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AGEISM IN THE WORKFORCE
FIRST there was sexism, then there was racism, now another ‘ism’ is poised to cause more headaches for South Wales employers – including how they word their job ads. The Government is currently asking people for their views on plans to outlaw age...
How To Write A Resume, Avoid These Resume Mistakes
Copyright 2005 by David Green http://www.powerfuljobsearchtips.com HOW TO WRITE A RESUME-MISTAKE #1 NEVER USE THE WRONG PAPER! What kind of paper should you choose when typing your resume? The color of paper you will want to use will be white or...
Job Downsizing - Make The Best Of It
You're working at your family's welding business during the day,
and then go to your second job at night. You're 50-some years
old, working as a cashier at Target. You always said that if
you're 40 years old and have a career that requires you to...
Online Education Courses Learn to Do Anything
Online education courses are a great way to learn many things. With the sheer number of people today who have regular access to the Internet, the opportunities to learn these things are far greater than they were just a decade or two ago. Without...
Recruiting Excellent Job Candidates
Six Easy Search Tips to Get the Cream of the Crop An independent recruiter, recruiting agency or executive search firm is charged with tracking down excellent potential candidates for available job positions. Despite the fact that there are...
Six Tips For A Better Engineering Resume
One of the most key elements of success in a job search is the
resume and the engineering resume can often be one of the more
difficult documents to develop. The engineering resume is the
engineering job seeker's primary marketing document that...
The Perils Of Employment: Are You About To Be Let Go?
From the moment you are born and you take your first breath, you begin to die. It’s just a fact of life. And to illustrate another truth: From the day you are hired by a company, you move closer to the day you will move on. This is either a...
What Constitutes a Good MT Program?
How To Choose A Good Medical Transcription Training Program Many ideas abound about what constitutes a good MT program. Some people feel that the schools that advertise on TV showing a mother working at her computer while her children play quietly...
What to Look for in Free Resume Writing Software
If you are feeling as though you have a serious case of resume writer's block, don't feel alone. This is the case for many people, especially those who are re-entering the workforce or who are new at job searching. Fortunately, free resume writing...
Zudora.com Launches IT Job Search Engine Indexing Over 20,000 New IT Jobs Per Day
Zudora allows job seekers to search IT jobs across the web, with unprecedented levels of ease, accuracy and relevancy (PRWEB) March 9, 2005 -- New IT job search allows job seekers to search all major IT related job web sites in the USA with one...
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The Night Worker
In the process of musing about our perennially awake world for my Social Psych blog, I started to think about our present work world and how its operations have changed the lives of millions of workers.
I manage a 24/7 emergency crew (mental health). We handle callers from early evening until 7 AM, plus weekends and holidays. During the course of the night, we talk to hundreds of people from all walks of life. Until a few years ago (except for intermittent wartime production requirements), the people who worked through the night were limited to emergency services (police, fire, hospitals), the telephone company, a few booming manufacturing plants, and the military. Now we expect to order items, day or night, by telephone. We demand that support services for all our transactions be available 24/7.
How do night workers cope? For some, night work is a blessing, freeing up daytime hours for childcare or school. For those with limited skills and reduced income potential, moonlighting at night is a chance to earn a decent income. But night workers also pay a price: they never get quite as much sleep as their daytime compatriots. There is always so much more to get done during the business day and they receive constant interruptions from a world operating on an opposite schedule. After a period of time, they either adapt or quit.
Studies have shown that night workers suffer more injuries, make more errors, and experience more medical problems than do first shift employees. Those figures suggest that we function more efficiently in the historical tradition of sunup to sundown. We are not, by nature, nocturnal creatures.
The most difficult schedule to absorb, though, is one that undergoes frequent change.
In some companies, shifts change monthly. I worked with a large manufacturing company years ago (a lot of their employees suffered injuries and needed my services), that held weekly seniority bids on all frontline positions. This meant that relatively new employees might work days one week, swing the following week, and graveyard the next. When I pointed out a possible connection between these horrible work schedules and the company's accident rate, I was told that the Union refused to allow any changes in the system.
Now unions are supposed to represent the needs of the workers, aren't they? How could they possibly justify the stress they were causing their own members?
I finally figured out (sometimes I'm a little slow!) that their members with seniority liked the system because they could easily change their work hours for a week if something came up or they wanted to avoid working for a particular foreman.
Those who had the luck to get in early had a terrific advantage over the newbies. Like the initial members of pyramid schemes or Multi-Level-Marketing scams, they were on the gravy train. And the newcomers - the recently unemployed, minorities, women, the disabled - were left the dregs to fight over while mired in their constant vulnerability to layoff.
About the Author
Virginia Bola operated a rehabilitation company for 20 years, developing innovative job search techniques for disabled workers, while serving as a Vocational Expert in Administrative, Civil and Workers' Compensation Courts. Author of an interactive and supportive workbook, The Wolf at the Door: An Unemployment Survival Manual, and a monthly ezine, The Worker's Edge, she can be reached at http://www.unemploymentblues.com
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