I have a really good, original idea:
I think the problem here is that , too often, plagiarists who get caught get off the hook too easily. What is an F or being fired afterall? Nothing.
What we really need here are mandatory fines AND prison sentences. Something along the lines of $20,000+ and 1 year in jail minimum. That would deter the vast majority of plagiarists and the ones that do it anyways will get what they deserve.
A replacement is starting tomorrow.
What is the net difference? The position is for one person. One was person was let go, but another was hired. As much as it hurts to be fired, what are the ethics of permitting a less competent person to stay employed when a more competent person is knocking on the door looking for work? Should not the cream be permitted to rise to the top?
And if the less competent were to stay, and the more competent go to one of my competitors, what would that do to my competitive advantage? Is it fair for my career to be impinged? No, it is not, and I will not permit it. If that means a firing, then so be it.
You’ve no business calling others incompetent if you can read this thread and believe it’s just a case of special pleading for the incompetent.
At least he’s reading it. Apparently you’re not; or are you just afraid of fluiddruid?
I did not think his latest response brought anything new to the discussion. Do you feel I missed a new point? If so, what was it?
The problem with that is that there’d be a glut books on the market written from prison. I don’t want to read about prison gang warfare between the First-person Narratives and the Omniscient Narritatives slashing each other with shivs in the prison lunch room. “Blank verse needs to be iambic pentameter you punk-ass bitch!”
Revtim: Remember Mirror, Mirror (at least, that’s what I think the episode name is) from the original Star Trek series? Maybe that’s the way colleges are in that reality.
You missed the points.
First, the employer should unload incompetent employees rather than let the business go down the tubes while competent employees are wanting to be employed.
Second, the employer must not let incompetent employees drag the business down.
It is a competitive world out there. Either the business makes the grade or it does not. Either the employee makes the grade or it does not.
Depending on the circumstances, a business may try to mitigate incompetence through any number of programs addressing the employee’s problems, but the bottom line, and there is quite literally a bottom line, is that if the employee can not or will not perform as required, then that employee will have to go unless the business can afford to be a social service.
With regard to the OP, three weeks of false billing goes beyond incompetence into criminality, so immediate termination is not only justified, but also is the only reasonable course of action.
I live in Kanukistan, in which indiciduals and corporations tend to be taxed at a higher rate than those in our late lamented southern colonies (although there are a ot of exceptions). One of the reasons we pay more in taxes is that we have a better social safety net. I vote Canadian NDP, which has roots in socialism, which is left of Canadian Liberal, which in turn is left of Canadian Conservative, which is left of American Democrat, which is left of American Republican. Get the picture? I’m a leftie with a big red Maple Leaf.
The more I earn, the more I can contribute to our safety net. The less I earn, the less I can contribute to our safety net. The same goes for busineses.
When someone stands in the way of personal or corporate profitability, there is less money going into the safety net that supports the person who can not find a job.
It makes a lot of sense to switch the unemployed competent person with the employed incompetent person, so that the competent one will become employed, albiet at the expense of the incompetent one, for that will result in more profits, which in turn will result in more money available for the safety net upon which the incompetent person can rely until finding a job more suitable.
By maximizing the funding of the social safety net, the incompetent person can receive whatever personal programs are necessary, ranging from health care to skills development, leading to finding better matched employment. The competent person, however, would not receive much value from such a system, other than having basic needs taken care of, for the only solution would be to create new jobs given that the existing jobs are already taken.
But guess what? When new jobs are created it puts pressure on less comptitive business to either shape up or lose market share. In other words, for the competent person to bounce out of the social net, the incompetent person will end up falling into the social net because of the business either failing due to competition or having to unload the deadwod due to the competition.
If you want a healthy economy, cut the deadwood out of businesses. If you want a healthy society, strongly suport social, educational and medical services, to ensure that every person can rise as far as he or she is capable, rather than fall down and never rise again.
Don’t confuse keeping incompetent employees on the payroll with providing a strong social net, or providing an overall benefit for society.
Just to clarify, I was supporting fluiddruid’s position, not refuting it. I also forgot to note the the NDP is a member of the Socialist International.
Would you settle for a philosophy major (later to be a bookseller) and an English major (later to be an English prof)slugging it out in their basement, just, well, because? If so, been there done that.
After all 5 pages, the only thing I have to add is that I have worked in places where incompetent people are not fired. People who did immoral and illegal things were not punished in any way whatsoever. People lied and said they did things they didn’t and didn’t do things they did do. People inflated their accomplishements and workload by forging records and faking client conversations. I left. 20% of the people who worked there last spring don’t work there anymore because we all saw the writing on the wall and decided to get while the getting was good. The turnover has been bad enough that they were effectively shut down for 6 months. They have lost clients and funding and respect in the industry. How does the no-firing policy benefit the people still working there?
Questions for EC
How am I supposed to keep good employees happy and productive when incompetent oafs are in the next cubicle scrapbooking on company time?
If my good employees stop being productive, how am I supposed to pay any of my employees?
How am I supposed to get my work done if I have to spend all my time making sure my employees haven’t found a new way to be dishonest?
If companies have to keep dead weight on the payroll, how much more are you willing to pay for goods and services?
If the job market is so bad, why did I see about 8 now hiring signs this evening between my work, Borders, the library and my home (which is about 5 miles total)? The hardware store is hiring, the grocery store is hiring, the flower shop is hiring, several restaraunts are hiring, why can’t people unqualified for their current job take those jobs?
If you were going in for open heart surgery, would you want the doctor who actually studied cardiothoracic surgery under a reputable surgeon, or the doctor who specialized in OBGYN but who read a thoracic anatomy chapter on vacation and embellished (a plesant euphamism for lied on) his resume?
How is your employment agency going to maintain good business relations with the companies where you place employees when the employees which you place prove to be underqualified?
If or when you go out of business, who is going to help the unemployed that you seem to care so much about?
We do need a safety net, but we also need personal responsibility.
I’ve fired people, and I’ve worked with employees who I thought could be helped with all the resources of a state university at my disposal. In the long run, it is easier to fire them then to work with them for weeks or months and then fire them. When I say don’t show up to work drunk and don’t get caught drunk in my building if you are underage or your fired and then you are underage and show up to work drunk enough to call me in the middle of the night to tell me that you are at work drunk, I would like to fire you, hire you back and fire you again just to make a point. Is that brutal? I don’t think so, but even so, the alternative was to let a kid who couldn’t follow the rules be in charge of the safety and security of 600 people.
Has anyone out there in all of Doperdom worked with an employee and had that employee turn into an employee of the month or did they just delay the inevitable or tolerate mediocrity?