Good suggestion, but this is a resort town (think Vegas) so hotels have all the power. Their standard rate is nearly double my corporate rate and many hotels don’t offer any discounted rates at all that they don’t have to. They won’t lose any sleep over my business, or even the entire company that I work for. The difference is only $10 a day so my rant is really only about the unreliable distance quotations and it being something else I have to research before booking hotels now.
This factory has the usual safety rule of “people on foot must walk only on sidewalks or marked crossings”.
For the last four weeks, the sidewalk and several of the crossings on the way to our building have been cordoned off; the cordon was removed Tuesday EoB. It’s now Thursday afternoon and we just got an email from our grandboss that “it has been brought to my attention that for several weeks now, people in our team have frequently been seen walking on the pavement outside of the crossings. This is unacceptable blahblahyadda”.
:smack::smack::smack:
I’ve sorted myself out here for talking points.
I have a 20-year old co-worker who is just a kid. He doesn’t know how to work, he doesn’t want to work, he spends more effort trying to find ways to not work than to do the job. I can’t really blame him for this. He’s a kid. He needs to be taught, he needs to be managed.
The problem is the two assistant managers who can’t figure out that the fastest way for this kid to get out of doing any work is to head straight for one of them and start talking. Easy-peasy. A half-hour or an hour of that, neither of them is getting anything done and the kid can wander off and take a break or pretend to do something, having successfully distracted them from his own inactivity.
Worse yet, one of those assistant managers is just as big a screw off and finds his own ways of wandering off, taking excessive breaks and generally not being available. If he doesn’t see the kid doing something, he’ll go find him. Allegedly to get him back to work, but in practice, it’s just another half-hour or more of them both being missing in action.
A third assistant manager has gotten wise to this bullshit and will call the kid out on it and tell him to go do what he’s been told to do instead of standing there talking. But not those two guys.
My problem with this is that I hate the feeling that I’m working my ass off with no help while watching my co-workers, including managers, screwing off and not helping. I hate it when I need help but I don’t know where the fuck my co-workers even are and I don’t trust them to answer me when I call them. (From actual experience of them not answering me.)
Like last night when I have a line of seven people at the register - after about 15 minutes of ringing people up continuously - and the customer asks me if I’m working alone. I looked around the store, didn’t see any of my co-workers and said “I have three co-workers somewhere in the building, but you wouldn’t know it.”
Fuck you lazy bastards, do the job or go home. Or like last night, I’ll go home and you can pick up my slack.
Twenty years old is not a kid. He is old enough to buy a car, fight a war, father a child, and vote. If he doesn’t know how to work, it’s because his parents failed him, spectacularly. It’s possible he’s teachable, but it sounds like (most of) the assistant managers are failing just as spectacularly as his parents did. Probably the best thing for him would be to be bounced out the door on his ass, as it’s likely to be the only thing that will focus his attention on what the words “work ethic” mean.
I’m not holding my breath, though. It sounds like there are real management problems where you work, and I truly sympathize.
90% of my work is pretty good. It’s still work, but it’s not soul-sucking, mind-crushing toil that drains your will to live. I recognize this. I know that I’m very lucky to both have a job and have a job that isn’t awful.
So these are relatively minor complaints:
1 - apparently, a not-small contingent of my co-workers were raised by wolves. There are signs above every single sink that say not to leave your dirty dishes in the sink. And there are dirty dishes in every single sink. We’ve had emails about this. We’ve had warnings from facilities because those dirty dishes are attracting vermin. We’re told over and over again not to leave our crap in the sink - and yet, some people (people who have relatively well paying jobs that require lots of education, lots of experience, or both) can’t seem to either clean their dishes by hand or put their dishes into the dishwasher (which are right next to the sinks.)
I’ve never seen anyone leave their dishes - but there are so many, that it can’t be just one person. Part of me wants to put in a webcam and then email those people’s guardians and let them know that they failed in raising that person.
2 - I was recently added to a project that is going to go over budget. (It was massively under-budgeted because someone likes small numbers and is always surprised when their projects don’t hit the far too low budget set). I was warned today that the project is going to go over.
So, from my POV, there are three options -
1: Do nothing and go over at the rate that we’re going.
2: Drastically remove people from my project* and go over at a much slower rate because it will take longer to do the work with fewer people, but still take just as much money (if not more)
3: Can the project.
I know that #3 is not going to happen. I know that #2 is not possible. So, really, I want certain people to quit annoying me about #1. It is a stupid discussion. If I were wasting money, maybe I’d care. But I’m not. This is how much it costs. I’m sorry that someone really wanted to see a tiny number that is not at all in alignment with reality. I get it. You should see my weight on my driver’s license. I don’t blame the scale, though, when I step on it and it doesn’t match the number on the DL.
*just to be clear, removing them from my project means putting them on a different project. They will not lose their jobs. They won’t have any career setbacks. Also, they will still get the exact same salary and benefits, so from a big picture, there will be nearly no financial difference to the company as a whole - the only difference is whether $X shows up on my budget or on someone else’s.
Here’s a solution to your #1, amarinth: hidden cameras. Surely Facilities could manage that?
One place I worked, the signs said “Dirty dishes left in sink will be discarded”, and the janitors were told to do this. (And some us who were annoyed by this were nice enough to help the janitors by tossing dirty dishes in the garbage.) Took only a short while before the problem was fixed.
I had the same thought, but the OP mentioned a dishwasher, so I wonder if the company provides the dishes? Although I’ve never heard of that . . .
I work in a chemical plant, and each production unit control room has its own kitchenette, as do the labs & admin areas. Each buys dishes out of its own budget. No dishwashers, though. And peer pressure to clean up after yourself is intense, so no passive-aggressive signs are needed. Probably why we have a rule limiting the size of knives – kitchen or otherwise – that may be brought into the plant…
We can’t have kitchen-type knives at my workplace anymore because of the Mandoline Incident. (Plastic knives or silverware-type knives are fine though.)
I’ll bite.*
The “Mandoline Incident?”
*since it’s obvious that you’re dying to be asked
I understand it is a close relative to the “Noodle Incident”… https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NoodleIncident/CalvinAndHobbes
More on point the Mandoline is a type of slicer cooks use which apparently is insanely sharp and has an unfortunate history of removing bits of finger from inattentive users. For example: https://www.thebrooklyncook.com/foodie-fail-the-mandolin-incident/
The company actually does provide coffee cups (we’re in the greater Seattle area. People drink a lot of coffee. Providing coffee cups seemed better for the budget & the environment than disposable cups).
But the sinks are full of all types of dishes, coffee cups from work, tupperware and plates from home, etc. Tossing the non-company owned ones would be a start, but not enough.
Store Manager: “You only alienate people when you accuse them of screwing off.”
My thoughts, the next day;
Thanks for letting me know that you aren’t taking this seriously and don’t mean to do anything about it.
This is a short sighted and stupid response. I’ve already been alienated by their actions and I’m coming to you for a solution, for a change. Telling me “you make people angry when you let them know you’re angry about their bullshit” is only slightly obvious and completely irrelevant. Your job as manager is to limit and deal with the bullshit, not deflect, make excuses and wander off satisfied that you “addressed the issue”. Because I can promise you that everyone you’ve said something like this to has walked away KNOWING that you’re not going to do anything and remaining disgruntled and angry. They know not to waste their time bringing it to you anymore and they’ll just work on leaving. Or they’ll start no-call no-showing like everyone else in this place. You think you’ve won, but you’ve shot yourself in the foot and lost. I dunno, maybe you don’t care if they leave, you can just hire more people, but this is piss-poor management.
I’m one of TWO PEOPLE on your staff who shows up on time every single day. That’s it, just two of us out of the 14 people you employ. And you’re choosing to piss on my complaints instead of dealing with them. I guess that explains why you have such terrible staff. And it’s your fault. Your doing, your creation. You’re a shit manager.
But then, the company requires people in your position to work 50 hours per week and you’re lying to them and working 25-30 hours per week.
Today at 4:20 PM, we were told by email that the carpets would be cleaned over the weekend, and we need to take stuff off the floor. It should have been done last weekend, but there was a SNAFU. Okay, carpets need to be cleaned, but…
It’s Friday. My office has a policy where you can work extra hours to get some time off, and people usually choose Friday. Sometimes you can leave early, or just not be there. I get every fourth Friday off. So lots of people weren’t there.
People have to travel. A lot of people start working at 7:30 AM and, of course, are gone by 3:30 PM. None of these people saw the email. If that had happened next week, I would have been gone almost an hour before the announcement.
My supervisor and I were literally the only people from our team there at the time. We had to take stuff off the floor, and we did that for everyone else on the team. That wasn’t really in our job description. My supervisor was supposed to leave half an hour early. Nope.
It’s the new Jason Bourne movie.
I blame the supervisor because I’ve been a supervisor before.
People that seem to always goof off and wander off and shirk working do exist. But there is a large subset of “lazy” workers who are really just uncertain about what they are doing and/or unable to mentally organize a multi-step task. I find those workers more common than the truly lazy, while work may boring, wandering around a warehouse not working is even more boring.
When I was supervising labor crews, I would break down the task for the employee , telling them exactly, step by step, how to complete their task. I might frame it as suggestion but I would tell them exactly what to do. The goal is to remove any opportunities for decision making on the part of the worker. Decisions can really slow down workers. Then I would check up on them frequently, monitoring their progress and giving suggestions/ instructions if I noticed them hesitating. Then I would meet them as they finished that task (because I always knew where everyone was and how far along they were in their current task) and hand them the next one. If the task required any tools or equipment or job tickets, I would gather them up and hand them off to the workers, instead of letting them wander around collecting stuff.
I actually worked really hard as a supervisor, and that’s why the workers liked me. Because I was out there working as hard as they were and helping them, instead of sitting on my butt at the desk like the other supervisors. And I was kind to my workers. And I was effective, I got loaned out to sites that were behind in their goals.
So don’t get pissed off at the kid, blame the supervisor. Who sounds like a horrible specimen.
Exactly. I don’t blame the kid. He just needs to be led and taught how to work, just like I did at that age, just like the vast majority of everyone their age.
I blame the management staff for letting him get away with it by just throwing up their hands and doing the work for him.
Last night one of the assistant managers, before the kid showed up (late, as he does every day), said “when he comes in, I’m going to tell him to do Task X, and if he gives me any lip, I’m sending him home.” So what happens? Kid comes in, gets told to do Task X, starts swearing and refusing to do it, then says he’s going to do something completely different and wanders off. Assistant manager throws up his hands, says “I guess he’s doing (other task) now” and says he’ll do Task X instead of the kid. I fucking laid into him for that cowardly response. It took him a bit, but he went back, had a mildly loud and angry conversation with the kid and, low and behold, Kid went and did Task X. THAT is what being a manager is about, not cowardly caving in every time the kid throws a fit and refuses to do something.
I also told him “The fastest and easiest way for him to get out of doing anything is to come straight to YOU and start up a conversation. Because you’ll stand there for a half-hour to an hour EVERY DAMNED TIME, several times a night, talking to him and doing nothing. YOU need to stop allowing this to happen.”
Years ago, some of the ladies thought it would be a lovely idea to have a company picnic on our beautiful green lawn during the regular work week. The company paid for the food and tent/table rentals, some of the guys from the shop brought in grills, and this group of ladies did the food prep. This included slicing onions and tomatoes, which one of the ladies thought would go so much faster if she brought in her mandoline. Unfortunately, she failed to bring in the guard, and managed to put an impressive slice of her thumb in with the onions. She was rushed to Urgent Care, there were no onions available for the picnic, and from that point on management banned any extensive food prep from taking place on site. This put a serious damper on the annual Thanksgiving lunch, as one of the guys from the shop traditionally made fresh egg rolls as part of the event. (He hasn’t attended a Thanksgiving lunch since the ban went into effect.)
Bonus for the picnic: it turns out that our beautiful “lawn” is a sort of drainage point for the property, and is perpetually saturated in water. By the time the condition of the “lawn” was noted, it was too late to relocate the grills, and there was nowhere else to put the tables outside. The water was ankle-deep in some places, but you didn’t notice it until you stepped in it because of all the nice grass.
Ah yes, the break room slob. A constant irritation to me ( and others ) for 30+ years. Infuriatingly blithe, and yet self-righteous, and it’s always the same damn few people.
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The never wash dishes sorts: They know damned well everyone else gets tired of the eyesore and clutter, and will end up washing them eventually. One smarmy prick would always leave his shit in the sink and say ( when accosted as to his inconsideration ) “they’re soaking”, even when it’s clear he never any intention of cleaning them. What really pissed us off is when he said that, you could tell he knew we all knew he was full of shit, and he always uttered it accompanied with a smirk.
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The ones, and again, always the same people, who refuse to take their dinner time trash from the table to one of 9 or 10 trash containers in the room. On top of that, they’d take the paper towels they used to wipe their grubby mouths/faces with, or even blew their noses into, crumple them up loosely…and leave them on the table. I’ve also seen some take off old bandages…and leave them on the fucking table!.
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The ones that bring in tin foil covered plates of meals from home ( no doubt prepared by their long-suffering wives ) and microwave them uncovered: not a paper towel, or lid, and coat the inside of the microwave oven with nasty shit.
A common thread with all these meatheads is every time they’re called on it, every time peer pressure is applied to do the right thing, they do one of two things:
a) Give that oblivious “wha?..wha?” ( what? what? ) with that fake-ass boy-scout face
b) Comply with the requests in a huff, as if anyone that actually gave a damn about the pigsty they created should even care. To them, it’s like: “so what, it’s just work…the cleaning lady’ll get it.”
I actually believe they get some kind of “rush” with some sense of “getting away with” being a slob or all-around asshole.