As a middle-class professional, unions are utterly irelevant to me. They’re something that dirty prole workers form in order get over-compensated for unskilled labor. I’M a management employee–far, far above them in social stature. I’ll depend on my in-demand skills (it’s not like there’s many computer programmers looking for work) and my employer’s respect for my professionalism and class to secure stable and well-compensated employment, thank-you-very-much. I LOVE my job, and certainly don’t need one of those filthy organizations.
You guys obviously missed this lovely thread, wherein college students (UNIVERSITY, not merely High School-level) insisted that they had no responsibility to actually show up for classes for which they knowingly enrolled. The attitude they possess is: if the work gets done, fuck showing up and fuck you for trying to make me, you arrogant, elitist snob.
I think teachers try to teach punctuality, courtesy and respect, but some hothead, holier-than-though punks think they’re above all that common bullshit, and that crappy attitude carries over into the “real world” and the workforce. Yeah, yeah, they’ll come in here bitching about how school is different and how they would never behave that way in a work environment, but we all know someone’s pulling this crap and it sure as hell isn’t the people who showed up on time to class and showed their instructors respect and courtesy, so who else does that leave, hmm?
Honestly, I think some people will never give a flying fuck about anyone but themselves, no matter what you try to teach them in school (or at home).
What?? Since when is showing up on time and doing the work you were hired to do, considered “slavish devotion” or “sterling” behavior? You don’t have to be any kind of “devoted” to your employer, all you really have to do is “no more than” what you were hired to do, which includes showing up at the start time you committed to when you accepted the offer of employment at said competitive rate. And if you are unable to do so from time to time, pay them the courtesy of calling ahead. If you are unable (and/or uwilling) to do so on a regular basis, don’t be surprised when you’re fired. You reap what you sow.
Shayna, Of late, the American worker has learned that he can expect absolutely 0 loyalty from his employer. As there is no loyalty given to the employee, the employee will do everything he can to give none back in return.
If he can get away with shoeing up late and leaving early, he will. Same thing is true for talking on cell-phones, and all of the annoying behaviors that people rant about when it comes to the labor force.
Really, this is just the logical result of our current economic model.
So, I take it from your smartass reply that you don’t actually believe that poor workers are not actually making any kind of conscious effort to “stick it to the man,” otherwise you would probably have made a more substantive reply as to why churlish employees are actually good for America, or whatever that obtuse point is that you’re trying to make.
That is just utter crap. We aren’t talking about LOYALTY. We’re talkint about work ETHICS. You don’t have to “remain true” to your employer – especially if they aren’t treating you respectfully. But you do have an obligation to do your job, and that includes showing the fuck up on time and reliably. You don’t have to “loyally” stay there if you don’t want to, any more than your employer has to keep you if they don’t want to. But to blame “The Man” for employee laziness and rudeness is contemptible. It’s like you’re saying, “there’s no such thing as job security anyway, so I’ll use that as an excuse to slack off and behave like an irresponsible dick.” Some attitude there, bub.
Shayna, I find the venom in your post rather interesting, as I was making general observations about society as a whole and how I see it as functioning and you seem to be making this personal for some reason. Have we had conflict in the past that I am not remembering? Did I kick your puppy or something?
In any event, again speaking in general terms, my take on the whole construct of the work ethic is that it is a learned value that increasingly does not serve the worker. It is one thing for a worker to labor to capacity if there is a clear 1 to 1 relationship between the amount of labor expended and the rewards received.
But to work for its own sake for someone else is just foolish. Why would anyone do that?
To put this another way; let’s look at the claim that the American work ethic is in decline. If we accept this as true, the logical question to ask is why? Did the American work force all get up one day and decide to slack off? Is it random or, like all human decisions, a response to some stimulus?
Are we to believe that the increasing insecurity of any given job that a person has and the rise of discourteous and inefficient labor are unconnected? Why is it that the worker should “own” 100% of the responsibility for this problem? What has management done to lead us to believe that they are completely blameless?
Don’t read so much into it–your post wasn’t really worth responding to, so I cherry picked a small part that I wanted to reply to in order to make an unrelated point that I thought was relevant to this thread.
You mean like, if you show up for work, and do the work asked, that your employer pay you?
If your employer stops paying you, by all means don’t show up on time, don’t do the work you agreed to, and don’t call out when you’re sick. If they pay you the agreed to wage, showing up, working and not vanishing at random is the MINIMUM that you should be doing, not the maximum.
There is a lot of slop in between the minimum that I think workers should do and the maximum they could be doing. If your employer doesn’t show you the respect and loyalty you want, feel free to do the minumum, don’t be the high flying go-getter. But, damn man, being on time and working a full day shouldn’t be considered kissing your employer’s ass.
For what it’s worth, I think that a LOT of people have recognized that management is partly to blame for failing productivity. Many studies have been done on workplace stress and the illnesses and psychological problems that result from it. And many studies have shown that people in the U.S. often fail to take all their vacation days, and even when they do take vacation, they’re expected to keep in touch, or feel bad if they don’t keep in touch with the office. Additionally, since the labor market is still a bit sluggish, there are still a ton of people out there who are shouldering the responsibilities of two or more people because management refuses to bother hiring another person to distribute the workload more evenly.
However, it is the responsibility of the employee as well the employer to get things done. If an employee knows his work hours, is paid for those works hours, yet refuses to actually be present and working during those work hours, I think it’s perfectly understandable for that employee to lose his job. Conversely, if a manager expects all his employees to work ungodly hours with no perks, flex time or additional compensation, that manager deserves to loose his employees.
I don’t think the article the OP cited is necessarily produced to show that it’s all the workers’ fault that productivity is lagging. I think it’s meant to say, “Hey, these are areas in which many workers are seriously lacking today. Who woulda thought? And here we thought these were basic. Guess they’re not. Maybe we should offer training in these skills, then perhaps productivity might rise a bit and the feel of the workplace might improve.” I think it’s admirable that some places are recognizing the lack of soft skills as a problem, and I hope that addressing such a problem makes workplaces far more pleasant. Of course, it’d take a butt-load of time for something like that to pay off, but it’s worth a try.
Just to make sure that I am clear, I am not saying that an employee should not suffer the logical consequence of being fired if he is chronically late and if he fails to call in when sick. What I am pointing out is that it is perfectly natural, especially given how average laborers are treated these days, for an employee to get everything that he can out of a given situation.
Several posts in this thread have mentioned that chronic tardiness and absence have been tolerated in their place of employment. To me, if you are in an environment where this is something that you can get away with, you will do it.
Well, it harms my health when I have to work many, many days in a row because the guy who normally works on my days off keeps calling in sick. It’s bad for my health when I stay up until 2:00 AM because I think I have the next day off, and then get called in to work three and a half hours later because the dumbshit called in “sick” again, or just didn’t show up.
It harms me financially when I buy, in advance, tickets to a Mariners game, and then I don’t get to use them because Dumbshit called in “sick” on the day I was going to use those tickets.
It harms my relationships outside of work when I have to break commitments because I had to go to work on my day off.
It harms my relationships at work because, when I’m exhausted from working too many days in a row, I start getting really cranky and bitchy. I hate being cranky and bitchy at work.
I opened this thread wondering how many posts it would take before schools were mentioned. Believe me, most teachers work really hard to communicate the importance of punctuality (and resent the hell out of those who don’t) but a lot of kids aren’t listening.
And don’t get me started on parents who come roaring into the office pitching a fit because we dared to enforce the school’s tardy policy. These same parents are often baffled at why arriving on time is important-- no one at work ever says a thing when they come in late.
Dude, I didn’t say it didn’t harm people, I said it didn’t directly harm them. tomndebb was differentiating between CEO’s “gaming the system” and shiftless employees on the basis that the latter caused direct personal harm. I wasn’t arguing that it didn’t cause harm, I was arguing that it caused indirect harm that wasn’t fundamentally different then the harm caused by the CEO.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrPeabody
Quote “Yes - Let’s All Be Punctual and Polite”
Yes, those are two of the many things you must do if you want to work for me.
I don’t need to give my money to someone who is late and annoying.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Polycarp
"If you are giving money away, I will be happy to be punctual and polite.
But let’s not mince words: you’re employing these people to do work which you wish to have done. You aren’t giving them a damn thing, except the opportunity to earn a paycheck."
I beg to differ
I run a very small business I make a certain amount of money and must decide how to spend it. If I make a decision to bring home less money to my wife in order to try to grow my business, I find a person and make a deal to give them my money if they will give me their labor. Now either one of us can stop the giving by ending the agreement, but neither one of us can force the issue hence my use of the word give.
I’m curious. If your boss tells you to work on your day off, why can’t you just say no? Your slacker co-worker apparently can get away with not showing up for work on days he’s supposed to be there. It seems strange, therefore, that you would be punished for not showing up for work on days you’re not supposed to be there.
I think you were not clear. I suspect all that Polycarp was suggesting was that you are offering a trade, not giving a gift. Just as your customers do not give you any money – they reasonably expect a product or service in return. You, also reasonably, expect an employee to offer his labor in a punctual, helpful way in exchange for the money he earns from you.
I’m about as pro-management as they come (on this board and in the abstract, anyways – in real life I frequently criticize the hell out of them to their faces and sometimes get them fired) and I kind of cringed when you used the g-word to refer to an employee-employer relationship.
Then do NOT buy into it. At all. Long long ago, I was starting to slide into the same situation. I finally told myself it was bullshit. I told the boss I was not going to “cover” anymore and he’d better fix it. When he started making noises about “teaming”, I very bluntly told him that his “teaming” was all one way and was bullshit, and if he wanted to call himself a manager he’d better start managing for a change. He thought about it, and that was the end of my involvement in the “problem”. No repercussions came to me either. You’re letting them take advantage of you. It isn’t worth it.
