Today was mandatory orientation and benefits session - and I having been on the Republican Health Plan ("Walk it off") for most of my life I was initially excited about having an almost-adult job. But then I actually went to the session....and well, the Unversity did what in does best -- and I don't mean persecuting trannies nor reckless security theatre.
- The mailed notice listed, in writing, an 8:30 AM start time, the actual start time was 8 AM
- Of the 12 "new" hires in the room, two of us weren't graveyard shift - and I'm 2nd shift. Zero were day shift. I shouldn't need to point out that holding a meeting at 8 AM for graveyard shift workers like starting it at 6 PM for people on a 9-5 schedule or like 1 AM for 2nd shift people. - especially not since the Unversity does a bunch of noted sleep research.
- The Unversity rep gave us incorrect information about when the authorization for deduction of union dues needs to be sent to the union. This might have been an honest mistake, but I personally am paranoid enough to suspect intentional anti-union machinations here
- The lady explaining health-care options and HMO elections (remember, middle of sleep-cycle meeting ) couldn't handle the math involved in deductions from biweekly paychecks - which only go out to all custodians, groundskeepers, police, electricians, engineers, carpenters and plumbers employed by the Unversity.
- She also assumed that everybody knew what Open Enrollment, Status Change, Term Life Insurance, AD&D Insurance, FSAs, co-pays, deductibles, PCP, out-of-network, FSA, and like a dozen other insurance terms meant with zero explanation. Remember, night shift janitorial crew who had been up all night beforehand - so I'm reasonably sure that several people zoned out and had no clue what she was trying to communicate and I am as sure as sure can be that nobody responded to her "Any questions about that?" because they wanted to get the hell out of there and to bed.
- When after the meeting, I proceeded upstairs to ask one -on-one about filing an affidavit of domestic partnership and what's involved and how that could affect benefits for Darcy - I got the answer "My Acrobat is down, I can't print out the form, I dunno what's up, I should call tech support". Apparently their office doesn't keep copies of common forms on hand and apparently their staff is incapable of discussing ramifications and requirements without help from Adobe. Thus I couldn't even get to the point of asking whether that or obtaining a marriage license would be the better financial option from a benefits perspective.
- Health Care, Vision, Dental and retirement contribution elections need to be made within the week. Only opting out totally or settling for "whatever PCP/Dentist/Optometrist they want to default assign you way out in the sticks" were possible at today's session. The rest have to be done through the Unversity's online portal
- Said portal requires a username and password, which none of the presenters at the session provided nor knew a damned thing about when asked point-blank. Instead we were given a sheet of paper with a link to go see if we had been assigned a username. Here's that link https://www.hr.pitt.edu/lookup note that it leads to a page not found.
- Being bright enough to find the correct link, I see that I am still listed in that directory as a TEMP, despite a perm start date 9 days ago. Did I mention that I have a 7 day window to turn my part around ?
- And then adding everything up, the recommended levels of coverage and contributions come to $350 per month out of the 75% of gross I'd have left over after applicable taxes and other contributions. While this is a decent paying union position, it's still a janitorial position, and that really doesn't quite leave enough for rent and bills. When I muttered something about how these recommended didn't leave enough, I was scolded because these benefits are "really generous". The sad part is, that's actually true in comparison to anywhere else today. However I still have a Constitution-given right to be pissed off about how untrue that is when compared instead to the benefits which were common during my parent's generation.