If only

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by glatt

big snip~ 20 years ago, people would goof off by visiting with co-workers at the water cooler. Now they do it on the Web. Same thing.

Not exactly. One employee goofing off on the web is better than two, or more, at the water cooler. Two on the web are not dependent on the other to stop. Soooo, it's more gooder.

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by glatt

They close whatever they are reading, and I pretend I didn't see it.

I just want to revisit this particular note because it is central to the whole matter. Glatt of course you're doing the right thing if your people are otherwise fine. Your approach means you understand the matter. But the dynamic here is definitely I'm not supposed to be doing this and I am hiding it as well as possible because you are supposed to demerit me if you catch me.

So you've noted that "coffee breaks" are not only acceptable but promote productivity, but your people are worried and act guilty when you catch them at this productivity-increasing activity.

Is this dynamic working? On the face of it, I bet you're a better manager than 19 out of 20 managers, simply because you DO ignore it. In your group there is only a little less of a trustful relationship than in other groups. There is only a little disconnect.

I tellya, the last manager who caught me Cellarizing and bitched at me up and down for it, was left holding the bag, as I was out of there six weeks later and gave an exit interview that put it all on her.

Now I admit to being a problem child. Under manager "A" I was the smartest, most productive employee who worked extremely hard to improve the organization. Under manager "B" I spread wide dissatisfaction and eventually left. Manager "A" was considerate, respectful, gave me space, and recognized the work I did... and so I quickly became the top person. Manager "B" used the carrot-and-stick approach, except without the carrot, and within months I pretty much gave up on doing a lot of good work.

I just won't stand for a lot of disrespect.

[zippyt]

A poor girl want to marry ,
A rich girl wants to flirt ,
A rich man goes to collage ,
A poor man goes to work !!


Sorry but I have to take issue with this , " folks surfing should get canned "
I work generly a 70+ hour week , starting early and finising late ,5-6-and some times 7 days a week , and I meen WORK , hard heavy work ( I am a scale tech ) , and I have to be able to switch from swinging a sledge hammer and directing a crew and a crane to programming a batching system and makeing the suites and ties happy , Some times I get to surf when I am waiting ( for hours some time ) for a train to pull some cars for me to calabrate or check a scale , Hell I have waited for 3 days for a crane once , some times I come here to break the mennotiney of the day , other times I am looking for some thing to solve a problem ( find some weird ass widget that will go BING when the button is pushed ) . I work hard and I play hard , Yes I EARN EVERY FUCKING DOLLOR I MAKE , AHHHHHHHHHHHH !!!!

You Fucking Rich KIDS !!!
NO FUCKING SENCE !!!
NO REAL WORLD EXPERENCE !!!
Think you KNOW IT FUCKING ALLL !!!!
AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Sorry , just had to get that off my cheast .

[orthodoc]

Originally Posted by zippyt

A poor girl want to marry ,
A rich girl wants to flirt ,
A rich man goes to collage ,




You Fucking Rich KIDS !!!
NO FUCKING SENCE !!!
NO REAL WORLD EXPERENCE !!!
Think you KNOW IT FUCKING ALLL !!!!

I was a poor girl who went to college without a single PENNY from my parents and got more 'real world experience' in that time than you have likely had in your entire union-protected life. You say you have hours and sometimes DAYS without anything to do on the job - and you consider that 'hard work'? Try keeping up with an ER nurse for a single shift. He/she doesn't get hours off to surf, he/she gets neither lunch nor dinner on a 12 hour shift when the ambulances keep rolling in. And if you're going to say, he/she chose the job, so did you. Quit raging at your convenient scapegoat. If you don't like your life, learn another skill, broaden your options, do something about it. If you really like your situation, lose the chip on the shoulder.

[Iggy]

Originally Posted by orthodoc

I was a poor girl who went to college without a single PENNY from my parents and got more 'real world experience' in that time than you have likely had in your entire union-protected life. You say you have hours and sometimes DAYS without anything to do on the job - and you consider that 'hard work'? Try keeping up with an ER nurse for a single shift. He/she doesn't get hours off to surf, he/she gets neither lunch nor dinner on a 12 hour shift when the ambulances keep rolling in. And if you're going to say, he/she chose the job, so did you. Quit raging at your convenient scapegoat. If you don't like your life, learn another skill, broaden your options, do something about it. If you really like your situation, lose the chip on the shoulder.

I am a poor girl without a penny, but I haven't been able to get help for college (so far). The problem is I need my father's financial information to fill out the FAFSA and he would not give it to me until it was too late to apply for that year. And no one, I repeat, NO ONE, would even consider me for loans unless I had already done the FAFSA.

When I finally did get it done, I wasn't eligible for grants (so far I don't know about the loans... but I should be able to get them *crosses fingers*) because me and my dad made too much together. But I think under $25,000 each per year is not nearly enough to pay for college on my own. And I haven't gotten financial aid in anything from my dad since I got a job when I was 16. I am definitely open to suggestions as to where to get loans and similar things, seeing as how I haven't been able to find any helpful ones yet. I have also applied for scholarships, and no luck there as of yet. But I keep trying.

I'm not trying to pick on you, but just because you were able to get loans and stuff doesn't mean that everyone else can. There is a large population of students that make just enough that they don’t get help, but not quite enough to pay for college all on their own. That is whey there are loans, but again, so far I haven’t been able to get them because of my father.

I have only been able to go to college part time because it was all out of pocket and that was all I could afford. Just recently I got tuition reimbursement through my job, but that only covers about 50% of all of the expenses I incur when I go to school.

I will admit that college can be a lot harder than working at a regular job. Things also work differently. At college, you can work and study constantly and still have room for improvement. The difference is that at a job sometimes there is only so much you can do. That doesn't make those employees left with nothing to do less than you. It just means they are doing something different and they don't have to work as hard, and many times can't. But that doesn’t mean they are “slacking” and need to be fired.

9th, you say that all those who goof off at work should be fired because they could be getting so much done. But that isn’t always the case. You are in a completely different field (i.e. school) then the workforce so you can’t say that what you do is the same. I think it is much more difficult then working a regular job and that is because you need to apply yourself constantly to be where you want to be. I just want you to see that most jobs don’t work that way. And again, that doesn’t make them less than you. Not everyone can be a bioengineer. There are many other jobs that need workers to do them, and many of those jobs will have some free time in between the tasks that must be completed. Just my 2 cents.

Edit: I should add that I work full time so I am no longer pennyless, but I don't have any extra money after bills to pay for college.

[Undertoad]

If you wanted to do work that you found fufilling then you should have gotten the skills to do it while in college.

Guess what, I did.

You can take a course on management theory if you don't agree with what I'm saying. You might want to look up Theory X versus Theory Y management styles for a start. Understanding these very important principles made me a successful manager for a while.

By the way, you'll remember my words in about a decade when you realize that being smart and going to a good college entitles you to exactly

JACK SHIT

To get a sense of how this works, you might talk to all the highly-trained, highly-respected, and utterly unemployable nuclear engineers that graduated 25 years ago.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by 9th Engineer

I think that employers have the right to moniter ALL activity at all times on all company owned computers and make any judgements they want about how employees can use them.

Yes, they do have the right to do those things. But what you will find is they don't have the desire to. See, when you are in college, especially higher degree programs, you are surrounded by people who are motivated and intelligent, and you begin to think this is the norm. If one person isn't giving it their all, just fire them and hire another. But in the real world, truly useful and talented employees are rare, and it is more than worth it to an employer to keep them happy with perks--such as an unrestrictive internet policy.

[zippyt]

in the real world, truly useful and talented employees are rare, and it is more than worth it to an employer to keep them happy with perks--such as an unrestrictive internet policy.


EXACTAMUNDO !!!

Folks that Will answer the phone at 2 AM on a saterday , pack up and leave for a job accross the country at a moments notice , and actualy be trust worthy , so you DON'T have to worry about them Fucking up ,etc,,,,
When some body like this needs a few hours to deal with his wifes car , because it is dead , well you learn to be flexable , if they are waiting for a call back from an engineer and they are surfing , WHAT is WRONG with this ????

[BobT]

Much to my dismay, I was thrust into a management position early in my career. I had to learn that the people that worked for me were not as motivated, and in many cases not as intelligent as I. The other lesson was that despite the fact that they were not performing their tasks in the same fashion as I would have, the job was getting done “satisfactorily”. Industry survives on “satisfactory” performance.

If the work product of the individual is “satisfactory”, their annual job review should reflect a “satisfactory” evaluation. If their work product is suffering from too much time “on the net” they should be placed on probation and considered for replacement as a “unit of production” in the workplace. Likewise, if an employee is exceeding their work expectation, then they should get a “superior” review, and a “superior” raise. If a worker has too much “spare” time on their hands, then it could be their supervisor’s fault. They may be being asked to accomplish too little in their work day. Additional tasks should be found for them. This is a test of their manager’s supervisory skills.

Some of the most productive workers in American history have been those who take frequent “breaks”. Thomas Edison, for one, comes to mind. If you study his work habits you will find that he took frequent breaks. I don’t think that anyone can find fault with the sum total of his work product.

[9th Engineer]

With the exception of perhaps JA's position I still think the whole issue is a rotten apple. I agree that frequent breaks are a good idea, the Japanese have put it to great success, but most office workers spend more than 10 hours a day at the office! As an aside, a Japanese office worker would probably think he was about to be fired if he found himself with sizable chunks of free time in the day, they believe that "those who can do the work, get the work". I'm not singling out individuals here and saying "If you don't spend every minute of your shift working as fast as you can then you're a lazy bum!". If a valuable employee has too little to do then his management is messing up, if it's an excuse of "well the world works by getting by on average" then ask yourself if you think it has anything to do with our failing industry practices. Not everything can be conveniently blamed on top management.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by 9th Engineer

If a valuable employee has too little to do then his management is messing up, if it's an excuse of "well the world works by getting by on average" then ask yourself if you think it has anything to do with our failing industry practices. Not everything can be conveniently blamed on top management.

If you haven't checked lately, American workers are the most productive in the world.
Most jobs depend on interaction with others.
Visualize a well oiled machine....got that?
It's nothing like that. It's herky, jerky, pulsing and surging, through no fault of the workers.


I've had the great displeasure of being the dreaded Time Study Man. That vile taker of bread from mouths of babies...the grinch that stole a night out on the town.
I can tell you with great confidence, Corporate America is dancing in the boardrooms, when workers are productive 6.5 hours out of 8.

[Undertoad]

I had to learn that the people that worked for me were not as motivated, and in many cases not as intelligent as I.

Part of the job of manager is to motivate. Part of the job of manager is to develop one's people.

Now, very rarely is the manager given the tools or clearance to really do that, or even the example, which is why --

Not everything can be conveniently blamed on top management.

Yeah, not everything. The current tw figure is 85% of all problems can be traced to top management. I think that's a little understated.

[busterb]

Not everything can be conveniently blamed on top management.

Yeah, not everything. The current tw figure is 85% of all problems can be traced to top management. I think that's a little understated.

I'm sure top management had nothing to with why my new washer has no lint filter. Boy they must have saved +- 3 cents a unit.
If the 9th engineer needs a nice summer job, I just might can help him find a nice place in oil field work. Welding crews, offshore, all kinds of construction. A live look at the work world. all in fun of course.

[JayMcGee]

justifications, Nineth, not reasons......

[BobT]

Originally Posted by morethanpretty
I will NOT allow my thread to be hijacked! I am intensly curious as to what the cellarites think of the Real Doll! I must needs to know! NOW!

OK...here it goes.....i could probably jerk off with a pair of pliers (spanner) if it were done gently, but the idea of hugging the severed torso of a blow-up doll is spooky. my hand has served me well through my 58th birthday. Blow up, $5,000 dolls make my skin crawl.