One of the saddest cases I know concerned a very gung-ho, hustle-till-dawn ambitious type who was declared far and away the best employee the company had ever had in the position. This employee couldn’t understand why promotions seemed to be so out of reach despite the glowing reviews, the raises, etc. Turned out management wanted to keep the employee in that position because they didn’t want to hire someone else whose performance probably wouldn’t be anywhere near the employee’s level. Whenever management did promote somebody, it seemed to either 1) be political, or 2) they promoted somebody who obviously didn’t have the employee’s drive, but the somebody, for some reason, was “not the right fit for his/her current position so therefore we’re moving him/her up the ladder”.
This happened a number of years ago, and I’ve since long left the company. I often wonder if the employee is still there doing the same job.
I’ve worked with people like that. I understand where they’re coming from; OTOH their attitude really can put a serious damper on everybody who still likes their job and has enough pride to do the job as best they can.
Also note that the “part time job” is 7 hours a day, five days a week. This is more of a gripe with general circumstances than this particular one, but I do look in askance at jobs that say they’re “part time” when you’re only working one hour less a day than a full time job. That’s not all that big of a difference in time, yet it means the world when it comes to salary, benefits, and flexibility.
Emergency root canal, you can take off. That falls under the “really sick” category. Yearly cleaning, sorry. You can go after work, during your lunch or on weekends. We are in a major metropolitan area and this is doable, not Dickensonian.
I was clear that if you are really sick, you can use vacation time. The longer you are here, the more vacation time you get.
It is not “one person’s absence for half a day” that causes me to have to come in on a weekend. When one full timer misses three full days of work because of issues in her life and the other 3/4 timer misses two days because her cousin got arrested in a bar fight, damn right I’m pissed that I have to give up my weekend.
Staffing agencies are hit and miss. You either get someone really good or really bad. I use them occasionally. We are not a mega-corporation with unlimited funds. If I pay the receptionist and clerical runner less, then I will have money left over for a temp.
The work load IS reasonable. They are expected to hustle, as is everyone else around here. There are people who enjoy being busy because it makes the day go by quickly.
If Betty the Bookkeeper is out for a day, Betty can catch up on her own work later in the week. If Rita the Receptionist is out, I don’t have a pool of 100 other employees people to draw upon. Rita can’t catch up later in the week because people are walking in the door right now, documents need to be sent right now and the phone is ringing right now. Rita has a back-up, Patty the Part-Timer. If Patty the Part-Timer can’t manage to get herself to work either, then there is a problem. We aren’t paying Rita the Receptionist to stay home, Patty the Part-Timer to stay home AND Tammy the Temp to come in and do what two other people are already being paid to do.
Your labels of “peon” and “scapegoat” are projections from your experiences in your life, not from the reality of their jobs.
I don’t have an opinion other than that if your expectations don’t take a severe down-grade along with the paycut, I foresee only headaches in the future.
Not an office job, but I had a couple of those “Part Time” jobs. If I put in less than 39 hours per week there was a problem, even worse if I got called in on the weekend, as I got overtime for that.
I’m not talking about a temp in addition to the two people you already have, I’m talking about a temp(s) instead of the people you already have. Although “temp” might not be the best word for it.
You hire a staffing agency. You tell them you need a Rita and a Patty. They supply the staff. You will usually have the same person for long periods, but if that person can not make it the staffing agency sends a replacement. Assuming it’s not a last-minute thing you’ll have the replacement showing up at the normal work time in the morning. If it is last minute you might have an hour’s delay in start, but you’d still get the replacement. You would never have to pay for more than 1.75 employees.
You can even arrange for your current Rita and Patty to “transfer” their employment to the staffing agency in some cases. That way their attendance and/or substitution is now (mostly) someone else’s problem.
The problem with that is although it might work for some office jobs, it doesn’t work so well with jobs that have busy seasons. For example, my son works 30-39 hours a week from November through December. From Jan to march , he works maybe 12 hours, March through September about 20 hours and from Sept to November it’s back to 12 or so. Thirty-five hours week in, week out 50 weeks a year is clearly full-time. But “up to 39 hours” could be like my son’s job, which is clearly part-time (he could work 20 hours in Nov/Dec if he wanted to) and which I suspect limits part-timers to 39 hours to avoid accidentally going over 40 hours due to starting early or leaving late.
Lurker, I know you think it’s wonderful, cushy job with a princely salary and benefit package and the problem is that every single person you’ve hired for this job has been lazy, shiftless moron. But you know that old saying about how if everyone you meet is an asshole, the problem most likely ain’t everybody else? Yeah.
Look, the simple fact of the matter is that if your job opening was all that awesome, you wouldn’t have a revolving door. And I suspect the problem with this position is not that it’s too well-paid. From what you’ve said, I’d guess it’s that you expect them to run through their day like they’re trying to catch the last train out of Paris. All day, every day.
I have to say, when the problem is “Our employees keep calling in sick, they aren’t able to keep up with the workload, they don’t work fast enough, and turnover is sky-high,” the answer is very, very rarely “I know! We’ll pay them even LESS!”
I believe the logic is that the quality of hirees under the lower pay will generally stay the same (at least won’t get worse), and at least under the lower pay they’ll be paid what they’re worth.
