It Sucks Being “The Night Guy”

I’m really sick of being “The Night Guy.” I hate to sound like Rodney Dangerfield, but I don’t get any respect. Until recently, I’d gotten used to the string of unintentional oversights by my coworkers–food brought in to the break room always gone by the time I get in, important meetings scheduled outside my work hours, little or no communication between shifts–mostly little things that imply that my coworkers never even consider the fact that anyone works different hours than they do. Lately, however, it’s just been getting insulting.

In March I asked to be switched to the day shift. This is a reasonable request, considering I’ve been here for more than two years. Despite my boss’s continuing reassurances that they’re working on hiring someone to take over my current hours, I’m still working the same shift. Since I requested the change, they hired a new tech. He works Monday through Friday, 9am until 6pm. If you were wondering, yes, that’s the shift I wanted. He does the exact same job I do, and they pay him more.

When I got into the office after my weekend, someone had swapped my desk chair for a creaking, screeching, back-torturing piece of junk. When I angrily asked my coworker what happened, he told me that the owner had taken my chair and given it to one of the tenants we rent office space to. Tenant had complained to Owner about the chair I’m now sitting in, so Owner gave him my chair without even leaving me a note.

Earlier that week, the woman in charge of scheduling company events came over to my desk to tell me that they’d scheduled a company outing, a minor-league baseball game, for a Thursday night. I work Thursdays. They’d knowingly scheduled a company outing for a night when I can’t go. This would be understandable if this were a large company–but we have a total of eleven employees. Literally everyone in the company, plus a guest, gets to go except me.

I really can’t think of a better way to say to an employee, “We don’t value you” than what they’ve done over the past month. Fuck this. I’m done.