I work in a plant that has 2 12 hour shifts Monday through Friday. To be honest the work itself isn’t too bad but but they don’t really have the orders nor the manpower to warrant doing 2 12s. There is ALWAYS a huge discrepancy in what the 2 shifts run, with one shift having little to no work and the other ending up with a lot of work. It’s about 50/50 both ways.
Every day without fail however a bitching contest ensues where there are accusations of people being lazy or trying to do too much to make others look bad or SOMETHING! Do not even get me started if a machine messed up and it wasn’t fixed by next shift because the “lazy” worker “sabotaged” the machine and not because day shift maintenance leaves at 3 hours earlier or night shift maintenance is literally one guy without a key to the toolboxes because “someone might steal them,” and we are actively discouraged from fixing complicated problems (IE anything that requires tools) by our supervisors.
For a while, my department’s supervisor and manager both actively stoked the flames to the feud. Now that the meetings are usually shouting matches though they are finally trying to be peacemakers and telling workers to ignore the talk, but both leads are still going around bitching about the opposite shift to everyone so the war continues. I’ve been trying to stay out of it but my lead today actually told me I need to “get on the team,” stop talking to my friend who is in another department but on the opposite shift, and start bitching about my machine’s opposite shift operator… “Or else.” I am genuinely worried that I am getting paid to participate in a gang war now. I’m going to go and make some gang signs now.