So maybe it should be; I'm not very fond of being a boss...
I had to let my rodman go today. He was a nice kid, about 25 YO. He had a wife and a couple of kids...
I couldn't get him to show up on time. He worked for me for 3 months and I can count the times he showed up on time, on one hand.
He was always sorry, always had an excuse; I told him I didn't want to hear that; I told him I wanted to hear solutions. I don't think that ever sunk in. I wished him the best and gave him a little extra in his final check.
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Oh yeah, did I mention that being an employer sucks?
Dougie
I got used to it over the years.?ÿ But I always figured if I was going to run an outfit with my heart I should be a preacher and not a surveyor.
There's good help out there that has an alarm clock.?ÿ 😉
I wished him the best and gave him a little extra in his final check.
Sucker. ?ÿ(aka good human)
Yeah, then there's the good ones that can't stop drinking........
Always sucks
I gave a guy that wasn't working out two weeks notice!
I always showed up on time, till I had a job I didn't like (happened to be retail). The job didn't require me to be there precisely on time, and if I was a couple of minutes early or a few late, no big deal. But, it moved from consistently 5 minutes to consistently 10 minutes. The owner was a wise man and he took me aside and told me that in his experience being late often meant a person didn't want to be there. In a firm but kind way he told me that he wanted to me to be happy, and if I did want the job I should be on time. The clear implication was that he would fire me if I didn't. And it wasn't hurting him so much that I wasn't there at a certain time, but he didn't want someone working there that didn't want to be there...it wasn't good for him or me.
And a 25 year old learning the lesson when he is 25 and can walk into any entry level position and make the same is a lot easier lesson than when he gets farther along.
I gave this kid several chances; please don't let this happen again, more than once; if it happens again were going to have to let you go...
I briefly worked at an outfit that required the trucks precisely leave the yard at 08:00am which meant the party chief (me) had to show up @ 6:45am to gas up & load lath, etc., then go over the job file with the office manager, load up data collectors, ad nauseum till the 08:00 bell rung.?ÿ At the end of the day the crewmembers would jump in their cars and leave while I processed their timesheets, cleaned up the rig, reviewed the day's cutsheets, downloaded collectors into the office server etc., another 1 1/2 hours often.
That adds up to +-10 hours work for 8 hours pay which I felt was unfair.?ÿ They said take it or leave it so I bailed.?ÿ Funny thing is years later (it was a union shop) some party chief with big balls filed a grievance and stopped the practice and the rules changed to where you step on company property the clock starts and it stops when you step into your car.?ÿ Wage abuse back then was rampant concerning survey crewmembers and I'm heartened to see the unions & G'vmnt regulations clean it up.
A buck an hour if you show up late or need to leave early.?ÿ $25 an hour if you show up on time, work all day efficiently and never leave early. (We need to find a way to make this fully legal in today's "Handouts for Everyone" world.
How you gonna use the carpool lane now, Radar?
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That.?ÿ Someone on here posted a thought on showing up early every day, before starting time, and did some quick back of a napkin calculations, showing that over a years time of this you effectively just worked yourself out of most or all of your vacation time.
It should be a give and take that eventually works for everyone. Some places I've worked, some people could show as late as they wanted .. others couldn't.?ÿ
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That adds up to +-10 hours work for 8 hours pay which I felt was unfair.?ÿ?ÿ
And illegal for everyone except maybe a union shop.
I was working water systems as a job in 93 because biology wasn't making money and we were required to show up 15 minutes to 7 although the hours were 7-4.
Someone filed a grievance and the DOL walloped them with 2 years of back pay as OT for every hour those 15mins added up to, and as I had just started I got near to nothing except all the blame as I was a college graduate and would be in my nature to tattle.
Yeah.?ÿ Good employees and good employers are kind of like good bad and mediocre marriages.
Same nuances of trust and success, and your input is really all you can bring to the table. Stay or not stay is the decision of the level of desperation or satisfaction you get when you're there.
Just let a Rodman go for exactly the same reason. Every Friday for a month he??d show up hours late. Last week I told him on Thursday we have an important meeting first thing in the morning, I need you to be there on time. Sure enough 11 am I get a message he overslept. This is a 30 year old man with two kids. Told him I was letting him go, I just can??t count on him. He then pleads with me how badly he needs the job and I should give him a second chance. ??Look, if you really needed and wanted the job, you would have made it here on time. I??m not running a country club. Good luck.??ÿ
Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
I went solo because I was a lousy employer - but one observation I'm sure is some law of physics: what employees do once, good or bad, they do every time forever. when I was 31, I fired a 61 year old because despite the experience, the company was hurting, over and over.?ÿ I'm that age now so I guess I'll fire myself next.
..and I'm heartened to see the unions & G'vmnt regulations clean it up.
The wife and I were watching the news the other night and heard there was a tanker driver shortage for fuel haulers.?ÿ This was resulting in some fuel shortages at the retail level.
I told my wife maybe someone could get a union together for commercial drivers.?ÿ You know, a guaranteed living wage with some benefits.?ÿ They could name the union something antiquated like what they use to call the mule skinners that pulled freight with a wagon and a team of draft animals.?ÿ A grand idea I think.
'Union' was a bad word in OK for years.?ÿ Why call the hall for a journeyman carpenter when you can pay a drunk two bucks an hour to nail some crap together?
The not-so-funny part of the story is they ran off the trade unions around here years ago because "unions are bad".?ÿ Now we've got nothing but gypsies doing trade work...but the police, municipal workers and teachers are all now unionized.?ÿ Go figure.
At about 2:45 yesterday I received an email confirming the last piece of information I needed to wrap up a project.?ÿ Showed up at 3:20 yesterday afternoon at the real estate office to personally deliver the goods so as to speed up a closing.?ÿ The door wouldn't open.?ÿ Saw a little sign announcing they were starting the Holiday weekend early: at 3:00.?ÿ Nobody told me.?ÿ A call to the agent still has not been returned, from her personal cell.
Drove precisely 453 feet to the post office which was open.?ÿ Walked up to the counter and requested to purchase a large envelope to mail the goods 453 feet ASAP.?ÿ That will not happen.?ÿ It went in a rolling canvas bin to join all the other mail on its way to the XXXXX area mail center 40 miles away where it was reloaded to go on a semi another 140 miles to THE CENTRALIZED mail sorting center.?ÿ When it becomes convenient, it will be sorted and placed in a container to be shipped by semi back to the XXXXX center then, eventually back to the very source of the mailing so it can be tossed into the work space occupied by the mail carrier to be sorted again and put in the delivery van for final delivery 453 feet from the point of origin.?ÿ The individual who received my filled envelope could be terminated if he were to toss it into the work space occupied by the mail carrier which was about 20 feet distant from him.
There's good help out there that has an alarm clock.?ÿ
Times have changed. People who want to be outside working in surveying are not easy to find.