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Why am I always getting crapped on by everyone? I seriously don't understand. I like to think of myself as being nice, being able to help anyone in any way that I can.

 

I've always been like that, I just like helping others. I believe helping other's is a gift from god. However, I'm sick of getting crapped on.

 

A co-worker got married over the weekend, for him I shot his wedding and his reception and rather than having him and his newly wedded wife pay for it, just did it for him for free.

 

Well, since his wedding Saturday I spent a majority of my free time putting the thing together. Literally using every skills I got in video editing, which I have a ton of, and putting them to use in his wedding video.

 

Spent a great amount of time to make sure it was perfect. I made sure the video was nicely edited, music was good and everything.

 

Well today I go into work at 10 AM, accidentally slept in till 9:30 so only had 30 minutes from the time I woke up till 9:45 when I had to leave for work here at home.

 

I end my shift at 6:30, run home to get something then go back to work - I work in TV - where I stayed until 11 PM finishing it up and then dubbing it to VHS and gave it to him tonight.

 

Well, I get home at like 11:30 and am extremely tired. Check my e-mail, eat and all that.. afterall I just got home after being at work all day long.

 

Well, I am on-call and so is my co-worker whom I am doing the wedding video for.

 

Well, no sooner I get home I am paged so I respond to the page and told something was up about an hour and a half away from me. Well, while I'm first on-call he is second on-call but he's a heck of a lot closer than I am.

 

Well, literally I was just getting ready to go to bed because at this point my eye's are hurting, I could hardly stay awake on the drive home from work, I'm just plumb exhausted. I mean I was at work from 10 AM - like 11 or 11:30 PM.

 

Well, I tell the person who paged me my situation and I explained to him that I was not capable of driving a vehicle and would be a risk to my life and the life of others in the event I were to fall asleep.. also because it's mostly interstate all the way to that location and is pitch black with little or no lights.

 

Well, I tell him because my co-worker is closer to call him and let him know of my situation... afterall I had spent nearlly all my free-time this week working on a wedding video for him that I'm doing for free that would normally cost someone about $300 to have done and just spent all my time this evening at work working on his stuff.

 

But rather than saying yeah he'd do it, he says no that I'm first on call and it's just too bad and I have to go. Well, plain and simple I'm not going.

 

For one, it pisses me off that I do so much for those I work with and I ask for very little and when I do I get turned down, denied, or turned away. I never ask anyone to do something for me, and then the one time I do I'm told no.

 

Secondly, honestly the drive home alone was dangers. I kept having "black out" spells, if that makes sense, I am horribly tired, my eyes are hurting, because I only slept like 3 hours last night.. was one of those restless nights I couldn't sleep.

 

So I weighed out what was more importantly, a story for news or staying alive. I decided I didn't want to risk falling asleep, crashing into either another car or a tree because I fell asleep and died.

 

So now I'm worried I made an irresonsible choice and am worried of getting into trouble by my boss for not performing my duties.

 

But so many times I'm crapped on just like this and it really has depressed me. People always wonder why I'm so negitave, why I'm in such a bad mood all the time. It's just getting to me after all these years of being nice people just using me as a rug.. when I want something they say no.

 

Advice?

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First of all, as far as turning down your work assignment, you did the right thing. If there is any reprisal at all, hire a labor attorney and fight it. There is no agency or judge who would rule against a man who turned down an overtime assignment for the reason you did.

 

Secondly, you must receive additional consideration (pay) for being on call. Your station could face serious problems if they press the issue.

 

But you are way too nice to fight anybody. And you will be hammered into the ground and slaughtered. Never expect your kindness to be returned with kindness...and, think back, most often you got almost the opposite.

 

There is a big difference between being nice and being a door mat. Right now, you are definitely a door mat.

 

Most people have little or no respect whatsoever for others who do anything for anybody at anytime with little regard for themselves. You actually shocked them by turning down the assignment last night.

 

You will NEVER, EVER get respect for being so nice to everybody. Even though you may get pleasure from it, others see it as a sign of weakness and easiness.

 

From a psychological standpoint, you will impress people far more if your kindness is intermittent. It's just human nature to take for granted and expect any behavior that is consistent. If you are constantly giving without any hesitation and without any exception, that behavior becomes expected and has no particular impact...except to be expected and taken for granted.

 

You need to look inside of yourself and try to understand why you do it. If you are doing it to win friends, it will never work. People will have ZERO respect for someone who just hands himself out to everybody. They will put no value on that whatsoever.

 

If you are constantly nice because you think it will get you to heaven, maybe you're right. But many religious leaders who led very generous lives were nailed to the cross or slaughtered before they got to the pearly gates. Being constantly nice is not a prerequisite for eternal reward.

 

My guess is you are nice because of a deep seated self esteem problem. You crave acceptance and have a deep fear of rejection. You will need to seek counselling to get over this. Find a very good counsellor because a lot of them don't have a clue because people rarely seek counsellors for the "being too nice" problem. Thinking that being nice to everybody is the key to acceptance is so very wrong...I mean way off.

 

Actually, people are most attracted to and give the most respect to those who are confident and act in their own best selfish interests. They expect that and they give credit for that. And, yes, sometimes looking out for your own best selfish interests is doing something nice...but NOT constantly.

 

If you continue your behavior, you will attract only users...users of all kinds. The nature of a user is that they will get as much as possible from the host. Once the host becomes exhausted from giving and never getting, the user will depart and have no further involvement with the person being used. This goes for lovers, "friends", employees...any kind of relationship at all.

 

It may be very difficult to change. You don't have to turn into a mean person. You just need to set boundaries and not make yourself available for everybody and everything.

 

Let me tell you this way. All the people you bust your butt for, including this guy you took the wedding video for, will not be in your life in five, ten, fifteen years or more. Not only will they NOT be in your life, but you probably won't even know where they are and you won't even care whether they like you or not. And trust me on this one, you won't even be a blip on your radar screen. To users, you're ONLY as good as the last decent thing you did for them.

 

So be a decent guy to all people at all times but don't give yourself away. You are on a collision course with misery because the great majority of the time your good deeds will NOT get the results you seek. Users will always want more and more....and truly decent people will not allow you to bust you butt for them.

 

Start letting people do more for you and be nice to the people who are nice to you...just not too nice.

 

Until you change your ways, you will only attract users...or you will transform very nice people into users by the way you go out of your way for them.

 

If they give you a lot of crap about not wanting to risk you life for some stupid sixty-second TV news story that nobody will remember a day later, tell them to go screw themselves and go to work somewhere else. But still take them to court and sue the hell out of them for attempting to endanger your life.

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I don't really understand what you are asking. Presumably you knew you were first on call last night, so you should have been prepared to deal with that should the occasion arise, which unfortunately, it did. It sucks that you were tired, but it was YOUR responsibility. Maybe you should have thought of that before you stayed up late editing the video and/or working until 11 p.m. Was it absolutely necessary that the video be done by today? Don't blame the second on call guy--this was your deal! Maybe he was tired, too.

 

You shouldn't do nice things for people because you expect them to treat you nicely in return. It doesn't work that way. You do it because you want to do it. No one ever "owes" you anything. If you are looking for them to "owe you", you are probably better off saying No the next time when you are asked to do a favor.

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Yes, I like Clia's answer better than mine. It was less wordy, to the point, and everything she said is absolutely 100 percent true.

 

It was your responsiblity to be ready for a call...and you would have been had you not tried to be so nice by staying up to rush the wedding video.

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Usually when someone does you a favor the person could very well use that against you in hopes that one day you would return the favor.

 

When there is work involved there shouldn't be free favors. Snapping some photos at the wedding is fine. Putting hours, editing videos and making things perfect is by far allot of work and you should be compensated. I don't think the other guy on call should have gone on your call but than again it would have been very kind of him. You should have called him personally to ask. It could have made a difference.

 

Its common sense to help others when due. Allot of people don't recognize just how lazy they really are. To me it looks like the other guy was awful lazy.

 

Live and learn by this guy. No more favors for him.

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Yes, I exactly new I was on-call and there is no way to deal with it because it's unpredictable. Secondly the reason we have a second on-call person is for that reason alone, if the first on-call person doesn't feel he/she can resond the second on-call goes.

 

Same goes with the closest. If you're closer, than you're expected to go. He was much closer than I.

 

Yes, it is my responsibility but is it so to the point I should risk my life and the life of others? For god sakes, I know friends of mine who have been citied for driving wrecklessly while tired. Tiredness is a part of life and you can't fully function when tired.

 

Working till 11 PM isn't a problem, I am up till about 2 AM every night anyways so that wasn't a problem. The problem is if if on-call 1 cannot respond then on-call 2 is obligated to do so - no questions asked and he failed to do so.

 

My thing is this... I have senority by being there by at least 2 years than the others. During my time I have been a dedicated employee doing my job to the fullest extent, and even more. I love the job, I love what I do. This is the first time I had ever turned down overtime and a call out. In the past I have resonded to EVERY single page I got without complaint.

 

By policy, I have always (at least 15 times) responded because on-call 1 refused to go or didn't want to... did so without hesitation. This one time I didn't feel I was capable of driving I was shut out. You know what, screw that.

 

Instead of telling me "you should of been prepared" you should be saying "good job for being smart enough to realize you're not in the right state of mind to be driving". Do you realize how many idiots out there are killed in car wrecks because they simply drive when tired?

 

I'm not going to become one of those statistics and yes, I do have a responsibility but sometimes things must change to keep all safe from harm. I find it hard to believe that I'm being told to "be prepared".. for god sakes for the last 5 years I've been prepared to be called out.

 

This happened once, tiredness is a part of life so if anything go tell god to stick it where the sun don't shine. Not like I was tired for the fun of it.

 

:bunny:

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If I understood correctly, the second guy on call was the one who got married this weekend. Ever think that he was probably exausted, too? I'm not married, but I was just at a close friend's wedding a few weeks ago. The couple was in a total daze afterwards.

 

It seems to me that you should probably have explained the situation to him. You know, hey I was up really, really late last night working on your video - since you're closer, think you could take this one? I'll give ya the video in the morning, it came out great.

 

It sounded from your post that you wanted him to do something nice for you in return (taking the call) but he probably has no idea you were awake making his video.

 

You really can't feel walked on if no one knows what you've been doing for them.

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