In case you can’t tell, the title of this post is meant to be bitingly and bitterly sarcastic. Last week I mentioned that we had a new program to call on so the work was coming in steady once again. I guess I spoke too soon.

Monday was a fairly average day, despite the accident on the interstate that nearly made me late for work, and nothing really seemed amiss. Looking back, however, I recall towards the end of the shift the supervisors were really harping on us to step up productivity because another office that was also calling on the program had started beating us in SPH (sales per hour). Even then, I didn’t think much of it and just gave it my all.

Well on Tuesday, as I’m already driving to work and have just passed the Anthony, TX exit I get a phone call from my shift supervisor. I was a little upset when I saw who was calling, as I figured they were about to inform me that the shift time had been changed from 3 to 4pm and, as I mentioned, I had just passed an exit. It was worse than expected, I was politely informed that since the other office in Omaha was doing much better on this program than we were our hours had been cut. In order to get productivity back up they decided to have only the twelve or so people who had the best rankings on the program continue calling. And, obviously, I wasn’t one of those special people.

So while those lucky ones get all the hours the rest of us are sitting at home waiting to be called and told we can come back to work. Since I was already well on my way to work that day I asked if I could come in and get my check at least. My first clue that this was gonna be a long stretch of no-work-for-Joana was when my shift supervisor readily agreed. She’s always been very much of the “if you work all night Tuesday night, then you get your check. If not, you can get it on Wednesday like everyone else”. That she let me pick up my check sent warning bells off in my head, clearly I wasn’t going to be returning to work right away on Wednesday. I asked if I would be working Wednesday, and in her words, “No, you’ll not be working on Wednesday, er, well probably a…couple of days. We’ll call you and let you know when we have hours for you.” Well fuck me.

It’s Thursday, and if you’ve been following me on Twitter you’ve seen me bitching since then and know I haven’t been called back yet. I know that the schedule for this week was going to be Monday through Thursday: 3 to 8pm and Saturday from 9am to 3pm. So obviously I know I won’t be working tomorrow either and my next day to maybe work will be Saturday.

Do you know how nerve-wrecking it is to sit by the phone all morning waiting to see if you’ll get a call and get to go in to work? Given the distance I live, they should call me at least two hours in advance, but they always “forget” that I live forty-plus miles away and that it takes me an hour to get there. So I am literally, showered and ready to throw on the office attire and run out the door every day so far and nothing doing.

Ironically enough, my grandfather got his new temporary license from the DMV the other day and his license should be in the mail. So we can go and get a loan now so that I can get Pyro fixed up. I had to tell him no though and that I had to wait however since, as of right now, I technically have no job and no income. Granted I’ve got checks coming in for the hours I did get to work, but they’re going to be small and pathetic. I can’t go get a loan now when I’m not even sure that I’ll have the income to pay it back!

Since it’s after 2pm and safe to say that Joana has Thursday off, I guess I’ll go get some reading done or maybe find some chores to do. Nothing else to do really.