I think the economy is being hard on all of us right now.
And although I'm trying to be patient and understanding when businesses are doing whatever they can to cut costs here and there, I can't help but feel a little mad about it too.
Just now on the news, they pointed out that a lot of packaging for products we buy is getting smaller, yet we're paying the same price. I actually had noticed that a number of months ago, but it's becoming more and more common. And as for my own company, corporate is manipulating all the electronic clocks in the store so that we're tricked into clocking in late and clocking out early. Basically, the time clock is about five minutes slower than the computer clocks. It won't let us clock in until only two minutes before we're due to come in. But with the time clock five minutes slow, it's actually three minutes late. And it's the computer clocks we usually look at when we see it's time to go home. So we go to clock out, and see we still have five minutes left of our shift. Many people, in a desire to get going, will clock out anyway. So unless we're really careful, we're each tricked into working five to seven minutes less every day.
And just today we noticed our thermostat has been turned down. Unfortunately we have no control over it at store level, it's corporate who dials into our computers and adjusts it. It was FREEZING in there today! Colder than I ever remember it being! That concerns me because we have animals in our care, including desert reptiles, tropical amphibians, birds, and fish who need warm temps to survive. And even though they have their own heaters and basking lamps, it's so much easier to control the climate in their cages/aquariums when the store temperature is steady and comfortably warm. I might try to wear long-johns to work for the rest of the winter just so I don't freeze like I almost did today.
