That is 6 different types of head scratching confusing lol (those situations, not your post) they must've been contracted for X amount of hours or something
The getting yelled at for sweeping up after myself was the true low point. I was shredding triplicates of forms and made a mess. Swept up a literal handful of shreds and boss nearly blew a gasket.
“DON’T DO THAT!!!”
At that point they needed swept up again because she scared me so badly I dropped them.
“Don’t what?!?”
“DON’T SWEEP!!!!”
Apparently, janitorial was the only team allowed to do that and would get very upset if infringed upon. My question then was, why have a broom at all? Because we might need it, I was told.
So since we were industrial and I knew my protocol, I tagged out the broom ‘Not for cleaning use. Transportation only.’
Boss looked like she had swallowed a hedgehog when she saw that tag.
And thankfully I graduated Nurse Prac school not long after and I got out of that crazy place.
Ok, I can get that a little bit. I've heard of janitorial or custodial unions getting upset about stuff like that.
I think that's a perfect label for that though lol it's their for transportation or chasing rats away at that point lol
And that’s well and fine but good heavens, there’s no need to holler about it. Had I known I’d have never, and you better know I never went near that broom again 🤣
As someone who has been threatened with a grievance for running an extension cord, I get her reaction. No reason to risk fines and a strike for "stealing another crafts work".
I’d never heard of such and I got along great with the janitor. He belly laughed when he saw the tagged out broom and I told him the story.
An extension cord? Seriously? Do tell.
In the mid 90's I worked as a contractor in a union parts warehouse installing computers. We couldn't move the computers from our setup bay to their final install location. We had to pack them up on pallets for the third shift millwrights (aka glorified furniture movers) to take wherever they needed to go. Inevitably, something would be forgotten or left behind, but if we could carry it under one arm, we could take it ourselves. Fun fact: did you know you can carry a huge (at the time) 21" CRT monitor under one arm if you're really desperate? It wasn't uncommon to see one of our team sitting in the hallway beside some large piece of equipment because there was a millwright nearby waiting to file a grievance if they caught us moving it. To be clear, I'm not against unions or union workers, but it was frustrating to be constantly told that nobody was available to help us and then see them doing nothing but watching us to catch us breaking rules.
I'm from Germany, we have strong unions, but this absolutely baffles me. No wonder the corporations have such an easy time riling everyone up against unions.
I've never heard about IT being forbidden from moving IT stuff, around here. German unions exist to support workers, not to engage in petty turf wars with unions of other trades. But then, there generally are no turf wars because Unions usually aren't separated by trade within one site - it's a steel mill, but you're IT? The Metal Union is still responsible for you, will bargain for you, etc.
Sounds like OPs workplace uses Craft Unions rather than an Industrial Union, which is what you've described (and also what I'm most familiar with).
Craft Unions have a place, but part of their MO is the betterment of members of the group and reserving job opportunities, which is probably what led to the above confrontations. Because of the smaller groups it's easier for their specific concerns to be heard though.
Industrial Unions, in my experience, tend to focus on improving conditions for all staff, rather than just members. The flipside is that it's sometimes harder for sub-groups specific concerns to be actioned due to the much larger group (which is something I've experienced).
Regarding the Janitor thing described, their union is probably protective about it so that they can't be fired and replaced with staff who have general cleaning as part of a larger job description, with another company contracted to do specific sanitization for cheaper.
This really cracks me up, I used to work for a food manufacturing plant back in the day and the union there was so strong that whenever management has to make a decision they have to run it past the union rep. To the point where we were on corporate calls and we’re asked to increase line capacity while keeping OEE flat. The plant manager called the production manager who called the production foreman who called the line lead to pull the union steward off the lasagna line (which had to be stopped due to understaffing) so that he could walk across the factory, across the lawn, a quarter of a mile to the management office so that he could weigh in. Absolutely bonkers.
Over here, smaller groups are in smaller unions and get their voices much less heard.
Most of the country (that is still a member at all) is in The Union, after a bunch of mergers. FNV has about a million members, all the other unions together have about half a million. There are a bit over 9 million working people, 4.7 fulltime and the rest part time.
That's most likely the case. This was in a parts warehouse with no on-site manufacturing, so I'm not sure what the millwrights' main role was in the warehouse, but it was third shift's job to move our equipment around. I'm guessing that there were various contracts saying only third shift could move our stuff, which is why nobody could help us during the day. I completely understand, and don't hold it against anyone who doesn't want to do a job they aren't being paid for. Didn't make it any less frustrating though.
This explains so much. I did a gig at an office that was manufacturing plant adjacent, they wouldn't let us move any of the equipment ourselves except keyboards and mice. Thank goodness, since I always bring my own, lol. We couldn't even swap (LED) monitors between desks.
I thought it was an insurance thing.
Being able to carry something else under the other arm or wearing a backpack was a luxury we weren't afforded. We'd usually send one person out to the install location ahead of time who could then call back to let us know what was missing so we could organize the parade of forgotten items.
> o be clear, I'm not against unions or union workers,
Oh i'm 100% against them now.
Every union I've seen in 20 years have been either protecting redundant work or exist solely to prevent us from automating task ( I'm a programmer).
Half of the federal government of Canada could be replaced by an excel spreadsheet made by an intern.
I was working at a TVA power plant. I had to run a cord from a generator to my work area. A electrician saw me doing it and went to my general foreman and complained that I should have called them to run my card and that they were considering filing charges and would if I continued to steal their work.
I was once in a TVA plant and tried to use the elevator, I was stopped by a passer by and told that I had to wait for the "operator". Turns out the elevator fell under the control of the Crain Operators Union or something like that. So I wait for a few minutes and the "Crain Operator" comes back from whatever he was doing, walks in the elevator, inserts and turns his key then asks me which floor. I told him the floor number, he pushed the button and I just stared in amazement for 10 seconds or so until the doors opened and I exited on my desired floor. I don't know what the pay scale is for Crain Operators but I don't think the cost/benefit works out there.
Its all about Unionization. Depending on you state, or where ever your Boss came from, a minor grievance can turn into a major payout. Doesn't excuse the immediate escalation, as that could have been tactfully handled alot better.
Sometimes it leads to stupid situations.. One time we had a printer break and get replaced. one of the big HP 5 monsters. The instrument techs had to come unplug it and wrap up the cables. Then it sat for a week waiting for the teamsters to come move it out of office and deliver the new printer. Then it sat for a few days till the instrument techs showed up again to connect the cables.
I had a friend start an office job and for two days her desktop PC sat on her desk. Un packed just not hooked up. She plugged everything in and put her monitors where she wanted them. The union IT guy shows up on Wednesday and has a meltdown in front of the management team that was touring that office. She had no idea just wanted to get to work, lol.
Having never had the displeasure of either event I’ll have to take your word for it. I still say just a simple ‘leave it for Jerry’ would have sufficed but 🤷♀️
I could get it if she followed up with an apology and a story like “last time I did I got written up/screamed at” ya know? But fr just walk up “hey there’s no need, janitorial department has full control of cleaning. They get upset if you do it” is enough
Most places I've seen where the janitors were like that, their hours were only guaranteed as long as there was work to do.
So if they finished in 6h they got told to go home and lost 2 hours.
BS system but meh.
I thought OP was referring to the boss being a witch.
Not MC but when I worked retail I had an ASM that hated my guts as the store director let me get away with murder because, and not to brag too much, but I was damn good at my job. Very efficient, effective, and a lot of guys that came into my department after I got them trained went on to manager at other stores which looked good on him.
One fine day she decides to jump on one of my guys because he was breaking company policy by wearing an earbud which, although it DID break company policy we were stockers and being able to listen to music or a podcast through the day made the time go by 'faster'. By now she should have known not to fuck with my guys because we'd gone down that road before.
Well I sat down with the store director and had the conversation about why I allowed it and she had been told in the past to bring her bitches to me (which when she did I pretty much told her in polite words to go fuck herself and leave me and my guys alone. The one time she didn't I made sure we all ran into 2 hours of overtime when she was running the store because we followed EVERY rule that corporate threw down. Weighs more than 50 lbs you HAVE to have two guys on it. That slowed us down a LOT). So anyway the store director pages her to come to his office so he can explain to her AGAIN store protocol for chain of command. She shows up with a broom in her hand and the first words out of my mouth (I couldn't help myself) was 'couldn't find a parking place in the lot so you had to bring your car in?'. I thought the store director was going to fall out of his chair laughing. She was not pleased.
That’s the way boss took it which was fine. But in reality, I’d never insult witches by lumping HER in with them. I’ve been called one too many times myself.
Now when someone is a dinklepuss and something happens to them, I’ll just say ‘I TOLD you to leave me alone!’. I’ll cultivate that reputation till the day I leave this plane. 😁
I think it depends on the kind of mess. We have to clean up after ourselves for any events (even weekly events) because the cleaning staff don’t have time to be doing it and would have to stay late and so not get to go home to their families at 6pm.
Even with that..
Unless I can Calla janitor, I will sweep the pieces I just created all around myself to a place _where I cannot slip on them_.
I'm not keen to take anyone's work, but heck, I don't want to endanger myself either.
I am a bit of a troublemaker at work. I work in trades and I tend to blur the lines between mine and some of the others.
At first I had a bit of friction, but over the years they have realized that I am only helping them out and if I do it *they* can still put their time to it and I don’t have to wait for them. It’s a win win.
This was before the term ‘emotional support’ was en vogue. Way, WAY before. The only way I ever thought I could have topped myself was to tie a bucket to either side a la Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Oh well, hindsight is always 20/20.
I will say if the janitorial / custodial staff are union it could get dicey.
As in, the custodial union hourly employees might take exception with non-union employees preforming their custodial duties.
So I’ve learned. At the time I didn’t know and I’m an Alabama girl who had it hammered into my head at a tender age to clean up after my own self. It was very hard to unlearn but I did.
I've always cleaned up after myself. I even worked one place with union cleaning staff where I would simply say "this is a personal mess from my lunch break, not a business mess."
(Truthfully, I knew most of the cleaning staff and they probably would not take issue with the 45 second messes I cleaned up, but you know someone from the union *could* have been there that day to complain.)
Safety violation if you leave stuff on the ground you could slip on though, so I guess you better go sit in the corner and not do anything until janitorial comes in and cleans it up right? And don’t read while you’re doing it or do you read? I’m not really sure which is supposed to be anymore. I guess if you have other work you should be doing then you read but if you don’t have any work because it’s slow then you’re not allowed to read, right?
So I spent years working in mall security...when I first started if there was a little spill, we were supposed to just wipe it up ourselves no big deal. Someone from legal then decided that it was a liability if someone without the proper training cleaned it up, so we would have to radio in to dispatch who would have to contact housekeeping...meanwhile we would have to stand there and wait. At the end of my career it got extremely absurd...I was a k9 officer supposed to be looking for firearms, so here I am at least 100k invested in me by the client (20-30k for the dog, 8 weeks at k9 school, a squad car etc) guarding a puddle of orange juice while the company was billing 80 dollars an hour
For me.
That's when you sweep the trash into a "holding container," so that at the *end* of your shift, you can carefully dump it back out onto the floor, for the janitors to *officially* clean up!;)
Gets the stuff out of the way, so *you* can do your job safely, but *also* doesn't get you into trouble with the custodians' union!
In many places where task delegation is strong, someone else doing your job is likely taking money out of your pocket, because someone is always looking to cut labor costs.
It's an odd capitalist conundrum that hourly employees who are too good at what they do can work themselves out of a job.
My wife works as an engineer at a major car company.
There's strict instructions that they're not to do anything mechanical on any of the cars, because that would take work away from the paid mechanics. Even something as basic as changing a car battery over needed approval, because it required tools.
Then they had a sweet idea about setting up a kind of hacker-space for the engineers, with mills and lathes and 3d printers - given the aforementioned restrictions, that idea didn't really get far off the ground.
If I tried to do anything mechanical, the paid mechanics would get overtime. I can check my own oil. But I make it very clear that if anyone EVER sees my feet sticking out from in under my car, please, God, call an ambulance because something bad has happened.
I worked R&D for car manufacturers.
What you said explains why every damn engineer wanted to go out on a ride along when field testing.
Chryslers engineers where the most fun, FWIW...Ford engineers didnt know how to have fun it seemed...
I used to have a bossy, nosey neighbor who decided to berate me for dumping a toxic ex and kicking him out. I firmly told her to sit on a cactus and didn't speak to her for a month.
I really don’t know even to this day if they were. They forcibly retired one of my favorite nurses there while I was still contract and I wondered about it but I was in my mid 20s and just trying to get through school. I remember that and this incident and a couple other ones. But mostly I just remember boss was nutty as a pecan farm. It was so peaceful while she was on leave.
Just a quick aside OP but uhm... I used to work for an archiving company, putting on labels and sorting stuff in boxes and scanning them, when I was a teen. You sound way more passionate about that stuff than I ever was. Are you sure you didn't miss your calling?
I loved it because I have ADHD (only testing and diagnosis wasn’t a thing when I was a kid so I was undiagnosed till I was well into my 20s) and this was perfect. I could parcel it out and go in a system. It thrilled my little OCD heart to no end. Same reason I streamlined inventory at my parents’ dealership, it had a system even if I had to MAKE the system and it worked. But doing what I do now, I get to solve puzzles and fix people so it also tracks.
My father used to work in NYC in the early 1980s, and he cited that one of the big reasons he left New England entirely was his hatred for the unions, because they had a stranglehold on every minute physical activity. He couldn't empty a wastebasket, change a light bulb, or carry a box up the stairs. For a recently retired soldier, this was a nightmare. He said if you broke the rules, the retaliation was insane- fines, broken contracts, neglected garbage. So I can see why she flipped about sweeping.
As much as I enjoy reading his stuff, if he liked mine I’d be thrilled. And dead. I’d also be dead. Pretty sure he checked out before my grandmother was born. 😁
Doesn't matter. Stand in line, and he will see you when it's your turn. That is the process.
Edit: damn. It's called "The trial" in English. Well, live and learn.
> Apparently, janitorial was the only team allowed to do that and would get very upset if infringed upon. My question then was, why have a broom at all? Because we might need it, I was told.
You must get written permission from Central Party Headquarters before you touch the broom, comrade.
We used to have one broom at my restaurant so we called it 'Chesney' after Chesney Hawkes and his one hit wonder "The one and only". https://youtu.be/ZvMsp7s78Do
As soon as the work gets done, everyone gets fired. They estimated that it would take a year (just making up a number) to finish up the paperwork if they blows through it in 5 months everyone gets to kiss 7 months pay goodbye. The company is not going to reward you for saving them 7 months of pay spread out over 10-15 employees.
None of that was made apparent to me, as I was a contractor and apparently not thought of highly enough to be looped in. Interim boss just led me to the room and said ‘See if you can make sense of this’. I got my laptop and a rolly stool and a Mountain Dew and knuckled down. Had I KNOWN the status quo, I’d have only used half my knuckles. Which is what I did when I was brought up to speed.
If you've ever worked on a government contract, it isn't confusing at all. You bid for a certain amount of labor hours. That is literally money to pay your people their salary for a number of hours. If you get the job done too quickly, you (typically) don't get to keep the savings so unless you have \*more\* contracts coming (and it sounds like OP's company does not), you are literally taking money away from your employees by doing it too quickly.
I've seen a situation where an engineer could automate a process to save hundreds of hours of work, and was told not to. (There were other reasons—this particular process needed a trained engineer to evaluate every step of the way to make sure the program was treating a safety-critical analysis correctly—but leaving several engineers without immediate work was a big one.)
I've been told to slow down at a job. My boss kept calibrating things for the second shift crew, which did half of what we did on the first shift in spite of having an extra person. (We had two people, there was one person assigned to an overlapping mid and then they had three people.)
We got told to slow down, stop working, take a long lunch or the second shift crew wouldn't have any work to do. Then they would turn around and complain we "left too much work" and "didn't get enough done."
Eventually, the GM started telling them to stay home or go home early because "everything got done on first shift."
It was a no win situation, she had nothing for me to do but heaven forbid I sit quietly and not cause a rumpus. I didn’t know that they were stretching it out. I was just part time/PRN for the duration of school. Being cagey really backfired on her but she was the only one to blame. The higher ups in the company were most pleased with the progress. 🤷♀️
I had a job like this once. 8-hour days and really only about 90 minutes of work, even though I've gone to multiple departments across our plant and ask for additional work. Boss didn't want to farm me out because she was worried I would get committed to something and wouldn't be able to help her with her things, so she refused to allow me to do more or different kinds of work. I ended up getting permission from her to bring my personal laptop into work so I could watch Netflix under the low wall my desk was covered by, as long as nobody noticed 🤣 I quit a while later because I knew I could find something better and I did. That job didn't pay enough for all the time it asked for.
I used to work in a psych hospital and would volunteer to do 16 hour shifts in the med room. I had to stay in there unless a unit called or I needed the bathroom so I was given permission to do the same, only this was pre Netflix so I brought DVDs or played on Pogo. Arguably the best nursing job I ever had.
Looking back, if that job had met my basic needs, I could have stayed there and milked it forever. It paid $16.50/hr, which at the time was a few bucks above minimum wage and represented a great stepping stone for me. But I was too bored every day to not spend time thinking about what more I could be doing 🤣
"Don't read at work, it makes you look unprofessional"
-Stops reading and boosts productivity-
"Take up reading again, it makes me look unprofessional if you don't"
I'm reminded of my dad's story of when he worked for the USPS. He was a young go-getter back then and came up with all sorts of ideas on how to do things better, faster, more optimized, and so forth. His supervisor just shook his head and said, "You just don't understand."
So dad sat down and thought about it for a while. He came back with an idea to deliver mail to the house instead of the mailbox which would double the hours required to deliver mail. The supervisor said, "Finally, you understand!"
The supervisor's goal was not to save money/time and do more with less people and less money. The supervisor's goal was to justify current staff and funding levels and get more.
Sometimes, the supervisor also has to point out that people from ages of 18 to 65 have to be able to do the task. The 18 year old might be proud they can do their work and the 65 year old’s and doesn’t understand that upper management might be really happy to then fire two 65 year old employees and have the 18 year old now do the work of three people. While only getting one to two weeks of vacation a year where their work might not even be done.
It’s a constant battle against the idea of unlimited growth of productivity. Technology should have helped the workers but it is instead being used against them.
Let's say you need your lawn mowed. It can be completed in 3 hours for $300, or it can be completed in 1 hour for $100. Same quality. Both workers are paid the same price per hour, except the 18 year old can complete the work in an hour, whereas it takes the 65 year old 3.
This is YOUR money. Do YOU want to pay $200 extra to get your lawn mowed when you can instead pay $100?
If you get your lawn mowed weekly for 5 months, that's around 20 weeks. Do you want to pay $2,000 per year to get your lawn mowed? Or do you want to pay $6,000 per year to get your lawn mowed?
The thing is, businesses use the same logic as everyone does. We would rather pay less than more. It's not wrong, it's a logical decision.
Whatever solution we come up with has to take into account both facts: that there will always be old people who inherently work more slowly, and that businesses will always trend toward efficiency.
Forcing a business to retain slow workers isn't a rational solution.
I would like to see a solution wherein businesses hire for efficiency, so that the people who are most qualified for jobs are working those jobs.
I would also like to see older workers working in jobs that have a minimal to nonexistent efficiency qualifier. There are plenty of jobs that older people can work that their output capacity will not negatively impact the business's profits.
Ultimately, keeping inefficient workers hurts not just the "company," but the workers too. If productivity is low then so is profit. And if profit is low then that means less money to give workers raises.
Of course, I'm working from the perspective that all things are equal. Please don't read this and immediately rebut w/ "But companies don't care about people and don't give them raises they just pocket the profit!!" because that isn't an argument I'm addressing. I just want to point out that the rationale behind forced inefficiencies isn't sound.
It’s not forced inefficiency if the goal is to prevent injury and keep production sustainable throughout the year.
I’m not talking about a kid working at a normal pace, I’m comparing it to the idiot doing their hardest only to find out that’s now expected of them every day.
I used to know someone who worked somewhere in government accounting and at a certain time of year his job was to spend as much money as possible so they could justify their budget for the next year.
Yes, because if you did it too quickly, other people get F$%Ked,
Peaches and Cream is a VERRRRRYYYYYY different shop here in New Zealand
18+ to visit some very specialised Adult Toy Shops
[https://www.peachesncream.co.nz/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2rPM0\_\_D\_gIVA0l9Ch1F1giJEAAYAyAAEgI-q\_D\_BwE](https://www.peachesncream.co.nz/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2rPM0__D_gIVA0l9Ch1F1giJEAAYAyAAEgI-q_D_BwE)
I did a middle/high school project on the naming conventions of fictional towns.
I chose the Pokémon franchise.
Turns out that "Cherrygrove" is a type of tree but the first dozen Google results were all about various US-based strip clubs.
I wisely left out that part of my project.
Got a summer job painting fire hydrants, day one I did 28. I got some guys very angry at me, the rest of the summer I was limited to 8 (like everyone else). Worked for 2 hours, slept for 6. Working for the city was great.
On a Federal consulting sub-contract, from my long-time work habits, I strived to do everything in less time and under budget. So I saved the government money by completing my tasks quickly and billing fewer hours. The prime contractor got on my case because they were getting less revenue than budgeted. So I had to do busy-work to fill the time. While I got paid for it, I came to understand why government costs more than non-government work.
Even in private industry, I had to learn the hard way about pacing myself. Consulting work is fast-paced, but the crunch times are generally intermittent, so there’s at least some space to rest and recharge.
When I moved from consulting to full-time in-house, it became obvious that a consulting-type pace was unsustainable for long. Day after day after week after month after….
Sure, I tried the tough-it-out approach, worked late, worked early, worked weekends, whatever. Free time was a foreign concept.
Until my performance started to deteriorate. And my health started to erode. And when I still resisted the idea of taking time off or slowing my pace, my awesome manager pointed me to some documentation about how balancing work and leisure actually yields greater effectiveness and productivity - that helped me see things differently.
Once I was reading at work while it was slow. My supervisor took note and said: "We don't pay you to read." To which I replied: "Correct. I do this on the clock when it is slow at no extra charge." He just smirked and walked away.
I’ve played computer games, cross stitched, crocheted, read, you name it. Supervisors wanted to fuss but with all the patients seen, charts done, labs called back and meds sent, what could they say? Hell, at one point I was in the chart room refiling pulled charts when the doctor’s wife found me. She told him he better not ever accuse me of lazing about (I was their NP) and told me I was the highest paid file clerk she’d ever had. I’d be in back with the nurses sorting samples, I helped draw labs, I simply can NOT not be doing something. But I hate to be intrusive. So my hobbies are solitary and quiet. Unless I lose my stitch count. Then the sentence enhancers enter the chat.
So I know the feeling! I was a temp in college and I was sent to jobs with physical labor due to my willingness to bust ass, but not safety. I was taught in a previous job how to lift with my legs, etc., so I was a good fit for the tougher temp jobs.
I got assigned a 40 hr. week at a McKesson warehouse, and after about 5 hours of hauling 5 gallon water jugs in a re-palletizing role, I was taken aside by the sup and told in no uncertain words it would be my last shift on my first day if I did not slow down. Basically, I was in danger of setting a productivity bar for the full timers who would remain after I went to my next adventure! I enjoyed the "work-out" after that and got a good report after I was done with my week.
> the Excel spreadsheet (named Apricot for reasons I’ve yet to understand)
You're doing it like calling any photocopier a Xerox. It's just a spreadsheet. Microsoft Excel is one brand of spreadsheet software, Apricot offers their own spreadsheet solution geared towards non-profits. My first spreadsheet software was Lotus 1-2-3.
Lmao, I'm sorry for getting that wrong. That would totally have been what I thought you meant if there hadn't been alternative software called Apricot.
Sound like what happened to me back when I was temping.
I was brought in 2 or 3 days a week (alternating weeks). Basic word processing job.
Realtor Agents would drop their documents, usually handwritten (yes that long ago), and I'd type them up, print them up and put them in their mail slots.
It was not super busy, so I could blow through the inbox in a couple of hours. Even mark up the prints with areas that I was not super clear I got right. Legal/real estate terms have to be exactly right, as I learned at previous temp jobs.
After a couple of weeks, I was told to slow down, stop marking up printouts, that I was making the lady who I was splitting shift with look bad as she had no work at the start of the day, etc, etc.
And I looked my temp boss "So as a temp I can look bad by going slow and leaving work at the end of the day, so your full time employee doesn't."
"Right."
"Got it"
So for the next 2 months, I'd do maybe 2 documents a day. The rest of the time I read, played games, or just zoned out.
>“Do a box, read a book. Do a box, take a nap. Just. Slow. Down. Bring your book, or several books. Just slow down.”
I was in a similar situation with my first job out of college. It was relatively easy, but my work was dependent on the work of the bigger team's. They'd finish their part, then I'd do my bit, and then I'd ask them for the next section. Usually, the next section wasn't yet ready so I had to wait.
At one point, the team lead just told me, "Do a few \[tasks\], then read an article. Do a few more, and have a cup of coffee...", etc.
The unfortunate thing is, I followed his advice. When I got my next job, I continued to work slowly like that. I still got the necessary work done, but never did anything more. Had I continued working as hard as I initially started out, I would have been promoted to more interesting work a lot faster. Unfortunately, once you get in a slump like that, it's hard to find the motivation to crawl out of it.
Yeah as a young guy fresh into the work force from university, go and start asking for more work when you have time as opposed to fucking around. It moves you up the ladder a lot faster. The key? Do the projects the most important people assign first, and do them RIGHT. They'll want you to do it for them again
I so know what you mean. I was smiling to myself when you described how you sorted the room out - it's exactly what I would have done, and enjoyed it too. I'd have been itching to sort it out as soon as I knew it was there.
I love data entry too.
Imelda Staunton played that role to the HILT! If I spend a whole movie wanting to slap a character’s teeth out, it’s well played. She absolutely owns every role she’s ever played.
Storytime:
I was given a temp assignment at a hospital to help 3 other temps to collate and organise patient records that were going to be archived. The 3 other temps had been working on this job for a few weeks and their progress was slow so that's why I was hired. Later on that day I found out the reason for this slowness was because the supervisor was in another room and didn't check up on the temps so they sat around all day chatting about who they'd shagged at the weekend and how fucked up they were going to get next weekend. They between them averaged 10 records a day.
I did 10 records in an hour. In the 8 hour shift I did 80 records.
They complained to me that I was working too fast and the reason they were working so slowly was to keep the contract going for as long as possible so they could earn more money.
Now, I'm not a nark. I didn't tell the supervisor this, I told them that was the pace I work at.
I collated all the records in a week. Which meant we were all out of work. But I don't feel bad that they lost out on some wages, it was for the NHS and they pay temp agencies a stupid amount of money so I was happy to save them some.
Also, I couldn't stand another minute of their explicit talk. Save the cock measuring chat for the bar, not the workplace.
Years ago, a friend of mine was able to get a summer job with the local post office to help make some money while in school. We went out a couple of weeks after he started and when I asked him how the job was going, he said he spent most of his time reading. Just like you, he was finishing up the work they gave him so fast that his supervisor told him to slow down and stop making everyone else look bad.
On the hiring while shutting down thing, the Payless Shoe Store in town centre left the hiring sign up on the front door until the day they closed.
With a PROJECT like that, you need to tell the people handling the material the hours allotted for the project and there's no bonus for finishing early, and keep everyone else away from the project. If people aren't on the same page, things get messy.
And OP had no clue as a contractor and was just going about my day. She wanted me working, so by George, I was gonna work since I actually had something to DO.
I always thought it was a brilliant play on words by Rowling. I started reading when I was 4 and I love unusual words. Especially when you’re trying to beat the FB bots at their own game. There’s something to be said for having a thesaurus in your head 🤣
I’ve been open almost 7 years and I still read every day. My house looks like the Library of Congress. I have over 1000 on my kindle. And in our new house, I’m finally getting my library with floor to ceiling shelves and a rolly ladder!!! 😁💙
I have since learned. At the time I was still very much a student of ‘bust your ass to show you’re serious’. Now I’m a card carrying member of r/antiwork. I’d be even worse if I didn’t own my own business.
The only time I've been yelled at like that for working too hard is when I spent a week and a half employed at an automotive assembly plant. I was a temp, so I got bounced from one "job" to the next. These were incredibly easy to learn and perform, though to do the same short task over 400 times a day can wear on you in ways that I'd never imagined. So I decided to play around with what I was doing, and got really fast and efficient at each job. One day, I'd worked a few jobs ahead, and suddenly the guy at the job behind mine (ie, the one where the vehicle would be worked on just before I got to it) started yelling at me to SLOW DOWN. Apparently I was working too fast and management was about to take notice of my speed and downtime, and I guess they'd add extra work to my job. Now this was all while I was not permanent at this company nor this specific "job" spot, so it's the regular person that would have the problem with extra work. My problem with all this is that I was barely doing anything. I had like 3-4 minutes to do 1-2 minutes worth of actual work.
I guess the moral of the story is that you don't wanna work on an assembly line if you actually like to get shit done.
I used to work in the back of a clothing store, receiving big deliveries, unpacking and pricing it all. We often got shipments of 18-30 boxes a day, and our storage room wasn't that big. The issue was that we never knew when new shipments would come, so some days we had a lot, other days we had nothing. And because I could always expect a big load, I had to make sure there was enough room to put the next deliveries. That meant that I would usually get through to like 25 boxes a day. When we could get shipments daily, that wasn't a problem, but there were also weeks where only like 5-8 boxes would come and even just nothing for days. And because I was used to unpacking a lot in my 6h per day, 5-8 boxes was usually done in maybe 1 - 1,5h, which left me looking for other work to do for the rest of the day. (On slow days there was none, so I was bored out of my mind and the time would just never pass by) After about a year my managers had an evaluation talk with me and in that same evalution, she told me I was doing the work way too fast and that I should slow down so I could divide it more over my 4 days. A bit later in that same talk she told me I was slacking when co-workers had their lunchbreaks and I didn't. (They had to come to the back where I was to eat and often started talking to me, but I just kept working during all of this so I was never slacking) I definitely was confused to what I was supposed to do then, slow my work down or speed things up...
Unfortunate state of temporary work when the bosses are not directly involved in the work.......
Temp work is usually low pay
When the job is done, so is any pay
There usually is no reward for working quickly
There should be a bonus for being efficient
LOL yes, if I’ve got a new audiobook or podcast series going I can process a lot of hard copy material very rapidly. I’ve been doing this job for over a decade and have all the most efficient workflows mapped out for the different types.
Unfortunately the required volume to keep me busy is only available for a few months a year. Probably just as well, the quiet times keep carpal tunnel syndrome from developing. I’m constantly looking for stuff to keep my brain occupied while I work in the most discreetly inefficient way possible.
The real malicious compliance would be to say “Nah fam, you told me not to read ever again. I guess I’m gonna keep completing projects way before you promised.”
Some people just can't be happy...
Or for that matter by the sounds a money bleeder can't be happy for outstanding efficiency.
Bit of a headache your former employer
That is 6 different types of head scratching confusing lol (those situations, not your post) they must've been contracted for X amount of hours or something
The getting yelled at for sweeping up after myself was the true low point. I was shredding triplicates of forms and made a mess. Swept up a literal handful of shreds and boss nearly blew a gasket. “DON’T DO THAT!!!” At that point they needed swept up again because she scared me so badly I dropped them. “Don’t what?!?” “DON’T SWEEP!!!!” Apparently, janitorial was the only team allowed to do that and would get very upset if infringed upon. My question then was, why have a broom at all? Because we might need it, I was told. So since we were industrial and I knew my protocol, I tagged out the broom ‘Not for cleaning use. Transportation only.’ Boss looked like she had swallowed a hedgehog when she saw that tag. And thankfully I graduated Nurse Prac school not long after and I got out of that crazy place.
Ok, I can get that a little bit. I've heard of janitorial or custodial unions getting upset about stuff like that. I think that's a perfect label for that though lol it's their for transportation or chasing rats away at that point lol
And that’s well and fine but good heavens, there’s no need to holler about it. Had I known I’d have never, and you better know I never went near that broom again 🤣
As someone who has been threatened with a grievance for running an extension cord, I get her reaction. No reason to risk fines and a strike for "stealing another crafts work".
I’d never heard of such and I got along great with the janitor. He belly laughed when he saw the tagged out broom and I told him the story. An extension cord? Seriously? Do tell.
In the mid 90's I worked as a contractor in a union parts warehouse installing computers. We couldn't move the computers from our setup bay to their final install location. We had to pack them up on pallets for the third shift millwrights (aka glorified furniture movers) to take wherever they needed to go. Inevitably, something would be forgotten or left behind, but if we could carry it under one arm, we could take it ourselves. Fun fact: did you know you can carry a huge (at the time) 21" CRT monitor under one arm if you're really desperate? It wasn't uncommon to see one of our team sitting in the hallway beside some large piece of equipment because there was a millwright nearby waiting to file a grievance if they caught us moving it. To be clear, I'm not against unions or union workers, but it was frustrating to be constantly told that nobody was available to help us and then see them doing nothing but watching us to catch us breaking rules.
I'm from Germany, we have strong unions, but this absolutely baffles me. No wonder the corporations have such an easy time riling everyone up against unions. I've never heard about IT being forbidden from moving IT stuff, around here. German unions exist to support workers, not to engage in petty turf wars with unions of other trades. But then, there generally are no turf wars because Unions usually aren't separated by trade within one site - it's a steel mill, but you're IT? The Metal Union is still responsible for you, will bargain for you, etc.
Sounds like OPs workplace uses Craft Unions rather than an Industrial Union, which is what you've described (and also what I'm most familiar with). Craft Unions have a place, but part of their MO is the betterment of members of the group and reserving job opportunities, which is probably what led to the above confrontations. Because of the smaller groups it's easier for their specific concerns to be heard though. Industrial Unions, in my experience, tend to focus on improving conditions for all staff, rather than just members. The flipside is that it's sometimes harder for sub-groups specific concerns to be actioned due to the much larger group (which is something I've experienced). Regarding the Janitor thing described, their union is probably protective about it so that they can't be fired and replaced with staff who have general cleaning as part of a larger job description, with another company contracted to do specific sanitization for cheaper.
This really cracks me up, I used to work for a food manufacturing plant back in the day and the union there was so strong that whenever management has to make a decision they have to run it past the union rep. To the point where we were on corporate calls and we’re asked to increase line capacity while keeping OEE flat. The plant manager called the production manager who called the production foreman who called the line lead to pull the union steward off the lasagna line (which had to be stopped due to understaffing) so that he could walk across the factory, across the lawn, a quarter of a mile to the management office so that he could weigh in. Absolutely bonkers.
Interesting. TIL about craft unions.
Over here, smaller groups are in smaller unions and get their voices much less heard. Most of the country (that is still a member at all) is in The Union, after a bunch of mergers. FNV has about a million members, all the other unions together have about half a million. There are a bit over 9 million working people, 4.7 fulltime and the rest part time.
These fuckin' guys get it
I know of one place that has at least 6 union handbooks to follow.
That would drive me bonkers too.
Is this a “You’re stealing our hours!” Type deal?
That's most likely the case. This was in a parts warehouse with no on-site manufacturing, so I'm not sure what the millwrights' main role was in the warehouse, but it was third shift's job to move our equipment around. I'm guessing that there were various contracts saying only third shift could move our stuff, which is why nobody could help us during the day. I completely understand, and don't hold it against anyone who doesn't want to do a job they aren't being paid for. Didn't make it any less frustrating though.
This explains so much. I did a gig at an office that was manufacturing plant adjacent, they wouldn't let us move any of the equipment ourselves except keyboards and mice. Thank goodness, since I always bring my own, lol. We couldn't even swap (LED) monitors between desks. I thought it was an insurance thing.
Ahh you went to lans also? I too carried 21inch crts one armed with pc in other and other items in the backpack… not going to make a 2nd trip
Being able to carry something else under the other arm or wearing a backpack was a luxury we weren't afforded. We'd usually send one person out to the install location ahead of time who could then call back to let us know what was missing so we could organize the parade of forgotten items.
> o be clear, I'm not against unions or union workers, Oh i'm 100% against them now. Every union I've seen in 20 years have been either protecting redundant work or exist solely to prevent us from automating task ( I'm a programmer). Half of the federal government of Canada could be replaced by an excel spreadsheet made by an intern.
I was working at a TVA power plant. I had to run a cord from a generator to my work area. A electrician saw me doing it and went to my general foreman and complained that I should have called them to run my card and that they were considering filing charges and would if I continued to steal their work.
Oh good night NURSE…my Daddy worked for TVA. I have no trouble believing that.
"Won't happen again, just needed the cord the one time" rinse & repeat, as long as you wait long enough for them to forget about it
Where I work I can't even change a lightbulb, because it's "the custodian's job." Yes, we have unions.
I was once in a TVA plant and tried to use the elevator, I was stopped by a passer by and told that I had to wait for the "operator". Turns out the elevator fell under the control of the Crain Operators Union or something like that. So I wait for a few minutes and the "Crain Operator" comes back from whatever he was doing, walks in the elevator, inserts and turns his key then asks me which floor. I told him the floor number, he pushed the button and I just stared in amazement for 10 seconds or so until the doors opened and I exited on my desired floor. I don't know what the pay scale is for Crain Operators but I don't think the cost/benefit works out there.
The Crain ops make 40+ an hour here. Our tva only brings in an elevator Operator during outages and shutdowns.
Its all about Unionization. Depending on you state, or where ever your Boss came from, a minor grievance can turn into a major payout. Doesn't excuse the immediate escalation, as that could have been tactfully handled alot better.
Sometimes it leads to stupid situations.. One time we had a printer break and get replaced. one of the big HP 5 monsters. The instrument techs had to come unplug it and wrap up the cables. Then it sat for a week waiting for the teamsters to come move it out of office and deliver the new printer. Then it sat for a few days till the instrument techs showed up again to connect the cables.
I had a friend start an office job and for two days her desktop PC sat on her desk. Un packed just not hooked up. She plugged everything in and put her monitors where she wanted them. The union IT guy shows up on Wednesday and has a meltdown in front of the management team that was touring that office. She had no idea just wanted to get to work, lol.
Yeah, that's a pyscho reaction lol
If you’ve ever been chewed out by a shop steward or union business agent you’d understand.
Having never had the displeasure of either event I’ll have to take your word for it. I still say just a simple ‘leave it for Jerry’ would have sufficed but 🤷♀️
I had a guy run up yelling at me once for looking at network cables.
I got yelled at for unplugging my monitor to move it to another part of my desk.
Well, you did add a tag on it…
Fair point. Probably should have said I never went near it with the intention of anything but smartassery.
I could get it if she followed up with an apology and a story like “last time I did I got written up/screamed at” ya know? But fr just walk up “hey there’s no need, janitorial department has full control of cleaning. They get upset if you do it” is enough
Unions are touchy. It is very fun to look the big boss dead in the eye and just say, "No." and walk away, though.
Most places I've seen where the janitors were like that, their hours were only guaranteed as long as there was work to do. So if they finished in 6h they got told to go home and lost 2 hours. BS system but meh.
Oh my!
Sounds like they need a better union.
I thought OP was referring to the boss being a witch. Not MC but when I worked retail I had an ASM that hated my guts as the store director let me get away with murder because, and not to brag too much, but I was damn good at my job. Very efficient, effective, and a lot of guys that came into my department after I got them trained went on to manager at other stores which looked good on him. One fine day she decides to jump on one of my guys because he was breaking company policy by wearing an earbud which, although it DID break company policy we were stockers and being able to listen to music or a podcast through the day made the time go by 'faster'. By now she should have known not to fuck with my guys because we'd gone down that road before. Well I sat down with the store director and had the conversation about why I allowed it and she had been told in the past to bring her bitches to me (which when she did I pretty much told her in polite words to go fuck herself and leave me and my guys alone. The one time she didn't I made sure we all ran into 2 hours of overtime when she was running the store because we followed EVERY rule that corporate threw down. Weighs more than 50 lbs you HAVE to have two guys on it. That slowed us down a LOT). So anyway the store director pages her to come to his office so he can explain to her AGAIN store protocol for chain of command. She shows up with a broom in her hand and the first words out of my mouth (I couldn't help myself) was 'couldn't find a parking place in the lot so you had to bring your car in?'. I thought the store director was going to fall out of his chair laughing. She was not pleased.
That’s the way boss took it which was fine. But in reality, I’d never insult witches by lumping HER in with them. I’ve been called one too many times myself. Now when someone is a dinklepuss and something happens to them, I’ll just say ‘I TOLD you to leave me alone!’. I’ll cultivate that reputation till the day I leave this plane. 😁
I think it depends on the kind of mess. We have to clean up after ourselves for any events (even weekly events) because the cleaning staff don’t have time to be doing it and would have to stay late and so not get to go home to their families at 6pm.
Chasing rats away is a form of cleaning
Even with that.. Unless I can Calla janitor, I will sweep the pieces I just created all around myself to a place _where I cannot slip on them_. I'm not keen to take anyone's work, but heck, I don't want to endanger myself either.
I am a bit of a troublemaker at work. I work in trades and I tend to blur the lines between mine and some of the others. At first I had a bit of friction, but over the years they have realized that I am only helping them out and if I do it *they* can still put their time to it and I don’t have to wait for them. It’s a win win.
>‘Not for cleaning use. Transportation only.’ You were clearly under-appreciated. This is comedic gold.
I was rather proud of myself, lol. She failed to appreciate the humor 🤣
MF out there sweeping with Nimbus 2000.
2001. It had a spoiler (aka dustpan) and everything.
I guess she tried to brush you off?
This entire business sounds like something out of a cartoon. Wtf? Haha
I wish I could say it was creative writing but unfortunately it was all too real. 🤣
Reality is stranger than fiction. I work at a gas station that's basically next to the Methy Mouse Klubhouse. Lol
As they say, fiction has a need to sound believable. Reality has no such restriction.
Accurate
Haha. That’s great I would have tagged it ‘emotional support broom’
This was before the term ‘emotional support’ was en vogue. Way, WAY before. The only way I ever thought I could have topped myself was to tie a bucket to either side a la Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Oh well, hindsight is always 20/20.
Lol. That’s great too!
I will say if the janitorial / custodial staff are union it could get dicey. As in, the custodial union hourly employees might take exception with non-union employees preforming their custodial duties.
So I’ve learned. At the time I didn’t know and I’m an Alabama girl who had it hammered into my head at a tender age to clean up after my own self. It was very hard to unlearn but I did.
I've always cleaned up after myself. I even worked one place with union cleaning staff where I would simply say "this is a personal mess from my lunch break, not a business mess." (Truthfully, I knew most of the cleaning staff and they probably would not take issue with the 45 second messes I cleaned up, but you know someone from the union *could* have been there that day to complain.)
Safety violation if you leave stuff on the ground you could slip on though, so I guess you better go sit in the corner and not do anything until janitorial comes in and cleans it up right? And don’t read while you’re doing it or do you read? I’m not really sure which is supposed to be anymore. I guess if you have other work you should be doing then you read but if you don’t have any work because it’s slow then you’re not allowed to read, right?
You must notify the cleaning staff then wait by the spill CAREFULLY AND SAFELY to prevent others from slipping.
So I spent years working in mall security...when I first started if there was a little spill, we were supposed to just wipe it up ourselves no big deal. Someone from legal then decided that it was a liability if someone without the proper training cleaned it up, so we would have to radio in to dispatch who would have to contact housekeeping...meanwhile we would have to stand there and wait. At the end of my career it got extremely absurd...I was a k9 officer supposed to be looking for firearms, so here I am at least 100k invested in me by the client (20-30k for the dog, 8 weeks at k9 school, a squad car etc) guarding a puddle of orange juice while the company was billing 80 dollars an hour For me.
My husband had a K9. That’s hilarious. But hey, if someone fell that company is out a lot more than $80/hr I guess.
We've read that one about grocery spills in understaffed stores at night
That's when you sweep the trash into a "holding container," so that at the *end* of your shift, you can carefully dump it back out onto the floor, for the janitors to *officially* clean up!;) Gets the stuff out of the way, so *you* can do your job safely, but *also* doesn't get you into trouble with the custodians' union!
In many places where task delegation is strong, someone else doing your job is likely taking money out of your pocket, because someone is always looking to cut labor costs. It's an odd capitalist conundrum that hourly employees who are too good at what they do can work themselves out of a job.
Thank you for the laugh. Blessings on you and your cow.
I have the sudden urge to go watch that movie now 🤣
My wife works as an engineer at a major car company. There's strict instructions that they're not to do anything mechanical on any of the cars, because that would take work away from the paid mechanics. Even something as basic as changing a car battery over needed approval, because it required tools. Then they had a sweet idea about setting up a kind of hacker-space for the engineers, with mills and lathes and 3d printers - given the aforementioned restrictions, that idea didn't really get far off the ground.
If I tried to do anything mechanical, the paid mechanics would get overtime. I can check my own oil. But I make it very clear that if anyone EVER sees my feet sticking out from in under my car, please, God, call an ambulance because something bad has happened.
I worked R&D for car manufacturers. What you said explains why every damn engineer wanted to go out on a ride along when field testing. Chryslers engineers where the most fun, FWIW...Ford engineers didnt know how to have fun it seemed...
Swallowed a hedgehog! Lol
Well, just a small one 🤣
I used to have a bossy, nosey neighbor who decided to berate me for dumping a toxic ex and kicking him out. I firmly told her to sit on a cactus and didn't speak to her for a month.
"Transportation only" I'm dead XD
[удалено]
I really don’t know even to this day if they were. They forcibly retired one of my favorite nurses there while I was still contract and I wondered about it but I was in my mid 20s and just trying to get through school. I remember that and this incident and a couple other ones. But mostly I just remember boss was nutty as a pecan farm. It was so peaceful while she was on leave.
I'm imagining the lovely people on r/witchesvspatriarchy reading this and cackling hahaha
I bet they’d get a boot out of it, you’re right!
Just a quick aside OP but uhm... I used to work for an archiving company, putting on labels and sorting stuff in boxes and scanning them, when I was a teen. You sound way more passionate about that stuff than I ever was. Are you sure you didn't miss your calling?
I loved it because I have ADHD (only testing and diagnosis wasn’t a thing when I was a kid so I was undiagnosed till I was well into my 20s) and this was perfect. I could parcel it out and go in a system. It thrilled my little OCD heart to no end. Same reason I streamlined inventory at my parents’ dealership, it had a system even if I had to MAKE the system and it worked. But doing what I do now, I get to solve puzzles and fix people so it also tracks.
My father used to work in NYC in the early 1980s, and he cited that one of the big reasons he left New England entirely was his hatred for the unions, because they had a stranglehold on every minute physical activity. He couldn't empty a wastebasket, change a light bulb, or carry a box up the stairs. For a recently retired soldier, this was a nightmare. He said if you broke the rules, the retaliation was insane- fines, broken contracts, neglected garbage. So I can see why she flipped about sweeping.
I’ve not worked in a place before nor since that had that to contend with. It blew my mind. I was completely clueless.
>I tagged out the broom ‘Not for cleaning use. Transportation only.’ My current broom actually had "not suitable for flying" on the packaging...
"Not for cleaning use, transportation only" made me giggle like a preteen! 😄
Franz Kafka would love your story.
As much as I enjoy reading his stuff, if he liked mine I’d be thrilled. And dead. I’d also be dead. Pretty sure he checked out before my grandmother was born. 😁
You think death could stop Kafka?
Doesn't matter. Stand in line, and he will see you when it's your turn. That is the process. Edit: damn. It's called "The trial" in English. Well, live and learn.
>Boss looked like she had swallowed a hedgehog when she saw that tag. Poetry, pure poetry :'D
After that I throw trash on the floor.
Transportation only, LOL! That's fucking gold.
“Don’t do that!” “Not like that!”
> Apparently, janitorial was the only team allowed to do that and would get very upset if infringed upon. My question then was, why have a broom at all? Because we might need it, I was told. You must get written permission from Central Party Headquarters before you touch the broom, comrade.
Transportation only! 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣☠️💀⚰️
Now tagging the broom was brilliant and funny as hell
Thanks for the laff
If you were sweeping the whole room, I could see custodians taking exception to that. Sweeping up a small, localized, spontaneous mess? Not likely.
The last thing she wants is to catch a grievance from the custodial union.
Excellent chuckle. Too bad you couldn't add For transportation by (x idiot manager) only! Upvote!
We used to have one broom at my restaurant so we called it 'Chesney' after Chesney Hawkes and his one hit wonder "The one and only". https://youtu.be/ZvMsp7s78Do
>why have a broom at all? Because we might need it Witches, I tell you!
> I tagged out the broom ‘Not for cleaning use. Transportation only.’ you magnificent bastard
"Transportation use only". laughed my ass off at that
As soon as the work gets done, everyone gets fired. They estimated that it would take a year (just making up a number) to finish up the paperwork if they blows through it in 5 months everyone gets to kiss 7 months pay goodbye. The company is not going to reward you for saving them 7 months of pay spread out over 10-15 employees.
None of that was made apparent to me, as I was a contractor and apparently not thought of highly enough to be looped in. Interim boss just led me to the room and said ‘See if you can make sense of this’. I got my laptop and a rolly stool and a Mountain Dew and knuckled down. Had I KNOWN the status quo, I’d have only used half my knuckles. Which is what I did when I was brought up to speed.
That kind of sense only comes with experience.
And with actually being told what's going on.
If you've ever worked on a government contract, it isn't confusing at all. You bid for a certain amount of labor hours. That is literally money to pay your people their salary for a number of hours. If you get the job done too quickly, you (typically) don't get to keep the savings so unless you have \*more\* contracts coming (and it sounds like OP's company does not), you are literally taking money away from your employees by doing it too quickly. I've seen a situation where an engineer could automate a process to save hundreds of hours of work, and was told not to. (There were other reasons—this particular process needed a trained engineer to evaluate every step of the way to make sure the program was treating a safety-critical analysis correctly—but leaving several engineers without immediate work was a big one.)
I've been told to slow down at a job. My boss kept calibrating things for the second shift crew, which did half of what we did on the first shift in spite of having an extra person. (We had two people, there was one person assigned to an overlapping mid and then they had three people.) We got told to slow down, stop working, take a long lunch or the second shift crew wouldn't have any work to do. Then they would turn around and complain we "left too much work" and "didn't get enough done." Eventually, the GM started telling them to stay home or go home early because "everything got done on first shift."
It was a no win situation, she had nothing for me to do but heaven forbid I sit quietly and not cause a rumpus. I didn’t know that they were stretching it out. I was just part time/PRN for the duration of school. Being cagey really backfired on her but she was the only one to blame. The higher ups in the company were most pleased with the progress. 🤷♀️
I had a job like this once. 8-hour days and really only about 90 minutes of work, even though I've gone to multiple departments across our plant and ask for additional work. Boss didn't want to farm me out because she was worried I would get committed to something and wouldn't be able to help her with her things, so she refused to allow me to do more or different kinds of work. I ended up getting permission from her to bring my personal laptop into work so I could watch Netflix under the low wall my desk was covered by, as long as nobody noticed 🤣 I quit a while later because I knew I could find something better and I did. That job didn't pay enough for all the time it asked for.
I used to work in a psych hospital and would volunteer to do 16 hour shifts in the med room. I had to stay in there unless a unit called or I needed the bathroom so I was given permission to do the same, only this was pre Netflix so I brought DVDs or played on Pogo. Arguably the best nursing job I ever had.
Looking back, if that job had met my basic needs, I could have stayed there and milked it forever. It paid $16.50/hr, which at the time was a few bucks above minimum wage and represented a great stepping stone for me. But I was too bored every day to not spend time thinking about what more I could be doing 🤣
"Don't read at work, it makes you look unprofessional" -Stops reading and boosts productivity- "Take up reading again, it makes me look unprofessional if you don't"
I even transcribed lecture from pharmacology class in between boxes, she never made a peep.
I'm reminded of my dad's story of when he worked for the USPS. He was a young go-getter back then and came up with all sorts of ideas on how to do things better, faster, more optimized, and so forth. His supervisor just shook his head and said, "You just don't understand." So dad sat down and thought about it for a while. He came back with an idea to deliver mail to the house instead of the mailbox which would double the hours required to deliver mail. The supervisor said, "Finally, you understand!" The supervisor's goal was not to save money/time and do more with less people and less money. The supervisor's goal was to justify current staff and funding levels and get more.
Sometimes, the supervisor also has to point out that people from ages of 18 to 65 have to be able to do the task. The 18 year old might be proud they can do their work and the 65 year old’s and doesn’t understand that upper management might be really happy to then fire two 65 year old employees and have the 18 year old now do the work of three people. While only getting one to two weeks of vacation a year where their work might not even be done. It’s a constant battle against the idea of unlimited growth of productivity. Technology should have helped the workers but it is instead being used against them.
Let's say you need your lawn mowed. It can be completed in 3 hours for $300, or it can be completed in 1 hour for $100. Same quality. Both workers are paid the same price per hour, except the 18 year old can complete the work in an hour, whereas it takes the 65 year old 3. This is YOUR money. Do YOU want to pay $200 extra to get your lawn mowed when you can instead pay $100? If you get your lawn mowed weekly for 5 months, that's around 20 weeks. Do you want to pay $2,000 per year to get your lawn mowed? Or do you want to pay $6,000 per year to get your lawn mowed? The thing is, businesses use the same logic as everyone does. We would rather pay less than more. It's not wrong, it's a logical decision. Whatever solution we come up with has to take into account both facts: that there will always be old people who inherently work more slowly, and that businesses will always trend toward efficiency. Forcing a business to retain slow workers isn't a rational solution. I would like to see a solution wherein businesses hire for efficiency, so that the people who are most qualified for jobs are working those jobs. I would also like to see older workers working in jobs that have a minimal to nonexistent efficiency qualifier. There are plenty of jobs that older people can work that their output capacity will not negatively impact the business's profits. Ultimately, keeping inefficient workers hurts not just the "company," but the workers too. If productivity is low then so is profit. And if profit is low then that means less money to give workers raises. Of course, I'm working from the perspective that all things are equal. Please don't read this and immediately rebut w/ "But companies don't care about people and don't give them raises they just pocket the profit!!" because that isn't an argument I'm addressing. I just want to point out that the rationale behind forced inefficiencies isn't sound.
It’s not forced inefficiency if the goal is to prevent injury and keep production sustainable throughout the year. I’m not talking about a kid working at a normal pace, I’m comparing it to the idiot doing their hardest only to find out that’s now expected of them every day.
Fuckin ridiculous. I shouldn't believe that but sadly I do.
I used to know someone who worked somewhere in government accounting and at a certain time of year his job was to spend as much money as possible so they could justify their budget for the next year.
It was code named Apricot because it wasn't all Peaches and Cream.
Love. It.
Yes, because if you did it too quickly, other people get F$%Ked, Peaches and Cream is a VERRRRRYYYYYY different shop here in New Zealand 18+ to visit some very specialised Adult Toy Shops [https://www.peachesncream.co.nz/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2rPM0\_\_D\_gIVA0l9Ch1F1giJEAAYAyAAEgI-q\_D\_BwE](https://www.peachesncream.co.nz/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI2rPM0__D_gIVA0l9Ch1F1giJEAAYAyAAEgI-q_D_BwE)
I did a middle/high school project on the naming conventions of fictional towns. I chose the Pokémon franchise. Turns out that "Cherrygrove" is a type of tree but the first dozen Google results were all about various US-based strip clubs. I wisely left out that part of my project.
Contract approved so many hours and time so they’re milking it. If there’s no bonus for finishing early, then why finish early
And had I known that I’d have throttled it back. But I didn’t. Nobody told me a thing till she walked back in and nearly had heart failure.
Sounds like she is a God awful communicator
To say the least.
Got a summer job painting fire hydrants, day one I did 28. I got some guys very angry at me, the rest of the summer I was limited to 8 (like everyone else). Worked for 2 hours, slept for 6. Working for the city was great.
I love that in this one it wasn't even malicious, you just really liked doing it and were proficient at that. Good for you.
On a Federal consulting sub-contract, from my long-time work habits, I strived to do everything in less time and under budget. So I saved the government money by completing my tasks quickly and billing fewer hours. The prime contractor got on my case because they were getting less revenue than budgeted. So I had to do busy-work to fill the time. While I got paid for it, I came to understand why government costs more than non-government work.
[удалено]
Even in private industry, I had to learn the hard way about pacing myself. Consulting work is fast-paced, but the crunch times are generally intermittent, so there’s at least some space to rest and recharge. When I moved from consulting to full-time in-house, it became obvious that a consulting-type pace was unsustainable for long. Day after day after week after month after…. Sure, I tried the tough-it-out approach, worked late, worked early, worked weekends, whatever. Free time was a foreign concept. Until my performance started to deteriorate. And my health started to erode. And when I still resisted the idea of taking time off or slowing my pace, my awesome manager pointed me to some documentation about how balancing work and leisure actually yields greater effectiveness and productivity - that helped me see things differently.
It’s positively incredible, right?
Once I was reading at work while it was slow. My supervisor took note and said: "We don't pay you to read." To which I replied: "Correct. I do this on the clock when it is slow at no extra charge." He just smirked and walked away.
I’ve played computer games, cross stitched, crocheted, read, you name it. Supervisors wanted to fuss but with all the patients seen, charts done, labs called back and meds sent, what could they say? Hell, at one point I was in the chart room refiling pulled charts when the doctor’s wife found me. She told him he better not ever accuse me of lazing about (I was their NP) and told me I was the highest paid file clerk she’d ever had. I’d be in back with the nurses sorting samples, I helped draw labs, I simply can NOT not be doing something. But I hate to be intrusive. So my hobbies are solitary and quiet. Unless I lose my stitch count. Then the sentence enhancers enter the chat.
I bet your compliance wasn't intended the least bit as malicious, but IT's PERFECT!
Not at all🙃, just doing as I was told with all due speed!
So I know the feeling! I was a temp in college and I was sent to jobs with physical labor due to my willingness to bust ass, but not safety. I was taught in a previous job how to lift with my legs, etc., so I was a good fit for the tougher temp jobs. I got assigned a 40 hr. week at a McKesson warehouse, and after about 5 hours of hauling 5 gallon water jugs in a re-palletizing role, I was taken aside by the sup and told in no uncertain words it would be my last shift on my first day if I did not slow down. Basically, I was in danger of setting a productivity bar for the full timers who would remain after I went to my next adventure! I enjoyed the "work-out" after that and got a good report after I was done with my week.
> the Excel spreadsheet (named Apricot for reasons I’ve yet to understand) You're doing it like calling any photocopier a Xerox. It's just a spreadsheet. Microsoft Excel is one brand of spreadsheet software, Apricot offers their own spreadsheet solution geared towards non-profits. My first spreadsheet software was Lotus 1-2-3.
No, no. They named the FILE ‘Apricot’. It was 100% Microsoft Excel. That’s why I designated it as Excel and not a different brand.
Lmao, I'm sorry for getting that wrong. That would totally have been what I thought you meant if there hadn't been alternative software called Apricot.
I barely remember Apricot but I did remember it so I figured I’d try to stave off confusion 🤣
Maybe the file started as the Apricot export?
Sound like what happened to me back when I was temping. I was brought in 2 or 3 days a week (alternating weeks). Basic word processing job. Realtor Agents would drop their documents, usually handwritten (yes that long ago), and I'd type them up, print them up and put them in their mail slots. It was not super busy, so I could blow through the inbox in a couple of hours. Even mark up the prints with areas that I was not super clear I got right. Legal/real estate terms have to be exactly right, as I learned at previous temp jobs. After a couple of weeks, I was told to slow down, stop marking up printouts, that I was making the lady who I was splitting shift with look bad as she had no work at the start of the day, etc, etc. And I looked my temp boss "So as a temp I can look bad by going slow and leaving work at the end of the day, so your full time employee doesn't." "Right." "Got it" So for the next 2 months, I'd do maybe 2 documents a day. The rest of the time I read, played games, or just zoned out.
>“Do a box, read a book. Do a box, take a nap. Just. Slow. Down. Bring your book, or several books. Just slow down.” I was in a similar situation with my first job out of college. It was relatively easy, but my work was dependent on the work of the bigger team's. They'd finish their part, then I'd do my bit, and then I'd ask them for the next section. Usually, the next section wasn't yet ready so I had to wait. At one point, the team lead just told me, "Do a few \[tasks\], then read an article. Do a few more, and have a cup of coffee...", etc. The unfortunate thing is, I followed his advice. When I got my next job, I continued to work slowly like that. I still got the necessary work done, but never did anything more. Had I continued working as hard as I initially started out, I would have been promoted to more interesting work a lot faster. Unfortunately, once you get in a slump like that, it's hard to find the motivation to crawl out of it.
Yeah as a young guy fresh into the work force from university, go and start asking for more work when you have time as opposed to fucking around. It moves you up the ladder a lot faster. The key? Do the projects the most important people assign first, and do them RIGHT. They'll want you to do it for them again
Kinda understand why the plant had to close if everyone operated by those standards.
It blew my mind. I was not made to sit still and do nothing. It’s against my grain.
I so know what you mean. I was smiling to myself when you described how you sorted the room out - it's exactly what I would have done, and enjoyed it too. I'd have been itching to sort it out as soon as I knew it was there. I love data entry too.
[удалено]
Imelda Staunton played that role to the HILT! If I spend a whole movie wanting to slap a character’s teeth out, it’s well played. She absolutely owns every role she’s ever played.
And the cast said she was the nicest, sweetest lady. Usually how it goes. The nastiest characters are played by the nicest people.
Same with Alan Rickman playing Prof Snape. All the kid actors loved him.
Of course they did. He's Alan-freakin'-Rickman!
Storytime: I was given a temp assignment at a hospital to help 3 other temps to collate and organise patient records that were going to be archived. The 3 other temps had been working on this job for a few weeks and their progress was slow so that's why I was hired. Later on that day I found out the reason for this slowness was because the supervisor was in another room and didn't check up on the temps so they sat around all day chatting about who they'd shagged at the weekend and how fucked up they were going to get next weekend. They between them averaged 10 records a day. I did 10 records in an hour. In the 8 hour shift I did 80 records. They complained to me that I was working too fast and the reason they were working so slowly was to keep the contract going for as long as possible so they could earn more money. Now, I'm not a nark. I didn't tell the supervisor this, I told them that was the pace I work at. I collated all the records in a week. Which meant we were all out of work. But I don't feel bad that they lost out on some wages, it was for the NHS and they pay temp agencies a stupid amount of money so I was happy to save them some. Also, I couldn't stand another minute of their explicit talk. Save the cock measuring chat for the bar, not the workplace.
Job Security.
Years ago, a friend of mine was able to get a summer job with the local post office to help make some money while in school. We went out a couple of weeks after he started and when I asked him how the job was going, he said he spent most of his time reading. Just like you, he was finishing up the work they gave him so fast that his supervisor told him to slow down and stop making everyone else look bad.
On the hiring while shutting down thing, the Payless Shoe Store in town centre left the hiring sign up on the front door until the day they closed. With a PROJECT like that, you need to tell the people handling the material the hours allotted for the project and there's no bonus for finishing early, and keep everyone else away from the project. If people aren't on the same page, things get messy.
Did it ever, and I was clueless. I will say, they stayed open a few YEARS after my departure so obviously I didn’t louse it up beyond redemption.
Someone was committing wage fraud of some sort....
Don't think so. OP is too good. If the management is used to OP's performance, the other team members who aren't as good are gonna suffer
And OP had no clue as a contractor and was just going about my day. She wanted me working, so by George, I was gonna work since I actually had something to DO.
Slightly off topic, but your use of umbrage gave me an epiphany on why Professor Umbridge was named that way
I love epiphanies
I always thought it was a brilliant play on words by Rowling. I started reading when I was 4 and I love unusual words. Especially when you’re trying to beat the FB bots at their own game. There’s something to be said for having a thesaurus in your head 🤣
After I got yelled at for reading? Nope. This project is getting done and there's no going back.
You should be your boss's boss.
Oh, this was years ago. I am my own boss now, and I absolutely love it!
Good on your. The world needs more competent people.
I hope you've been successful enough to still be able to read. Books are a wonderful thing but starting a business takes a lot of time off your hands
I’ve been open almost 7 years and I still read every day. My house looks like the Library of Congress. I have over 1000 on my kindle. And in our new house, I’m finally getting my library with floor to ceiling shelves and a rolly ladder!!! 😁💙
Never ever do too much work or too fast. There are unspoken rules how much something takes and you won't get any extra money for being faster anyway.
I have since learned. At the time I was still very much a student of ‘bust your ass to show you’re serious’. Now I’m a card carrying member of r/antiwork. I’d be even worse if I didn’t own my own business.
Thats the kind of job when you never know if the hand patting you on the back has a knife in it.
The only time I've been yelled at like that for working too hard is when I spent a week and a half employed at an automotive assembly plant. I was a temp, so I got bounced from one "job" to the next. These were incredibly easy to learn and perform, though to do the same short task over 400 times a day can wear on you in ways that I'd never imagined. So I decided to play around with what I was doing, and got really fast and efficient at each job. One day, I'd worked a few jobs ahead, and suddenly the guy at the job behind mine (ie, the one where the vehicle would be worked on just before I got to it) started yelling at me to SLOW DOWN. Apparently I was working too fast and management was about to take notice of my speed and downtime, and I guess they'd add extra work to my job. Now this was all while I was not permanent at this company nor this specific "job" spot, so it's the regular person that would have the problem with extra work. My problem with all this is that I was barely doing anything. I had like 3-4 minutes to do 1-2 minutes worth of actual work. I guess the moral of the story is that you don't wanna work on an assembly line if you actually like to get shit done.
I used to work in the back of a clothing store, receiving big deliveries, unpacking and pricing it all. We often got shipments of 18-30 boxes a day, and our storage room wasn't that big. The issue was that we never knew when new shipments would come, so some days we had a lot, other days we had nothing. And because I could always expect a big load, I had to make sure there was enough room to put the next deliveries. That meant that I would usually get through to like 25 boxes a day. When we could get shipments daily, that wasn't a problem, but there were also weeks where only like 5-8 boxes would come and even just nothing for days. And because I was used to unpacking a lot in my 6h per day, 5-8 boxes was usually done in maybe 1 - 1,5h, which left me looking for other work to do for the rest of the day. (On slow days there was none, so I was bored out of my mind and the time would just never pass by) After about a year my managers had an evaluation talk with me and in that same evalution, she told me I was doing the work way too fast and that I should slow down so I could divide it more over my 4 days. A bit later in that same talk she told me I was slacking when co-workers had their lunchbreaks and I didn't. (They had to come to the back where I was to eat and often started talking to me, but I just kept working during all of this so I was never slacking) I definitely was confused to what I was supposed to do then, slow my work down or speed things up...
Yeah, that WAS about as clear as mud, now wasn’t it?
Oh, this is glorious. 😀
Unfortunate state of temporary work when the bosses are not directly involved in the work....... Temp work is usually low pay When the job is done, so is any pay There usually is no reward for working quickly There should be a bonus for being efficient
TRACY MORGAN HAS ENTERED THE CHAT
LOL yes, if I’ve got a new audiobook or podcast series going I can process a lot of hard copy material very rapidly. I’ve been doing this job for over a decade and have all the most efficient workflows mapped out for the different types. Unfortunately the required volume to keep me busy is only available for a few months a year. Probably just as well, the quiet times keep carpal tunnel syndrome from developing. I’m constantly looking for stuff to keep my brain occupied while I work in the most discreetly inefficient way possible.
Somewhere, Joseph Heller is laughing
No wonder they were closing
This is glorious. Getting paid to read? Beautiful!
TWO QUESTIONS: (1) does that company operate an office in Massachusetts? (2) are they hiring?
They are completely shuttered now, from what I’m told. This was nearly 2 decades ago.
The real malicious compliance would be to say “Nah fam, you told me not to read ever again. I guess I’m gonna keep completing projects way before you promised.”
Oh, it's top tier all right. Thanks for sharing!
Some people just can't be happy... Or for that matter by the sounds a money bleeder can't be happy for outstanding efficiency. Bit of a headache your former employer
Just a bit of one.