Workplace Gripes – Vent Here! ! (or just share workplace stories)

[katyseagull]

[ QUOTE ]
I work in estate planning. I just celebrated my 4th year with this company. Along with that I was promoted to Supervisor of my dept and got a really nice raise. This whole dept went through a complete overhaul and I was the only one left. One of my new responsibilites was to hire a new staff of 2 employees. No problem! Well this is where the gripe starts. It is really hard to find competent entry level new-hires. In a matter of 1 month, I have gone through 2 new people and a 3rd is just hanging on a thread. First guy left his 2nd day around 9 a.m. without saying a word to anybody. I don't even know if he's alive. Another one quit after 2 weeks cause it was "too hard" and the 3rd is like 2 seconds from being fired. 30 mins late today, texts/answers phone all day and I caught him chatting on AIM yesterday. It was his 3rd day!!! GRRR where do these people come from?

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ASU,

Is the job in fact "too hard"? What do their job duties involve and what kind of education background do you require for it?

I'm glad you wrote this because it leads into another question I have for the supervisors out there. How much do supervisors hate it when their employees are on the internet during the day? Is it considered worse then just chatting on the phone all day, or emailing all day?

Also, I feel sorry for managers. They are caught in between. I don't envy them and never want to be one (I don't think [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]) - Who's more frustrating to deal with, your staff under you or your boss?

[A S U]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I work in estate planning. I just celebrated my 4th year with this company. Along with that I was promoted to Supervisor of my dept and got a really nice raise. This whole dept went through a complete overhaul and I was the only one left. One of my new responsibilites was to hire a new staff of 2 employees. No problem! Well this is where the gripe starts. It is really hard to find competent entry level new-hires. In a matter of 1 month, I have gone through 2 new people and a 3rd is just hanging on a thread. First guy left his 2nd day around 9 a.m. without saying a word to anybody. I don't even know if he's alive. Another one quit after 2 weeks cause it was "too hard" and the 3rd is like 2 seconds from being fired. 30 mins late today, texts/answers phone all day and I caught him chatting on AIM yesterday. It was his 3rd day!!! GRRR where do these people come from?

[/ QUOTE ]

ASU,

Is the job in fact "too hard"? What do their job duties involve and what kind of education background do you require for it?

I'm glad you wrote this because it leads into another question I have for the supervisors out there. How much do supervisors hate it when their employees are on the internet during the day? Is it considered worse then just chatting on the phone all day, or emailing all day?

Also, I feel sorry for managers. They are caught in between. I don't envy them and never want to be one (I don't think [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]) - Who's more frustrating to deal with, your staff under you or your boss?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's essentially a data entry position. Entry level, no degree necessary. It pays $15/hr to start which is pretty average for this type of position in my area. Most applicants have a H.S. diploma and around 1-2 years experience. It's not your typical mindless data entry, but I wouldn't characterize it as an extremely difficult job. I just think we've gotten pretty unlucky in the hiring process. People with decent resumes, performing well in interviews, turn out to be total nut-jobs.

To answer your other question I would order them

emailing>texting>chatting>phone

[Blarg]

That's damn good money for a beginning data entry job. I know why it's not enough, though. I worked for years in variations of jobs like that, and have seen it in myself and others.

Those jobs are inhumanly dull. They make it almost impossible to stay awake or pay attention, they're so completely robotic. It's actually far, far easier to do something more difficult, because then at least you aren't falling off your chair in boredom. That much boredom is also psychologically extremely draining. If ever you wanted your life to feel miserable and pointless, a data entry job will do it. It's like being in a sensory deprivation tank. Pretty soon you don't know whether you're singing out loud or it's all in your head, and your spirit guide is cavorting about and showing you how to peel the cosmic potato. You may find yourself literally falling off the side of the chair without realizing it.

Only a small percentage of people have either the willpower, the psychological health, or the sheer sad desperation and hopelessness to make them want to stay in a position like that for long. It's naturally a short-timer position. If you get anyone with a good attitude, well-tempered, with a shred of a brain or any ambition at all, they are going to be out of that job so fast you'll hear a sonic boom when they go.

Add to this that those jobs are often put in the darkest, most decrepit corners of a firm, and you got trouble. If you want to keep people -- good luck in the first place -- you are going to have to make the process less traumatizing. Frequent breaks, let people bring their own music to work, the whole doughnuts in the morning type stuff, etc. Whatever you do, make the ultimate soul-destroying drudgery any worse by lording these guys' misery over them with a bad attitude, etc. Try to keep them from falling off the chairs or howling out loud in despair by keeping things very upbeat. Lots of new bosses try to be the tough guy, but data entry is not the place to squeeze people's nuts or play games with them. They're dying to get out of there in the first place, or will be very soon, so do what you can to make things better, not worse.

Whatever you do, don't give them the impression that you think the job is easy because it's robotic. It's being extremely robotic that makes it incredibly hard.

P.S.: Treasure your naturally stupid people. It's rare to find people with minds and temperaments dull enough for this kind of job, but cross your fingers. Someone with no interior life and few brain waves in the first place won't miss being effectively brain dead as much as others do. Getting one of these folks is like hitting the lottery, though, so don't expect it, and don't expect others to be like him.

[A S U]

Agree that data entry jobs are pretty freakin boring. This isn't the standard data entry type. 75% DE and like 25% crafting of language, drafting specialty docs..etc. Disagree about attitude towards the employees though. This is a really really laid back CO., BUT these guys are getting a fair wage, medical, IRA, paid holidays and 3 weeks vacation. I don't think expecting them to stay off their phones/internet and actually work, is asking too much.

[katyseagull]

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Only a small percentage of people have either the willpower, the psychological health, or the sheer sad desperation and hopelessness to make them want to stay in a position like that for long.
.....

P.S.: Treasure your naturally stupid people. It's rare to find people with minds and temperaments dull enough for this kind of job, but cross your fingers. Someone with no interior life and few brain waves in the first place won't miss being effectively brain dead as much as others do. Getting one of these folks is like hitting the lottery, though, so don't expect it, and don't expect others to be like him.

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[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Happy to make your aquaintance. I believe I'm one of those people you're describing.

[luckyjimm]

[ QUOTE ]
That's damn good money for a beginning data entry job. I know why it's not enough, though. I worked for years in variations of jobs like that, and have seen it in myself and others.

Those jobs are inhumanly dull. They make it almost impossible to stay awake or pay attention, they're so completely robotic. It's actually far, far easier to do something more difficult, because then at least you aren't falling off your chair in boredom. That much boredom is also psychologically extremely draining. If ever you wanted your life to feel miserable and pointless, a data entry job will do it. It's like being in a sensory deprivation tank. Pretty soon you don't know whether you're singing out loud or it's all in your head, and your spirit guide is cavorting about and showing you how to peel the cosmic potato. You may find yourself literally falling off the side of the chair without realizing it.

Only a small percentage of people have either the willpower, the psychological health, or the sheer sad desperation and hopelessness to make them want to stay in a position like that for long. It's naturally a short-timer position. If you get anyone with a good attitude, well-tempered, with a shred of a brain or any ambition at all, they are going to be out of that job so fast you'll hear a sonic boom when they go.

Add to this that those jobs are often put in the darkest, most decrepit corners of a firm, and you got trouble. If you want to keep people -- good luck in the first place -- you are going to have to make the process less traumatizing. Frequent breaks, let people bring their own music to work, the whole doughnuts in the morning type stuff, etc. Whatever you do, make the ultimate soul-destroying drudgery any worse by lording these guys' misery over them with a bad attitude, etc. Try to keep them from falling off the chairs or howling out loud in despair by keeping things very upbeat. Lots of new bosses try to be the tough guy, but data entry is not the place to squeeze people's nuts or play games with them. They're dying to get out of there in the first place, or will be very soon, so do what you can to make things better, not worse.

Whatever you do, don't give them the impression that you think the job is easy because it's robotic. It's being extremely robotic that makes it incredibly hard.

P.S.: Treasure your naturally stupid people. It's rare to find people with minds and temperaments dull enough for this kind of job, but cross your fingers. Someone with no interior life and few brain waves in the first place won't miss being effectively brain dead as much as others do. Getting one of these folks is like hitting the lottery, though, so don't expect it, and don't expect others to be like him.

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Hahaha, great post! Much of this applies to legal secretarial work. When the senior lawyer said I was "too good" for this work, she meant simply that she could see I was bright and would find the work very boring and undemanding. The women who are good at it aren't particularly bright and don't display much ambition or have questioning minds. However they are well-organised and efficient. Even they can find it tedious, so yak away on the phone for long periods of the day. By contrast, I will never make or take a call at work but I'll surf the web/2+2 as much as possible, which is actually a lot less noticeable. Oh, then factor in regular cigarette breaks and trips to make tea and coffee. I'll go read the newspaper in the toilets, too. It's demoralising and unrewarding work. Even if you applied yourself to it, there's very little career progression and no sense of achievement or reward from it.

[Hopey]

Some memories of a past retail sales job that still haunt me:

1) Getting written up for not washing my coffee cup frequently or well enough. It was *my* coffee cup that I had brought in from home, and I would continuously fill it with coffee all day in order to stay awake enough to do that horrible job. I'd rinse it out at the end of the day, but one of the owners of the company started getting on my back about not washing it sufficiently. He didn't like the fact that it looked "grungy" on the outside. Finally, one day he came walking over to me with it in his hand and told me that he had written me up for not cleaning it to his liking. The store had a "3 strikes, you're fired" policy. He announced this in front of my co-workers. I was the top salesman in the store at the time, so it's not like they were looking for an excuse to fire me.

2) A year later, I had been promoted to sales manager and negotiated a bonus structure where I would receive a percentage of the total sales of the store if we met our sales goals. We easily met the sales goals, and I took a week off at the end of the quarter (which I was entitled to) in order to go camping and relax after working crazy hours for the past couple of months. When I got back from my vacation, my boss informed me that he didn't feel that I deserved the entire bonus, as he did not feel that I had worked hard enough to justify it. He pointed to the week's vacation I had taken at the end of the month as evidence of my poor work ethic. He told me that he wouldn't be paying me the entire bonus (despite the fact that it was in my contract), but that he would agree to pay me a percentage of the bonus. The catch was that I had to pick the percentage, and I had to justify why I felt that I deserved this amount. I ended up asking for 95% of the bonus (using some mathematical formula that took into account the week off that I'd taken), which my boss hmmmed and hawed about before agreeing to it. Once the bonus cheque cleared at the bank, I gave my two-weeks' notice.

The store went bankrupt within a year of me leaving. Other stores in the same chain (with different owners) have continued to do quite well. There's no doubt in my mind that the only reason this store in particular went bankrupt was because of the horrible way the owner treated his employees, and the resulting inability to keep good employees from leaving.

[Blarg]

Good story.

Reminded me of one of the few books I truly regret not having anymore, called simply "Sabotage," as I recall. I think I picked it up at a Tower Records. It was about people who, well, stole and screwed things up in revenge for poor treatment and/or conditions. It once again echoed that law that management so often cannot seem to fathom -- tit for tat.

[Hopey]

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Good story.

Reminded me of one of the few books I truly regret not having anymore, called simply "Sabotage," as I recall. I think I picked it up at a Tower Records. It was about people who, well, stole and screwed things up in revenge for poor treatment and/or conditions. It once again echoed that law that management so often cannot seem to fathom -- tit for tat.

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Agree 100%. Employee theft was a HUGE problem in this store. The low pay plus the owner's horrible management style resulted in employees who had absolutely no loyalty to the business and no compunction against stealing if the opportunity presented itself.

The sad thing is that I worked there for over 6 years (3 years part-time and 3 years full-time). Six wasted years. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[Blarg]

Reminds me of this: