Half the people you know are below average.
-- Steven Wright --
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-- Steven Wright --
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I'm in love again. Fourteen hours with The Man will do that to me.
One of the many things we talked about - he marveled at a coworker who, when the clock hits 4:30, stands up, puts his coat on, and leaves, leaving coffee on his desk, the computer open to whatever he was working on, conversations unfinished, he just leaves! It drives The Man crazy. He can't understand it. (Part of it was that the guy doesn't clean up before leaving, part of it was the leaving.)
Reminded me of this:
[http://dilbert.com/dyn_file/str_strip/146542/gif/strip.print/]That's so true. The more you do, the more you get to do. When I worked for
I knew one woman, Nancy, who worked like a dog. She took on everything she was asked to do, worked 10-15 hours of unpaid overtime every week. She pulled her department's tail out of the fire over and over. But over and over she was downgraded on the performance reviews because she "demonstrated poor time management", while other members of her department left on time every day, and got good reviews.
Nancy did a quarter of the entire work assigned to that entire 8 person department! She got no credit for it.
Simply put, those other people were able to convince their managers that they couldn't possibly take on additional projects. So all the additional department load was dumped on Nancy, who couldn't seem to say no. It was always, "Yeah, ok, I can do that."
Jay had pretty much the same problem.
I guess it's good time management when you don't accept any work that interferes with your personal life, even though overtime is part of the job. I think it's poor people management when you don't see the difference between loads carried.
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8 comments:
I have been nosey and looked at our time sheets, and I notice the people who work the fewest hours get the most done. (I'm one of them.) I think it has something to do with meeting a five o clock deadline every day. Maybe others work fifteen hours because every day they are putting off their eight hour dealine? If I have to finish at 5 my heads is sown and I'm not socializing, not talking, not taking smoke breaks, not going to meetings, I just know I have to get X done by 5. I know people who work really late because they spent two hours talking about how much work they have to do. An alternate viewpoint.
Plus I was just wondering about The Man!
Nope. In my experience it really IS that some people manage to get out of picking up more work.
As the design area compatibility coordinator, and later as the litigation lab recipient of the work products of multiple groups, I was aware of the loads people were carrying. And some people were simply very good at keeping their loads small. I KNOW!!! who was doing how much.
All manuals, for example, had to be reviewed by litigation. Nancy was in a pubs department. I would get maybe two or three manuals from each pubs writer, and I'd get seven or eight from Nancy. Not fair. The books simply had to be done, and Nancy was the only one who, when asked, was willing to do them. And she did, and she got kicked for it.
(Timesheet? What's a timesheet? In NY it was illegal for exempt employees to work overtime more than x weeks in a row unless we were given mission pay for scheduled OT, and like NOBODY got mission pay, so we were told not to put the actual hours on our cards, just write across the face "40 hours" every week, regardless of how much we worked. I got in trouble and was "counciled" for pointing out to my manager that it was illegal. I was told to shut up. I wonder if there's a class action suit there....)
Yep. I worked for A Big Co. too and I was told the same thing. No matter how much OT I worked (and after a while, I just gave up on the whole thing), yes, I had to fill out a time sheet and yes, it was always for 40 hours. I know that they were billing the client for hours I did not work.
...and not paying you for hours you did work.
I will not take on extra work at "the Bank" I work at. 1) Because I'm Part-time and I have no intention of going full-time there. and 2) Because this is a filler job and my "real" job is just waiting for the economy to recover. I don't want them to become too dependent on me and then realize I'm not there for a career in banking.
My boss told me last week he wants me to go to training to learn how to open new accounts soon. I suspect he's disgusted with the "New Accounts" rep we have. She spends much time working on personal business and socializing, and causes them to get out late several days a week, and he's wanting the tellers to all be able to open new accounts and get rid of her. I'll do the training, but I still have no intention of going full-time there.
I did take on extra work when I was young. Now, I don't, because meeting my deadlines is more important.
Time sheets - not really. More like spreadhseets tracking our time. The bosses say they need this so they can make more accurate estimates.
We've narrowed the discussion down to the two extremes - people who put in zero extra time and people who put in loads. Neither extreme will work. Actually, I put in many extra hours if the deadline is in danger. But usually, no. But I'm not the guy who never puts in extra hours, I just do it when it's called for.
I did a short stint at IBM (I Been Moved) many, many years ago. Their policies were so effed up I actually quit - I used to joke that I was the only person ever to quit IBM. (Back in the day, a job with IBM was guaranteed job security for life.)
and yeah, it's all about time management. Fart around all day, and you'll end up working late. :)
Or volunteer to do the work of two or three people and you'll work all night. And then you should get credit for doing the work of two or three people, not be told you can't manage your time. Which was my point. Which I apparently expressed badly. Or something.
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