, it's been this way for years and not only in operating, but in other departments. Well the details are a bit sketchy, but the word is that upper management has cracked down on the coordinators in charge of the crews. And our boss is following their every word.

The thing that frustrates me the most about this individual is that he gets very, very moody. And when he's in his bad moods, he takes it out on the rest of the crew. I've heard stories where he's yelled, slammed doors, and completely lost his cool. I am relatively new to this particular crew, joining it in April of this year. And I've dealt with this individual before, prior to him becoming a boss even. In fact, I wrote a blog entry about him two or three years ago and is on my WordPress blog. Back then, we were on the same crew and had the same position. Something happened where he didn't speak to me or our control room operator for a good two weeks - and we couldn't exactly figure out why. Eventually he got over the problem he had with us, but it continues to remain a mystery why he acted the way he did then. But now flash forwarding to current times, he's keeping up with his same behavior patterns that he had then, and it's certainly troubling.

Those of us on the crew agree that he probably isn't in the right job and he's not very good at coordinating the crew. He's been at the job for approximately two years now, so you would think he'd have a good handle on things. However, that doesn't appear to be the case. We've been working very hard at work the past few days, shutting the plant down for maintenance work. Do you think we've gotten any compliments on our work - with only four people on the floor? Our plant is three quarters of a mile long, so that's a lot of floor to cover with just four people. All he does is walk around, staring down at the ground as he walks by. He doesn't remotely seem interested in being where he's at, and that's kind of a dangerous thing because there are a lot of moving parts in every aspect at this facility. He's a puzzling figure, one that we really can't figure out.

When me or someone else from the crew talks to him individually, he seems perfectly fine, even joking around at times. However, when it comes to meeting with the crew as a whole, he fails miserably. A lot of times he appears lost or wishing he was somewhere else. And his recent behavior hasn't been the first incident of its kind, like I said. He's acted this way in the past, for no apparent reason, and takes it out on other people. He bullies one person in particular on the crew, always piling work on him. And when he decides to enforce certain rules that have been handed down from upper management, he doesn't discuss it with the crew in a rational manner. He goes right out and enforces it without explanation or discussion. Our crew just is not happy with the performance of our boss and it's beginning to wear on all of us. There is light at the end of the tunnel, however. All of the bosses in our department are being switched around and we'll be getting a new boss in December. Unfortunately at this point, December is three months away.