Yikes! A Pain-ed Pony Lets the Spinning Wheel Spin

The Pony is being worked like a hamster on an exercise wheel! Day after day, the mail never stops! He's on Sundays now. It's a package-only day. It is not at all unusual for The Pony's cronies to not-show-up on Sundays. Which means the others must take up the slack. The Pony has grown used to it. He doesn't complain.

Yesterday, The Pony went in at the normal Sunday start time of 8:30. By 1:40, he sent me a text:

"Off early. Not sure I should be, but don't have the numbers for the only people I'd think would need help. Got told by the closest thing to a supervisor there that yeah, I should clock out. Nothing was left at the office to deliver except two packages along the Backroads lake road, which I dropped off on the way home.

I can't go help someone without their phone number. Even going out to split a route would be hard, since the city side finished near noon, and anything after that was helping the rural side finish early for Halloween, and one of them was clocking off at the same time."

When The Pony got home, he was still pondering his early exit.

"No managers were working today. The one who told me to clock out was, I think, a clerk manager. But she told us in the beginning that she's NOT a manager, but was there to tell us what the managers wanted. I said I felt bad that there were people out who could need help. We have three new hires, who have just been turned loose to run routes without supervision. She said, 'Clock out. There's nothing you can do.' But I still feel bad..."

For a brief moment, I considered calling an ambulance! That is SO uncharacteristic of The Pony, to want to HELP PEOPLE!

Anyhoo... I was also worried about him clocking out and THEN delivering two packages on his way home. He did the same thing the day before, taking a different direction home.

"So you agreed to work off the clock?"

"Yeah. It was on my way. I could have delivered them, then gone back to the office to clock out. But it was on my way. It got me home sooner. Those packages were technically part of my route, but they weren't put out for me until I was done for the day. So I was going to leave them for the next day, but said since it was on my way, I'd take them."

"I worry that IF something happens to you, and you're off the clock, then it's not a WORK-RELATED injury or accident! You see how it turned out getting your workman's comp when it WAS a work-related accident!"

Hick, a long-time plant safety compliance officer, said, "Technically, if Pony is TOLD to deliver the packages on his way home, it doesn't matter if he's off the clock. AS LONG AS he doesn't make any other stop in between."

Good to know.

Anyhoo... that slow-boat-to-London (Kentucky) finally arrived with The Pony's paperwork for his workman's compensation RECONSIDERATION. He got an email a couple weeks ago, stating that it had arrived, and was assigned to a different person than the one who made the original denial. Now it's hurry-up-and-wait for the decision. Supposedly they TRY to get them done within 90 days.