it doesn't give me a warm feeling

[eor]

The other day the boss gave me a paper to fill out about continuing employment. It had a bunch of lawyer written company protecting verbiage, but came down to a simple choice. You agree to:

A) Sign up for continuing work, which could end at any time, could consist of as little as 16 hours/week, but you must be available for 40 plus, and this doesn't constitute any offer or guarantee of anything from the company.

or

B) You do not with to continue working for the company. You are requesting your last day be _________________.

Check A or B sign, date, and return to your supervisor.


More and more this is how companies are handling workers. With the current job market workers gladly sign up for whatever whim a company want because they don't have a choice.

The technology field is worse than most. Three of the five people in my group of manual laborers came from computer related fields (one programmer, one networking, one tech support). One of my coworkers was telling me about a friend of his that is still employed in the tech field. The friend is salaried. His company makes him work 40 hours and carry a pager for another 80 hours. The pager goes off frequently and he ends up working at all hours. He wants to leave, but he doesn't dare because he's afraid he won't be able to find another job. Since can't leave, the company gets away with forcing him to do the work of two employees. The company gets more productivity and one more person stays unemployed. Blah.