When I worked in aerospace, the absolute worst thing you could do was finish a project on time and within budget. If you did that, it meant you “weren’t being challenged enough”. The proper course of action was to fuck up, then make a big show of putting in extra hours to clean up your own mess. Then you were a hard working team player. This mentality was applied to both worker bees and project managers. “Work harder, not smarter” was the path to recognition.
One manager actually pulled login information from the servers to determine how long each person was logged in. Time spent in logged in = time working. Reviewing design documents at your desk, researching something in a book? Not real work. Shooting the shit with your buddies in the terminal room while your screen saver loops endlessly, playing solitaire, or lurking on/posting to the SDMB? Real work.
Fun anecdote: I was the UNIX systems administrator for one of 3 ground stations on a WAN. We decided to take the entire system off line for one day to upgrade the operating systems. We absolutely had to be back on line by 8am EST the following day or there would be hell to pay.
The morning of the upgrade, I unpack the ReadMe documentation and start reading it, looking for any gotchas. At 11 am PST I get a frantic call from the East Coast site. “Why the hell is your system still up? This upgrade has to be finished tomorrow. Get moving!!” Umm dude, I’m still reviewing the documentation. No reason to pull down the system until I’m ready to actually start loading the new OS.
I make all the recommended changes to our directory structure, do a full system backup, load the tapes at about 2:30 pm.The upgrade finishes around 5:00, I test it, decide it looks good, and go home at 5:30 pm.
Meanwhile on the East Coast, they had pulled the tape out of the box, loaded it up, had problems, tried to uninstall, had more problems, frantically searched for a system back up, called me to ask for help, left nasty voice mails because I’d already gone home, finally read the README and figured out what they should have done before attempting to update, do it, pulled an all-nighter and got the system back up at 7:42 am.
End result: East Coast screw ups got a special incentive cash bonus for going “the extra mile” to ensure that the system was available as planned. I got jack shit for finishing 14 hours ahead of schedule because I went home “early” and wasn’t “supporting the team”.
The more work you do, the more you are assigned. Moreover, working for the government, you are making the same and getting the same raises/promotions as the lowest producer. So, you do enough to look better than average, and that’s it.
I repeated this pattern several times early in my career:
New job, work hard exceed expectations
Get assigned additional work, more responsibility, work harder and longer, excel
Get stressed from too much work, ask boss for relief
Get no relief, work harder to catch up, exceed expectations
Get additional work
Reach breaking point & turn in resignation
Incredulous boss asks why? You are our best employee
I say my workload was too much
He/She claims was never told or says “you always got it done”
Two new staff hired to do my job
I feel bitter, like I was punished for doing a good job.
After the fourth time, I learned. Right from the beginning of my new job, I forced myself to work at the level of effort that I wanted to continue at long term. This did not mean being a bad employee. But it did mean learning to pace myself, learning to negotiate assignments–along the lines of, sure I can do so-and-so’s complicated spreadsheet, as long as you assign my easy work to someone else. I suppose it’s like running a marathon–start out to fast and you can’t finish.
I’m still regarded as a “go-to” employee. I do excellent work. But I’ve kept the expectations to what I regard as reasonable.
I see you’re in NYC. If this sounds like an environment you’d appreciate, and you have any financial or programming experience or background, send me a PM 
I have 25 employees and yes, I have my “go to” people. One of my pet peeves is someone telling me “it is not my job.” I usually allow a bit of time to get over that little attitude or that person no longer works for me. EVERYTHING I assign is their job. Their job is to assist me in making my company ruin smoothly and successfully. If I find they have time to do additional work and I trust them with it, I expect them to do it. If I assign 25 files and they can help their office mate complete their 25, that is what they are supposed to do.
Fortunately, I have employees that seem pleased with the trust and don’t seem to grumble about it. (At least within my hearing). My “go to” people first and foremost have a great positive attitude and once they show me what they are made of, are well rewarded with bonuses and promotions. I am aware that certain people aren’t capable of being as productive as others. It isn’t always laziness as a matter of fact, in my company it never is. I would love to have a group of “go to” people but in reality, some people are brighter and more efficient than others.
I think you may want to keep in mind that no one is indispensable and keep your whining to yourself, your husband and anonymous message boards.
Oh, it’s *easier * to give the work to the good workers…in the short term. Until you start losing good workers because the morale has gotten so crappy all the good ones quit as soon as they see what’s going on. Me, I try to spread the hard jobs around. Just because it’s harder for Joe to do Job A than it is for Mary doesn’t mean Joe gets a pass for it. But when the plum Job B comes available, Mary will be the one I reward with that one, because she’s earned it. And reviews, merit increases and promotions should come for Mary and not Joe.
Yeah, you’d have to fire me. Your loss, really. I’m fast, efficient and do my job very well.
Doing more work than every one else with the same job description-- actually doing your co-worker’s work with no compensation except the knowledge that your boss feels it’s a-ok to take advantage of you. To work harder than the others who the boss admits are not as good a worker as you are. In fact, not only do you not get anything for your hard work you get a “you’re lucky you have a job, quit yer bitchin’?”
Is that how you really treat your good employees Foxy?
Man, managers really are SOBs.
One more time, because I really am curious: have you asked for a raise and been turned down? Or are you disappointed because you expect one without having to ask?
My first job I worked as a bag boy for a grocery store. Within my first two months of working there, people in the bakery department quit.
So the managers kept tossing me back there when the check-out lanes weren’t very busy, while the other 3-4 baggers got to sit around chatting or take long breaks.
I worked half my scheduled hours in the bakery department the first week they started doing this, oftentimes alone.
The problem? Baggers made $7.50/hr. Bakery workers made $15/hr (or more). I asked the managers if them posting me to bakery meant I was going to get better pay. Their response: “Don’t be silly, you’ve only worked here two months. Maybe in another few months you can get more pay”.
I quit the job right then and there. Fuck 'em. Course, my next job was at Best Buy…which didn’t turn out any better in the end (though it took them 8 months to start fucking with me as opposed to 2 months).
There’s something Tragically Amusing, in a perverse sort of way, about seeing some of the trumped up managers showing up in this thread to say “shut up or quit”.
Do you have to work unpaid overtime to do that work? Or are you there the same 8 hour day as the “slow, dumb ones”? It doesn’t appear you are paid by the case, right?
I don’t get it. I can do about twice the number of cases as most of my co-workers. So I do. What’s the big deal?
I do agree you should be rewarded. I think you should discuss this with your boss, but not like you bring it up here. You should say something like “Boss, I know a couple of us are your “go-to” guys, and we appreciate the trust you put in us. But could there be some sort of reward for this?”
I did say this before-- there are no merit raises and no bonuses. ALL the claim administrators, even the slow, dumb ones, have requested we go to a merit raise system instead of an across the board one. So far, no go.
Also, I do not complain about having 5 active cases as opposed to the average two. What I’m complaining about is doing OTHER PEOPLE’S CASE WORK on top of my own, already increased, workload.
Oh and I won’t quit. Why the hell should I do that? You don’t like my work, you fire me-- I am not going to make things that easy for you. I WILL tell you I think you are treating me unfairly. If your answer is to fire me because of it, then you deserve the workforce you get.
Missed Dr.Deth question and the edit window.
I work from 6:30 to 4:30. I get paid my regular salary for 40 hours as does everyone else. Every one else works a 35 hour week, however. Well-- not every one else. Those of us who have things to do stay to finish. I do get time and a half for anything over 40 hours.
My bolding. No other comment…!
I find that the death of workforce morale is when they use The Chart to give raises according to job classification, with the added obnoxiousness of “the highest raise I’m allowed to give you is 3%” or whatever. I work 14-16 hours a day (which is currently two 7 hr stretches with a few sleepless hours in between), take on all assignments with a smile, and am on call 24/7. Yet I know they’re going to cry to us with the old 3% story when raise time comes around. I don’t mind working my ass off, but I know damn well I’m working more hours than most people on my team because the work needs to be done. I have no hope of this being rewarded with a big raise. The upside is that I do get OT, and with the hours I’m putting in, my checks are pretty nice. But that’s the law…not recognition.
I don’t understand why it is so hard to grasp the concept of compensating people for their extra work. It’s one thing for everyone to chip in, it is another if a few workers are doing the majority of the work or taking new responsibilities and getting nothing back in return other than more work.
Definitely. I am asked to do everything for everybody, especially computer work.
OTOH, when I ask for help, I will get one of three responses:
- I don’t know.
- You know.
- That’s not my job.
This is the type of situation when you should ask for a raise and a promotion. If you’re the only person they can trust to do the job right, then you should be paid accordingly (i.e., a lot more than anyone else there).
Oops, I just saw your comment about no merit raises and no bonuses. Then you need to look for a job at a different company or not complain about it. The only other choice is a voluntary work slowdown, which may hurt you in the long run when you look for another job.
Boy, they are dumb.