You know, that’s a good point. Defining any generation after the Boomers is definitely not an exact science. I do feel like I don’t have much in common with twenty-somethings - at 38, I’ve been working for 20 years now (and boy, am I tired, ba-dump-bump), not fresh into the working force after university or high school. I have virtually nothing in common with Boomers, though.
“Entitlement generation”, eh? I like to think of Gen X as The Invisible Generation - perpetually overshadowed and out-numbered by the Boomers.
(If we’re hijacking too much, Rebekkah, just say the word and we’re outta here!)
The reason that some workplaces count the minutes of breaks and lunches is because of people like the Newbie who will abuse a laxer system. This isn’t a question of slacking off for five minutes or so, this is a matter of NOT EVEN BEING IN THE WORKPLACE for what? 25% of the workday? And even when he’s on the premises, he’s making constant personal calls, and apparently not getting much work done between calls. So I’d guess he’s not gonna be some sort of superachiever who manages to do twice the work in half the time…more like someone who manages to do half the work in twice the time.
I’m pretty close with my boss and I’ve been keeping him in the loop on everything, thank goodness. We’re having a talk today about what to do.
I tried laying work on him, but he instead took 5 and half hours to get two spreadsheets done. Now I’m just doing the work myself. I don’t think I’d trust him to lick an envelope at this point.
We’re under no obligation to provide a reason for firing this early on. Plus we took him from a headhunter who gave us a 30 day money back guaruntee.
Granted, this is based only on the knowledge that his father owns a brokerage, but the number of times that he has said “My father says…”, I’m guessing spoiled rotten kid who’s never had to work a day in his life.
The funny part is that we don’t have scheduled breaks here. Most of us work through our lunches and dash off when he can. But after the first day where he took 1:40 minutes in break time, boss and I decided he might need some structure. He obviously does.
Update:
Well, at least he made it in on time today. Right on the minute.
I browsed my original post and I don’t think I mentioned this gem re: asking him to do the (23 line!!!) spreadsheets.
Ok, yesterday, I asked him to do a spreadsheet in Excel, which he completes with every other line shaded in dark grey (looks like prison bars). I tell him to remove this. Instead of saying ok, he looks at me as though I’m an idiot and says, “Are you serious?”. When I say yes, he asks me for an explanation and then proceeds to tell me about professional standards in excel and how to prevent mistakes. I again ask him to make the change and walk away. He comes to my office later, on his way out to lunch and brings up the excel shading AGAIN while I’m smack dab in the middle of something more important, reiterating his argument for why it should be there and shaking his head when I reject his idea. Now, I’ve seen financials with this set up, but I’ve asked him for a very basic 23 line list of vehicles.
This is the e-mail I get today:
Now, I have a degree. I’ve also worked since I was old enough. I’ve worked in offices for 3 years. I’ve got 2 years insurance background. Newbie has never worked in an office, has no insurance background. Yet, he feels the need to lecture me. Even if he’s write, I’m the senior in the department and I damn well want my forms the way I ask.
In our industry, we get our training from licensing courses. It matters not a whit that you have a BA. It has nothing to do with insurance. His particular degree is in Sociology. I can see perhaps the slight applicability of a B. Comm (commerce), his other degree, but he has no insurance experience at all to back this up. Here’s another little choice e-mail.
This only confirms that:
a. He is a pompous asshole.
b. He presents well but lacks anything practical application… in other words, he likes to look important but isn’t quite sure how to achieve that status. He’s managed to convince himself that work has nothing to do with it.
Now, the kicker. Lunches. If I hear the word lunch again from him, I’m going to go nuts.
Yesterday, he complained that waiting from 8 - 1 was too long to go without a break. In that period of time, which elapsed prior to his complaint, he took 25 minutes of break time. I, at this point, overstressed, tell him to take it up with boss.
Today, he asks for a moment of my boss’s time and runs through the lunch request.
The boss comes into my office a half an hour later and says he can’t understand what the difference is for 30 minutes and why he’s making such a fuss.
Newbie calls me into his office approximately 2 hours after his discussion with the boss. He has already been in my office this morning and has seen the 1 foot stack of pending work, yet feels the need to waste my time with this lunch bullshit. He asks me if I’ve spoken with Boss about his lunch. Not aware that the Boss got him out of the office by saying he’d talk it over with me, I tell newbie that he has to talk to the boss. Newbie informs me that boss was supposed to discuss this with me. I tell Newbie that, no, I haven’t bothered with it but will take it up with the boss asap. Newbie presses the issue. He outlined his reasoning for me again. He again states that working from 8 – 1 is just too long a period to go without a break, and he winds up feeling like shit in the afternoon. He used the example that if he is going to be in meetings in the afternoons it would be to our benefit to change the lunch so he wasn’t in such a shitty mood. I told him I would talk about it with you and let him know, and that he could have a 12:30 to 1:30 lunch today.
First of all, he can’t even complete a fucking spreadsheet in a timely fashion and he thinks he’ll be in meetings?
Second, he doesn’t seem to grasp the nature of the job. I want him to be able to pick up a phone and do a quote! Meetings? WTF.
Anyway, 20 minutes total gone for breaktime today, and he’s left for his lunch. I’ll update after the discussion with my boss.
I’m not in the business, but I’ve usually found that people prefer spreadsheets without blank rows in betwen data so copying/pasting, etc. is easier. Y’know so you can actually work with the data. It might be better to print hard copy reports with that formatting for others to read, but if he took 5 hours on this one spreadsheet, he probably doesn’t know the difference. Yikes, what a boob!
A few years ago when I started this job my truck wouldn’t start on Tuesday morning (day 2.) In a panic I got my motorcycle going and was 5 minutes late. My boss was actually impressed, it was March in Buffalo and damn cold out there.
He handed me another spreadsheet I asked to complete before lunch. In spite of telling him 2 times to get rid of the prison bars, this new one he completed is done in the same stupid format. I wonder if there is a default for this or if he had to go through and individually highlight every other line?
This spreadsheet is a list of fourty names, beside which are 5 colums with checkmarks depending on the criteria. There are no blank rows. I find it difficult to read and, the reason I gave him the formatting protocol was so that it would match all my other spreadsheets. This he does not seem to grasp.
He wants to but a BA on his business card for an insurance company, which is a BA in sociology. He’s fucking nutso.
That reminded me that my last job I got sick the first day and had to go home right after lunch. I was sure they were all thinking “Uh-oh, she’s going to be one of those …” Luckily they didn’t immediately fire me and I did prove myself. I was a very hard worker right up until they closed their Florida facility and let 400+ people go.
Rebekkah, sounds like you have a good relationship with your boss. Maybe it’s time to go to him and ask, “Hey, you know Newbie? Yea, what say we just end the pain now …”
What’s scary is, I’d bet heavy money that he ends up working for his dad’s firm and becomes senior management in no time … :: shudder ::
Especially if you paid a headhunter for him. Take your money back now and let the headhunter find someone else (if you feel like giving them another shot). There’s no sense in wasting any time on someone who can’t follow simple directions he’s been given three times.
It sounds like you’ll get more work done without him anyway.
I have an issue with the headhunter thing as well.
They sent him to us, unlicensed and with no business experience, asking for an astronomical salary. My boss phoned them back and said no fucking way. They negotiated to give him to us on a salary he actually might have deserved (if he knew how to fucking work), cut their commission on him in half but only gave us 30 days instead of the standard 90 to approve him. Sounds fishy to me, like they were aching to get rid of him.
He’s promised to sit down with me this afternoon and this is exactly what I plan on saying.
Unless you use colored cells to indicate something else…
If a headhunter sent me someone like that, I’d never use them again. The only way I’d give them another shot is if I could deduct the amount that I paid the waste of space from their commission on the next guy.
The only time I’ve ever seen this to be relevant is when I was dealing with a technical guy on my accounting application. He was one of the primary programmers, and his business card had a CPA after his name. What this tells me is that he isn’t one of those coders who decides what my users need, but that he’s actually worked in (or at least understands) the front end. That matters. A freaking BS in Sociology does not, especially as an insurance adjuster.
RE: Shading on “large” spreadsheets
If he thinks that a 23 rows spreadsheet with 5 columns is a large spreadsheet, you should send him my way. I’ll show him my monthly Cost Detail report that I send to my CFO which has (hold on, let me check) 12,451 rows (for July 05) and 45 columns. If I put any shading on it, he would respond to my email telling me to take it off and never do that again.
RE: Too long of a time between breaks
Suggest to this kid that he buy some protein bars and take a lap or two around the building at about 10:30. Sure, it’ll eat into his break time, but he’ll be more alert, meaning he’ll need less of a break later, which means he’ll be more productive, which means he’ll…oh, never mind. Just fire his ass already.
To reiterate what others have said, I’m surprised he’s still there. I would think after a day or two of that he’d be gone already. I would also definitely not use that headhunter again.
The degree on business cards is pretty funny. Only doctorates and professional licences belong behind the name. I find it amusing when the junior engineers I come across right out of school want to put their masters degree and EIT (Engineer-in-training) designation on their business card.
I can’t stop laughing at the fact this kid wants his BA (with honors) on his business card! What does he think? That his business card is his freaking resume?
We’ve had similar experiences with many of our new hires–though they’ve never been in the same league as this guy! It seems to take them a while to realize that we are paying them to get work done–not to get their apartment set up, visit with old college buddies in town, show their parents their new place, etc. We do give a lot of leeway for new people because we know many have moved and need to get set up. But many take the time off we give them to go play and then want additional time off to do “I just moved in” things like set up a new bank account!
I think many have just never worked before except in brief “here, do some filing and copying and stay out of my way” internships for their dad’s or dad’s best buddy’s companies. Some are quite sharp and do want to succeed. They just don’t get it that they have to get their work done!
