Work sucks..

[Phalex]

"If you hold the reigns too tight the horse will buck" ~ Sherman T. Potter U.S. army (retired)

Be prepared for the exodus. I've seen it many times. In three months or so, there'll be tons of new fresh face faces that don't have a clue as to what's going on.

 

[L-A]

The situation went from mutual trust to an adversarial approach to interacting with employees.

Have your resume handy. If do you land another job soon, explain your decision to her superior if possible.

I don't know who's aware of her attitude in the hierarchy, but sometimes managers have to remember that income comes from the bottom up, and employee relations have to happen accordingly.

 

[Sixpack324]

sixpack, thanks for that insight. There's really a lot more to this than I can post here but I need to be careful. Having 3 kids myself, I often give them similar advice as what you mention about "rolling up the sleeves and doing what needs to be done" That's why I'm still where I'm at. I like my job and that's exactly why this is ticking me off so much.

In regards to things like sick days - it's a lot similar to breaks and such. We're allowed a certain number and so long as we stayed around that, it was fine. If it was ever abused we'd be called out on that. I can't argue with that fairness at all. But now? As I mentioned in an earlier post, I got called out for coming back from break 2 SECONDS late. TWO SECONDS, no bs. That to me and everyone else here, that borders on harassment. Normally, I'm 2, 3 minutes EARLY coming back as I've got stuff to do. Often I'll even work right through my break. Will I come back early or work through break now? Hell no. They just lost 2 to 15 minutes working time for trying to grab 2 seconds. See what I mean? That concept is biting them in the arse now with sick days. Everyone's hesitant now about calling out sick. Yesterday we had almost 8 people out with the same bug. If the first person who was sick would have stayed the hell home and not come in and spread it around? By forcing people in, they're actually ending up with more people out!
Emails/praise from the boss - well they included verifiable numbers and client feedback so either my boss is outright fabricating info or we're being seriously misled. If we're not doing well and are being lied to, how can that help?
As an employee, if my company is doing poorly, then COMMUNICATE that to me. Tell me we're in danger, tell me productivity needs to rise, tell me how we're going to do that, tell me what I can do to help, tell me that things like breaks and sick time and working from home programs need to change, TELL ME!!! Dont sit there and just tell me that "we're going to take it to a new level" or "we're going to raise the bar" you know and I know that that's just empty corporate-speak. I've been here for 13 years, I think that I've earned a bit of honesty. If things are failing then it's teamwork that's going to get us out of it. Destroying morale will NOT help. Part of leadership training is the knowledge of how morale effects productivity. If you ignore that, then what else is being ignored?

You're right about the teamwork, but here's the thing.....Corporate America doesn't care.

Why? Because they know they can replace you in a heartbeat and for less money.

Here's how it works in my industry...

You hire a supervisor for a particular project. He's hired with a particular work description at $XXX,XXX.00/year. Shortly after he starts, his responsibilities are increased because corporate doesn't want to hire someone else even though there is enough of a workload to justify another salary. They are saving a salary. After a few months, the supervisor becomes disgruntled with the extra workload and complains. He's given a small raise. Even though the company is spending more money on him, it's still less than a full-time salary for another person. A few months after he gets the raise, his workload is increased again....Few months later, he complains and gets another raise. Then more work...then a raise....then more work....Now, he's making 30% more than a supervisor should, but the company is still in the black on the situation, because they aren't paying another employee's salary. Now, his project is finished. Guess what....He gets laid off and they bring in a new supervisor, starting at a low base salary, for the new project and the cycle starts over again. By doing this, the company saves an incredible amount of money every year.

This is the way Corporate America operates.

I don't know what you do for a living, but maybe you should look for a position with a smaller company. Maybe even family-owned and operated. Pensions, 401k's will probably be nonexistent or very low grade and the health benefits won't be as good, but, as I tell my kids.........Life's about trade-offs.

To the second monitoring of breaks and an adversarial attitude toward employees ARE disrespect.

I think a lot of companies are going to find themselves dealing with a lot of employee replacement once the economy starts churning again - and some are going to find their poor treatment of employees during an employers market will come back to bite them when it's vice versa.

While I agree with your sentiment, I don't think it's disrespect. It's managing the business according to the rules. I would never be that anal, but, it isn't disrespect.....An arguement could be made that coming back late from a break is disrespectful to the company. Look at it this way.....

Your salary is based on 40 hrs/week, with breaks factored in. If you come back 2 seconds late from every break, times two breaks a day, that's 4 seconds/day......times 225 working days/year is 900 seconds, which is 15 minutes. Multiply that times 500 employees (a conservative number as some corporations employ thousands of employees), that's 125 hours/year a company is paying for that aren't being worked. $125 hours x $50/hour (you may not be paid $50/hr, but if you make $30/hr, you're costing the employer about $50/hr due to taxes, liability/workmen's comp insurance, etc.) is $6,250.00 paid by the company for hours not worked. It might not seem like a large sum to you, but I know I couldn't afford to pay that for nothing.

 

[L-A]

^ 6,250$ annually split over 500 employees doesn't really make for an impressive example

Keeping the staff healthy and its morale high can represent a six-figures annual saving for a company that offers health coverage to its 500 employees.

Addendum: I know this sort of corporate rethoric happens all the time, especially in the United States. I'm just commenting on the pointlessness of it.

 

[nutdog]

Employees can be lazy and inefficient. I see it all the time and have been guilty myself. Some people are self motivated and don't require monitoring, most aren't. Not saying anything about your personal predicament, but speaking to the folks making general statements about corporations. Some bosses are jerks, but a lot of people will do nothing if they can get a way with it.

I go in and out of different companies and work with people from the president to the janitors. I should probably try to contract on a fee basis to get paid for every time I walk in and find people doing nothing only to have them tell me how busy they are so that's why something isn't done. But I bet no manager would take me up on it.

 

[Balog]

As aborgman has pointed out, the (perhaps counter intuitive) fact is that slave driving, micro managing pricks as bosses actually decreases productivity. If you treat your employees as wage slaves, that's the level of work you'll get.

 

[Relic]

You're right about the teamwork, but here's the thing.....Corporate America doesn't care.

Why? Because they know they can replace you in a heartbeat and for less money.

Here's how it works in my industry...

You hire a supervisor for a particular project. He's hired with a particular work description at $XXX,XXX.00/year. Shortly after he starts, his responsibilities are increased because corporate doesn't want to hire someone else even though there is enough of a workload to justify another salary. They are saving a salary. After a few months, the supervisor becomes disgruntled with the extra workload and complains. He's given a small raise. Even though the company is spending more money on him, it's still less than a full-time salary for another person. A few months after he gets the raise, his workload is increased again....Few months later, he complains and gets another raise. Then more work...then a raise....then more work....Now, he's making 30% more than a supervisor should, but the company is still in the black on the situation, because they aren't paying another employee's salary. Now, his project is finished. Guess what....He gets laid off and they bring in a new supervisor, starting at a low base salary, for the new project and the cycle starts over again. By doing this, the company saves an incredible amount of money every year.

This is the way Corporate America operates.

I don't know what you do for a living, but maybe you should look for a position with a smaller company. Maybe even family-owned and operated. Pensions, 401k's will probably be nonexistent or very low grade and the health benefits won't be as good, but, as I tell my kids.........Life's about trade-offs.



While I agree with your sentiment, I don't think it's disrespect. It's managing the business according to the rules. I would never be that anal, but, it isn't disrespect.....An arguement could be made that coming back late from a break is disrespectful to the company. Look at it this way.....

Your salary is based on 40 hrs/week, with breaks factored in. If you come back 2 seconds late from every break, times two breaks a day, that's 4 seconds/day......times 225 working days/year is 900 seconds, which is 15 minutes. Multiply that times 500 employees (a conservative number as some corporations employ thousands of employees), that's 125 hours/year a company is paying for that aren't being worked. $125 hours x $50/hour (you may not be paid $50/hr, but if you make $30/hr, you're costing the employer about $50/hr due to taxes, liability/workmen's comp insurance, etc.) is $6,250.00 paid by the company for hours not worked. It might not seem like a large sum to you, but I know I couldn't afford to pay that for nothing.

I hear you about corporations, I've worked for one or another for the past 25 years..
But in regards to your response to aborgman-
That's all well and good, but should it NOT be a problem that the company is not paying attention to the EXTRA time they were getting when folks felt that working through breaks, leaving late to ensure that work was done on time etc etc was appreciated and noted? They gain 15 mins over a year by attacking that 2 seconds but have lost almost an hour in the course of a week from me working through breaks, coming back early from lunch and so on. So how is that good "business sense"? See what I mean?

 

[fdeck]

Employees can be lazy and inefficient. I see it all the time and have been guilty myself. Some people are self motivated and don't require monitoring, most aren't. Not saying anything about your personal predicament, but speaking to the folks making general statements about corporations. Some bosses are jerks, but a lot of people will do nothing if they can get a way with it.

It is my guess that the monitoring is simply part of the new boss's performance metrics.

I go in and out of different companies and work with people from the president to the janitors. I should probably try to contract on a fee basis to get paid for every time I walk in and find people doing nothing only to have them tell me how busy they are so that's why something isn't done. But I bet no manager would take me up on it.

And what do you expect them to tell you?

 

[nutdog]

And what do you expect them to tell you?

At one point in time I expected them to do their job. How silly of me. They are under such duress. Did I mention the part where their boss is usually standing over them with whip while they are doing nothing?

One interesting phenomenon: When I do get a guy that wants to learn, works hard and does a good job, it's not too long before he moves up the ladder.

 

[Relic]

At one point in time I expected them to do their job. How silly of me. They are under such duress. Did I mention the part where their boss is usually standing over them with whip while they are doing nothing?

One interesting phenomenon: When I do get a guy that wants to learn, works hard and does a good job, it's not too long before he moves up the ladder.

But it's not that simple. You'll have bosses that crack a whip but do little themselves, you'll have some that are excellent motivators and communicators, you'll have those who are where they are because they know someone and are otherwise worthless, and the same goes for employees - many (if not most) will goof off at times, some will take advantage of things, some will work their butts off and on and on it goes. The bottom line is you have to reach a happy medium, both parties have to understand that their relationship is symbiotic - you got to give a little and take a little. If you do it right, you reach a balance where folks are happy, work's getting done and most everyone concerned is motivated by common goals and a common sense of "team". Once you F that up, it had BETTER be for a damn good reason because it's a long hard road to reach that point.

 

[EBodious]

MASH quotes, ftw!

can you imagine what her personal life is like? just keep repeating over and over throughout your day:

thank g-d i am not married to her!

 

[Jonyak]

IMO one of the biggest mistakes companies can make is treating their employees like machinery.

 

[jmattbassplaya]

sixpack, thanks for that insight. There's really a lot more to this than I can post here but I need to be careful. Having 3 kids myself, I often give them similar advice as what you mention about "rolling up the sleeves and doing what needs to be done" That's why I'm still where I'm at. I like my job and that's exactly why this is ticking me off so much.

In regards to things like sick days - it's a lot similar to breaks and such. We're allowed a certain number and so long as we stayed around that, it was fine. If it was ever abused we'd be called out on that. I can't argue with that fairness at all. But now? As I mentioned in an earlier post, I got called out for coming back from break 2 SECONDS late. TWO SECONDS, no bs. That to me and everyone else here, that borders on harassment. Normally, I'm 2, 3 minutes EARLY coming back as I've got stuff to do. Often I'll even work right through my break. Will I come back early or work through break now? Hell no. They just lost 2 to 15 minutes working time for trying to grab 2 seconds. See what I mean? That concept is biting them in the arse now with sick days. Everyone's hesitant now about calling out sick. Yesterday we had almost 8 people out with the same bug. If the first person who was sick would have stayed the hell home and not come in and spread it around? By forcing people in, they're actually ending up with more people out!
Emails/praise from the boss - well they included verifiable numbers and client feedback so either my boss is outright fabricating info or we're being seriously misled. If we're not doing well and are being lied to, how can that help?
As an employee, if my company is doing poorly, then COMMUNICATE that to me. Tell me we're in danger, tell me productivity needs to rise, tell me how we're going to do that, tell me what I can do to help, tell me that things like breaks and sick time and working from home programs need to change, TELL ME!!! Dont sit there and just tell me that "we're going to take it to a new level" or "we're going to raise the bar" you know and I know that that's just empty corporate-speak. I've been here for 13 years, I think that I've earned a bit of honesty. If things are failing then it's teamwork that's going to get us out of it. Destroying morale will NOT help. Part of leadership training is the knowledge of how morale effects productivity. If you ignore that, then what else is being ignored?

Amen, brotha.

 

[MakiSupaStar]

Is she hot? Is she asian?

 

[jmattbassplaya]

Is she hot? Is she asian?

My man!

 

[experimental bassist]

Oh, I can relate to this.

It is the changing times of our modern workplace.

Your supervisor is reacting perfectly normally to this situation:

1. She is trying to justify her job.

2. She is trying to identify something that she can "fix" in order to protect herself.

3. She is most likely not qualified to be in her current management position.

In summary, she is the average middle manager in America today.

To make the best of this situation, you can do these things, some of which may be counterintuitive:

1. Don't be expressiving negativity, give the impression at all times you are "comfortable" and competent in your position. This gives your boss the impression that you have things under control, so even if she is a complete screw up things will still get done. This addresses her insecurity in her own position. Step one accomplished.

2. Give her something to do. Otherwise she's going to find something to do herself, something that probably will be an extra burden to you. Take the initiative to highlight some lofty -or even some menial- improvement you'd like to see to help "improve the department productivity" or whatever. Present it to her like it's something she is really the best person to make happen for some b.s. reason, and turn her loose. This takes care of her looking for something to "fix". Step two accomplished.

3. Work with her on number 2. As unprofessional as this may seem at first, a "shared" project with a supervisor is a good way to establish some common bonds that go a LOOOONG way to eliminating much of the micro-managing b.s. because it builds trust. It also allows her to lower some of her defenses raised because she may be in a position above her experience or qualifications, yet she sense things are going to be "okay" when she can trust her subs. She is a manager, but she is also a human (believe it or not). Step three accomplished.

Anyway, this is how I approach your same situation every few years when I get a new boss/manager/dept. head whatever.

That, and keep my coworkers aware of these same steps so we can work together, seems to keep things smooth in my department.

For now, anyway!

Good luck.

No really... so we have a new boss. In the short time she's been here, we went from being trusted and allowed pretty much to police ourselves as well as being allowed to work from home. Morale was outstanding, everyone pretty much loved their job and we were getting rave reviews from the management. I've saved several emails from management commending the work we were doing.
So enter new boss. She's now monitoring every phone call, every email, tracking our break time down to the second, enforcing strict sick day numbers, making us account for EVERYTHING we do, and has ended our ability to work from home. This has had no effect on productivity other than making it poorer and morale is at an all time, absolute low.
Remember - there were no issues before this. Had we been abusing the hell out of what we do than I can 100% understand it. But we were not.
What is god's name would make someone in management think that all of this is a good idea!?? Can anyone out there who may be in an upper management position explain to me how this might be beneficial?? I'm miserable as is pretty much everyone who works with me..
My one comforting thought is that at the moment, I HAVE a job. For that I'm extremely grateful, but damn.... I can already see where this is going - low morale, low productivity, bye bye everyone... unless that's the idea...?
Sorry just venting. As I said, I'm eternally grateful to have a job in this current climate but damn...changes when they are not really needed is a very idiotic thing to do.

 

[Relic]

Is she hot? Is she asian?

No and No... All could be forgiven if so..

 

[fdeck]

At one point in time I expected them to do their job. How silly of me. They are under such duress. Did I mention the part where their boss is usually standing over them with whip while they are doing nothing?

One interesting phenomenon: When I do get a guy that wants to learn, works hard and does a good job, it's not too long before he moves up the ladder.

It's hard to guess what you might be doing wrong. Or, you may simply have found yourself inserted into situations where weak managers have already made a mess of things. I've observed cases in previous jobs where the manager thought (and told me) that all of the workers were lazy and stupid. Those managers had a harder time getting good work out of people.

I've been a manager. The people who worked for me were always motivated and productive.

 

[nutdog]

But it's not that simple. You'll have bosses that crack a whip but do little themselves, you'll have some that are excellent motivators and communicators, you'll have those who are where they are because they know someone and are otherwise worthless, and the same goes for employees - many (if not most) will goof off at times, some will take advantage of things, some will work their butts off and on and on it goes. The bottom line is you have to reach a happy medium, both parties have to understand that their relationship is symbiotic - you got to give a little and take a little. If you do it right, you reach a balance where folks are happy, work's getting done and most everyone concerned is motivated by common goals and a common sense of "team". Once you F that up, it had BETTER be for a damn good reason because it's a long hard road to reach that point.

I agree. As I said before, I wasn't really discussing your specific situation, just pointing out that some people will take advantage if not looked after and they might consider that unfair.

It's hard to guess what you might be doing wrong. Or, you may simply have found yourself inserted into situations where weak managers have already made a mess of things. I've observed cases in previous jobs where the manager thought (and told me) that all of the workers were lazy and stupid. Those managers had a harder time getting good work out of people.

I've been a manager. The people who worked for me were always motivated and productive.

Generally poor work situations are the result of poor management. Some people may consider good management as cracking the whip. These folks are generally experts at complaining and looking busy while doing nothing.

 

[NOAH_FX]

You're right about the teamwork, but here's the thing.....Corporate America doesn't care.

Why? Because they know they can replace you in a heartbeat and for less money.

Here's how it works in my industry...

You hire a supervisor for a particular project. He's hired with a particular work description at $XXX,XXX.00/year. Shortly after he starts, his responsibilities are increased because corporate doesn't want to hire someone else even though there is enough of a workload to justify another salary. They are saving a salary. After a few months, the supervisor becomes disgruntled with the extra workload and complains. He's given a small raise. Even though the company is spending more money on him, it's still less than a full-time salary for another person. A few months after he gets the raise, his workload is increased again....Few months later, he complains and gets another raise. Then more work...then a raise....then more work....Now, he's making 30% more than a supervisor should, but the company is still in the black on the situation, because they aren't paying another employee's salary. Now, his project is finished. Guess what....He gets laid off and they bring in a new supervisor, starting at a low base salary, for the new project and the cycle starts over again. By doing this, the company saves an incredible amount of money every year.

This is the way Corporate America operates.

I don't know what you do for a living, but maybe you should look for a position with a smaller company. Maybe even family-owned and operated. Pensions, 401k's will probably be nonexistent or very low grade and the health benefits won't be as good, but, as I tell my kids.........Life's about trade-offs.



While I agree with your sentiment, I don't think it's disrespect. It's managing the business according to the rules. I would never be that anal, but, it isn't disrespect.....An arguement could be made that coming back late from a break is disrespectful to the company. Look at it this way.....

Your salary is based on 40 hrs/week, with breaks factored in. If you come back 2 seconds late from every break, times two breaks a day, that's 4 seconds/day......times 225 working days/year is 900 seconds, which is 15 minutes. Multiply that times 500 employees (a conservative number as some corporations employ thousands of employees), that's 125 hours/year a company is paying for that aren't being worked. $125 hours x $50/hour (you may not be paid $50/hr, but if you make $30/hr, you're costing the employer about $50/hr due to taxes, liability/workmen's comp insurance, etc.) is $6,250.00 paid by the company for hours not worked. It might not seem like a large sum to you, but I know I couldn't afford to pay that for nothing.

This whole post reads like you justifying yourself for being a micro manager..

However, thats an "Opinion"

Fact: A person that hates coming to work, hates who they work for, will do less work. Even if there scared of losing there job, they will do less work. WHY? Because they HATE IT. Every break there bitter, everything there asked to do they second geuss. Now tell me how this is just how corporate Westerners work, cause im in Canada, same deal.

P.S I had the same situation, except with someone who wasn't my suprivisior, but she thought she was. Came from HR to be a Computer Technican, and didn't know jack. So what does the un-informed micro manager do? Try's to control everything, productivity dropped, we had 2 hour meetings telling our suprivisor about her, but she had him convinced she works at 110%, always... Doing what i'll never know, just bless the stars she's gone.

Oh, and if needed i could prove it, with stats.. In tech companies, we have ALOT of tools to manage just about whatever you want, when your whole job consists of tickets, and i do more in a day than you did in a month, you won't convince me of your superiority, nor will i take what you say as doctrine.

Difficult people are simply difficult people, and regardless of the position they hold, will bring down those around them.

Cheers