One day, I told my pointy-haired boss that I was planning to work over the weekend. My intent was to squeeze a bit of work in between my social activities.
So what does she do? She drives by the office on Saturday, to see if my car was there. It wasn’t – so she assumed that I was lying about planning to work on Saturday.
Guess what, boss? Saying “I plan to work over the weekend” does NOT mean that I plan to spend all of Saturday there! It only means that I plan to put in some work. Get a clue!
Oh, and here’s another thing. Even if I don’t show up at all, that doesn’t mean that I was lying. Things come up, and on weekends, things tend to come up all the time! An employee may have every intention of putting in extra time, but may not be able to follow through.
Shit, JThunder – you’re working in the middle of an Orwell/Huxley nightmare, aren’t you? These “people” are unreal! Ever thought of checking them with a geiger counter – in case they’re really androids and you’re “The Prisoner”?
Can’t exactly think of what else to say to ease the acid storm of your justified ire, but – illegitimati non carborundum. With good reason, there are dopers around here who already mutter this regularly.
Apparently, these guys started to suspect that I wasn’t putting in a full week’s work. I was working extra – once, I even worked until 3 a.m. – but they don’t always see that.
It didn’t help that I was working over lunch hour. I was counting that toward my work day, but they weren’t. If they had bothered to talk to me about it first, we could have set the record straight.
Boss, if you ever suspect that I’m not putting in a full week’s work, BRING IT UP WITH ME RIGHT AWAY. That way, we can clarify things. If my time sheet is in error, we can correct it and you can gently rebuke me. If your perceptions were incorrect, we can correct those too. Dang it!
Oh, and guess what? Smart managers realize that a 40-hour work week is a smart guideline-- but JUST a guideline! Sometimes employees put in more per week, so if it averages out, that’s no big deal. Sometimes, employees will be more productive by putting in more hours; sometimes, their performance improves when they put in less.
Gee whiz! Clock-watching is not an accurate measure of productivity, people! It may be fine for manual labor, but not for creative endeavors!
40 hours per week or 8 hours per day is not always the best for manual labour either, it is just easy for the bosses to keep track. One of my jobs was with GM assembling parts. My Supervisor told me that my quota was 1500 parts per day with a 1% defect rate. After two days I was able to reach quota by lunch time. Since no bonus was given, I took to working half days. The other three people in the department worked much slower, took long breaks, and just hit quota after 8 hours. Two weeks later I was reassigned. I was told my rate of productivity was upsetting to the other workers.The new assignment was not a better job, disproving that working hard leads to advancement.
Keep a in-depth log of your work times. Prove to the Powers that be, that you produce quality work in less time, showing that you are a more efficient worker. This may not help but it can’t hurt.
HAHAHAHA - no, wait, that’s not funny, that’s my life!! (I walk around at work muttering “Gonna burn the building down someday…” )
[/“Office Space” hijack]
This afternoon, our CEO said that she couldn’t concentrate anymore, and announced that she was going home.
Guess what, boss? Employees get that way too! It’s certainly true of engineers, whose work is more mentally draining that yours. If they’re all thunked out, should you really try to squeeze more work out of them?
Unfortunately, that wouldn’t help in my case. My bosses are naive when it comes to software development. Also, I’m the only employee they’ve ever had doing this kind of work.
I know that when I take a break, it’s for good reason. I like my work, and I plunge headlong into it. If I’m taking a break, it’s because I’ve genuinely run out of steam.
Last Friday, the CEO said that she was really unhappy when I took a couple of extended breaks last December. This was back when I was waiting for a massive piece of open source software to compile – something that took many, many hours.
What did she expect me to do? I couldn’t just stick around; I had nothing left to do. What’s more, I was trying to be efficient by using this time to run some personal errands. I knew that by completing these errands during that unproductive time, I’d be less stressed and could concentrate more on my real work.
That’s one of the problems with clockwatchers. They fail to distinguish between activity and productivity.
