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Nocheez posted:Ethically speaking, the employee is doing the right thing by making sure the work is being done according to contract. He's obligated to report it up the chain since his supervisor is not following the procedure. He probably should have went to HR and reported it after he brought it up to the supervisor. This is true, but some of it depends on what the worst case scenario would have been for the company had the supervisor's decision to use a different method backfired. It's all very well saying "I'm taking this decision, it's my responsibility if it's wrong" but if the worst case scenario is a lost client and thousands of dollars of future revenue wiped out then it's not enough to take responsibility - even if they fire you, it won't recoup that loss. If, on the other hand, the worst case scenario was a hour or two of unbillable time to correct a problem then imo the underling is being an insubordinate little brown-nose who, while being procedurally correct, deserves the contempt and cold shoulder of his supervisor. The whole point of having superiors is for them to make calls about things which can affect the company, and the higher the level of the superior the more impact their decisions can have. If this was a relatively minor issue then there's absolutely zero reason for this person to have done an end run around their direct manager and they deserve what they get. Short version: Was this decision inside the supervisor's normal remit? If so, the employee is being a turd. If not, the employee was probably right. rolleyes fucked around with this message at 15:39 on Feb 22, 2013 |
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Feb 22, 2013 15:36
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ItalicSquirrels posted:Gonna be caught in the middle of a blow-up here in about an hour, just want to make sure I'm seeing things right. The situation is this: Supervisor goes and sets things up as he sees fit. Strictly speaking, it isn't according to contract, but it's not only how it works better in most instances but how we've been doing it for a while. Supervisor's employee, who has been here for long enough that he's often included in supervisor-y discussions about these things, doesn't like that it isn't being done according to contract. I wasn't here for the incident, so I don't know if he was upset just because it wasn't per contract or if he had a specified objection. Employee voices his objection and supervisor replies that he's doing it his way. If going over the supervisor's head was the first thing that the employee did instead of bringing concerns to the supervisor, it's kind of lovely, particularly when you have to work with that person, but there wouldn't be anything that requires disciplinary action. Also, what is the reason that the employee needs things done according to the contract? Out of a love of compliance or because that process legitimately works better? This thread is full of anecdotes where people follow corporate policies to the letter and it's disastrous. If the supervisor shows some initiative and is putting best practices in place even if it's circumventing the contract (is this process in fact circumventing the contract, or is the contract open to interpretation?) then it could be more useful to the company than proceeding according to the contract. And, oh poo poo, that would be the worst for that employee, too. If the coordinator and client agree with how things are being done and like the results, the supervisor could be praised for that and it would make the employee look even worse. It seems like the employee didn't really consider all of the possible outcomes here.
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Feb 22, 2013 15:45
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HipGnosis posted:Also, what is the reason that the employee needs things done according to the contract? Out of a love of compliance or because that process legitimately works better This is really the important question. If the employee wanted to do things "by the book" just for the sake of doing so even if that was less efficient or resulted in a worse product (it's hard to tell what you mean because this is all so vague), then yeah going over the supervisor's head was a lovely move - I don't think it should result in formal disciplinary measures but I think it should result in the supervisor not including the employee in "supervisor-y discussions" and decisions as much going forward. But if doing things "by the book" meant actually producing better work or if the supervisor was trying to cut corners or stick to some other routine for the sake of the routine, then I'd have to say the employee was in the right and the supervisor should just suck it up. Again hard to tell without knowing the specifics of what "according to contract" means
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Feb 22, 2013 15:53
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So today in adventures of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing they took away almost my whole departments super-user status. Just as a little background we all have super-user status for one reason, at one point before the advent of computers we had 120 people in my department, we now have 13. Some of those people became surplus with the creation of computers (with a computer the job is easy, without it's a giant run all day every day). Most of the jobs however got merged together so we all became super-users within our systems in order to do the job. On Tuesday at 2:00 our finance decided that we didn't need to be super-users anymore because it might cause fraud. After they stripped us all of our access we started raising hell as we are all to busy to not have access to everything (their idea was to split the job down the middle so half of us would do one half and half would do the other). So to make a long story short, they have still only restored half of us to our powers which means we all have to run around doing twice the work because some of us can't do anything
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Feb 22, 2013 17:36
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What would have happened is about a half-dozen individuals would have been inconvenienced. And that's assuming I didn't come in this morning to do some fiddling around (which I did, as checking these things in the morning is part of my job). We could, potentially, have had some complaints and one client who is paying us about $300 dollars for these set-ups might, if they were sufficiently pissed off, not return next year. So everything's set up, but I had to miss the talking-to in order to do the fixes. I still don't know precisely why either of them were acting the way they did. On the one hand, the supervisor has a habit of (in my opinion) half-assing the smaller set-ups because "That's too much work". On the other hand, the employee often needs three people working in concert to tell him he's wrong before he'll believe it. At one point a couple years ago I had to spend twenty minutes telling him that when I asked him to do certain things (which take about thirty seconds to do), I need them actually done and not just checked on, because when they don't actually get done I end up having to come in at 11:00 at night in response to the night crew's frantic calls. So they're both a bundle of joy to work with.
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Feb 22, 2013 18:34
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Sounds like the employee likes to think of themselves as a supervisor, and was waiting to take a shot at the existing supervisor over anything. I work on the same level as about 3 of these people.
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Feb 22, 2013 20:53
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ItalicSquirrels posted:What would have happened is about a half-dozen individuals would have been inconvenienced. And that's assuming I didn't come in this morning to do some fiddling around (which I did, as checking these things in the morning is part of my job). We could, potentially, have had some complaints and one client who is paying us about $300 dollars for these set-ups might, if they were sufficiently pissed off, not return next year. Honestly it sounds like you work with children. They both need to realise that at the end of the day they have to work together so maybe they should work it out like adults, otherwise at least one of them will be without a job which doesn't help anyone. Do you have any sway to tell them to stop acting like giant loving manchildren?
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Feb 25, 2013 10:50
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Nope! And anything I say further on the subject would just be bitching, so I'm just going to say that they're both very set in their ways and I'm going to try to get my stuff done today without having to hear them discuss politics.
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Feb 25, 2013 13:43
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After notifying my horde of faculty that I'm looking for another job, one of them sent an email to the administrative manager, the division head, and the HR person saying that I was looking for another job and they should give me more money. The admin. manager told me I should "engage" her on this. I "engaged" them and discovered the following: - the arduous next step that took a month to complete was telling me to meet with the HR person. - to get a raise, I have to prove that I'm doing significantly more and different work. That should be easy, because I've doubled my workload since I got here, and picked up tons of new skills. Yay! - However, when my original position was written, they made up a bunch of poo poo and put it in there - including all the new skills I've learned. I am now doing all that poo poo, but at the time I was hired, I wasn't able to do so. I know that for a fact, because it kept me from being hired into a higher paying position. - they "might" be able to give me around a 1K raise in this salary group. I have an interview on Friday in a different department that pays more $$$. I felt moderately guilty before this.
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Feb 26, 2013 21:38
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Stuff like that baffles me. I mean, do they want to keep you on, or not?
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Feb 27, 2013 02:51
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Pureauthor posted:Stuff like that baffles me. I mean, do they want to keep you on, or not? Your boss might say "Hey, give this dude some more money, he's awesome and if we don't he'll probably leave and that would suck for us," but by the time it gets through several levels of bureaucracy to the guy who actually holds the purse strings, the message has become "Hey, some random peon downstairs is getting uppity and trying to steal from our profit margin/the department budget/the CFO's bonus."
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Feb 27, 2013 03:05
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It's a perfect storm of idiocy, terrible policy, lazy management, and apathy.
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Feb 27, 2013 03:43
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Don't forget dreadful communication skills. Seriously, don't feel guilty about leaving this place. This kind of poo poo is what exit interviews are for.
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Feb 27, 2013 16:40
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That's why you usually have to leave for a competitor to get a competitive wage.
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Feb 27, 2013 17:07
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Rodent Mortician posted:- to get a raise, I have to prove that I'm doing significantly more and different work. That should be easy, because I've doubled my workload since I got here, and picked up tons of new skills. Yay! So wait...when you started that position, they didn't have anything written up specifically about your duties? Or am I missing something, and they had specifics written up, but changed them up so it looks like you're not doing any more than what was asked? I'd seriously try to find some way to clarify either way, that's all kinds of hosed up. I'd have zero remorse going after a position or new job that pays more, upper management be damned.
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Feb 27, 2013 19:44
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Even though I'm a fully qualified accountant, my Finance Director's PA is off and I'm covering her work. I thought that would be mildly annoying, but hey, how hard is it to check his inbox and print his diary every morning? Turns out, very hard, since he needs his hand held every minute of the day. I have had the blame for him missing his meetings (because he lost his printed out diary and didn't think to check his own calendar), for him not meeting his deadlines (because he doesn't check his inbox, so me flagging important things has zero effect), and for him not understanding an email (because I am apparently meant to read all of his emails, understand them and brief him back on them). I've had a telling off from my own manager because I need to take the role more seriously and make it my full time job until his regular PA is back from leave. I've had to sit in between them and had them micromanaging me, asking me whether I've replied to X email, whether I've rang so-and-so, etc. Yay for office jobs!
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Feb 27, 2013 19:53
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Ozz81 posted:So wait...when you started that position, they didn't have anything written up specifically about your duties? Or am I missing something, and they had specifics written up, but changed them up so it looks like you're not doing any more than what was asked? I'd seriously try to find some way to clarify either way, that's all kinds of hosed up. I'd have zero remorse going after a position or new job that pays more, upper management be damned. So when I started, I was told I'd be supporting 3 people. Internally, they wrote up the position justification (ie, what's required to make the position exist) to reflect that I supported 7 people, and included all kinds of poo poo like grant writing, account budgeting, etc. I'm kindly assuming they exaggerated need in order to make the position a reality, since I was dangling as a temporary employee with no benefits. I do all that now, but when I was hired I wasn't able to (and because I wasn't able to, couldn't be hired into an existing position with that on there that qualified for more money). So even though I've doubled my work and am now supporting 7 people, doing grants, hiring, etc, that I wasn't initially able to do, it doesn't matter because it's already written in there. Now in order to be able to jump career bands, I have to justify that I now "specialize" in something. When I'm supporting 7 people in completely different departments, I can't really specialize in anything. I asked if I could specialize in cleaning up people's gently caress ups and that didn't go over well. Consequently, I had agreed to do our big web redesign and launch our new social media presence. I told my supervisor yesterday that I no longer felt comfortable doing that, because I felt they'd use me to get things off the ground and then not give me my money again. gently caress 'em, ain't my problem. Rodent Mortician fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Feb 27, 2013 |
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Feb 27, 2013 20:13
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I don't get why a lot of people in this thread hem and haw about being loyal to a company when the representatives of said company don't want to pay you the wage you deserve. You're basically a mercenary, selling your skills and ability to the highest bidder. I'm not overly fond of capitalism as an ideology but that's the game that's being played, if another company is offering more money/a better location you'd be foolish not to let your current place know and begin preparations for a move while your current place evaluates what they're willing to compensate you for the services you're offering and the value you bring. Sure it's callous to say, but what do you owe them? They didn't give you a job to be nice guys.
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Feb 27, 2013 20:13
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Xachariah posted:I don't get why a lot of people in this thread hem and haw about being loyal to a company when the representatives of said company don't want to pay you the wage you deserve. You're basically a mercenary, selling your skills and ability to the highest bidder. I'm not overly fond of capitalism as an ideology but that's the game that's being played, if another company is offering more money/a better location you'd be foolish not to let your current place know and begin preparations for a move while your current place evaluates what they're willing to compensate you for the services you're offering and the value you bring.
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Feb 27, 2013 20:36
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Xachariah posted:I don't get why a lot of people in this thread hem and haw about being loyal to a company when the representatives of said company don't want to pay you the wage you deserve. You're basically a mercenary, selling your skills and ability to the highest bidder. I'm not overly fond of capitalism as an ideology but that's the game that's being played, if another company is offering more money/a better location you'd be foolish not to let your current place know and begin preparations for a move while your current place evaluates what they're willing to compensate you for the services you're offering and the value you bring. Because of references. If you don't tap-dance to their tune on your way out the door, you don't get a good reference. It's as simple as that. And let's be honest here. If you're looking to hire Rodent Mortician, call his company for a reference, and you get told, "He didn't give us adequate notice before leaving and he seemed to be developing an attitude problem," are you going to ask any further? Probably not. You're going to move that resume to the bottom of the stack. So we have to smile and say, "Thank you sir, may I have another" as we try to edge out the door.
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Feb 27, 2013 21:34
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You shouldn't be using your boss for a reference anyway. Keep a network of co-workers who like you / who you trust and use them instead. Hell, my last two companies literally had "no references will be provided whatsoever" policies and would terminate managers who gave them. It was considered too large a legal risk.
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Feb 27, 2013 22:01
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And to be honest, the people I work directly with are awesome. The people I support are ultra-grateful for all I do, go to bat for me, and are all around awesome people in their own right who are doing this because they actually love doing it. The field I work in is interesting and I enjoy it, it's something I enjoy doing. I just want to be fairly compensated for it. It's the management that bungles everything. I think they literally see staff as part of the office furniture that are all interchangeable. After all, an office chair is an office chair, so an admin must be an admin.
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Feb 27, 2013 22:42
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sbaldrick posted:So today in adventures of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing they took away almost my whole departments super-user status. It might be a pain in the rear end, but in the end it is good governance. Could be worse, you might have to fill in a webform to "check out" an ID / Pwd, then check it back in when you are done.
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Feb 28, 2013 07:15
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Xachariah posted:I don't get why a lot of people in this thread hem and haw about being loyal to a company when the representatives of said company don't want to pay you the wage you deserve. You're basically a mercenary, selling your skills and ability to the highest bidder. To some people compensation is more then just the number on their paycheck. While I personally aint one of those kind, I still understand that motivation can take many forms. So I think RM is still being compensated fair enough to not leave, else she would have done so ages ago, the form this compensation takes is about people, the field the work is taking place in and the actual work. Keep in mind that bosses know this and will make sure that the non-money part is working for you, that way you will only sometimes need to give a raise.
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Feb 28, 2013 16:48
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Yikes! I just left a presentation that HR was giving. One fun fact is that we are under our attrition targets in the US this year. Also in the same meeting they advised us to update our 5-year plans and to consider other companies within these plans.
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Feb 28, 2013 20:14
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ItalicSquirrels posted:Gonna be caught in the middle of a blow-up here in about an hour, just want to make sure I'm seeing things right. I think I got to the bottom of this. Supervisor sets out to do the minimum level of setting up. I'm talking about so little that I'd be shocked if anyone was able to properly use what was set up. Supervisor tells employee what he's doing and employee makes his objection that that's way less than what we normally do. Supervisor puts his foot down. Employee goes to the person in charge of writing up the contracts and asks what to do, since he's got contradictory information. On the one hand, he's got this contract stipulating certain things. On the other, his supervisor's over-ruling him. What no one has mentioned is that the Boss is the one who told the supervisor to do the minimal set-up. Boss hears about this question that the employee is asking and goes off on him, saying, well, I'm certain you can imagine everything that was said. At the end, I, being ignorant of all of this, came in the next morning and set everything up the way we normally do (which is what the employee thought we should do). And guess what? No one complained about the set-up, so it was probably done right. So basically the employee got yelled at because, well, our Boss is another story altogether, and I did everything the way it was supposed to be done because I didn't know any different.
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Feb 28, 2013 21:06
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HR had a presentation today that was comprised entirely of internet memes. I hate my life
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Mar 2, 2013 03:42
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COUNTIN THE BILLIES posted:HR had a presentation today that was comprised entirely of internet memes. I went to a PhD defense that was like that too. The delivery was incredibly cringe-worthy.
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Mar 2, 2013 08:27
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Please tell me he got roasted. Unless he was a psychology / sociology doctoral candidate.
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Mar 2, 2013 21:58
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Hypha posted:I went to a PhD defense that was like that too. The delivery was incredibly cringe-worthy. Sweet Jesus... after so many years of work, why would someone even consider risking a poor reaction like that? All it takes is one smart-rear end professor with a bad hair day and no sense of humor, and you're gonna get skewered. I was so relieved when one particular professor didn't show up to my master's defense because it meant I had a chance of surviving the presentation. We all called her Doctor Uber-German due to her accent and demeanor, and she was one of those uncomfortably brilliant people who would come into the lab on Monday and show you all the things she invented over the weekend like it was no big deal. Her grad students were typically miserable because they could never, ever EVER live up to her expectations.
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Mar 2, 2013 22:47
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Honestly, I could see a bunch of PhD defenses involving memes. A history of memes would be a big run as it would make you pretty much the go to person on the subject. With all the tv time it involves.
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Mar 4, 2013 17:30
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I wrote a paper on internet memes in 2002, the professor loved it, and I could imagine a well done PhD dissertation on the subject (I'm sure plenty have been done already). I have included examples of memes in presentations on social media and online marketing. No idea what HR would be doing with them other than trying to stop people from being bored to sleep during an HR presentation.
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Mar 4, 2013 19:27
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If that was literally your research, that'd definitely be a different matter. I was imagining a meme-filled STEM dissertation and cringing.
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Mar 4, 2013 20:06
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I did a presentation on zombies for one of my classes, though that was years before zombies became basically a meme and got played out. More shamefully though, today I used "synergy" in an email, completely unironically. It might be time to wrap it up.
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Mar 4, 2013 20:19
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I know that this is SA so any meme is revolting, but a ton of people like them and having them in a presentation probably made a couple of people chuckle.
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Mar 4, 2013 20:38
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Harry posted:I know that this is SA so any meme is revolting, but a ton of people like them and having them in a presentation probably made a couple of people chuckle. Some people also like crush films, but I've been told I can't use those in presentations anymore.
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Mar 4, 2013 20:48
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fivre posted:Some people also like crush films, but I've been told I can't use those in presentations anymore. Time to find a new job then.
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Mar 4, 2013 21:16
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COUNTIN THE BILLIES posted:HR had a presentation today that was comprised entirely of internet memes. Is there an HR presentation that isn't loving useless? Seriously is there? Because I've never seen one that was an absolute waste of my time. HR people also send out massive amounts of loving retarded emails that no one ever reads because they have more important things to do like I don't know, making the company money. I understand why HR exists, but it seems like the vast majority of their work could be replicated by a simple program.
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Mar 5, 2013 03:37
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I have to say, I recently transitioned into my first corporate job (after basically running the nonprofit rat race since high school) and it's been a pretty chill place to work. My boss has never raised his voice above a barely audible whisper and office politics is nearly zero. People show up, punch in, clock their time, and go home. Of course, for the industry salaries are considerably lower than what you would find at a coastal financial institution.
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Mar 5, 2013 04:39
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ryan8723 posted:Is there an HR presentation that isn't loving useless? Seriously is there? Because I've never seen one that was an absolute waste of my time. HR people also send out massive amounts of loving retarded emails that no one ever reads because they have more important things to do like I don't know, making the company money. Instead, HR is duplicated and made worse by a program called Taleo.
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Mar 5, 2013 05:38
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