Work colleagues

[microdave]

2 hours ago, LondonHMFC said:

Pleased to say I bumped into Milky Gem this morning before getting the train to work! 

She left quite suddenly, and there were a few rumours as to what happened, but essentially her role was given to somebody else, and the only way she was going to be kept on was if she took a pay cut and worked under this new person. She declined the offer and got into bit of a legal battle over it all, and fortunately got herself a good pay off.

The company were absolute shits when Covid hit, making most of us take 10 days unpaid leave (taken over 3 months opposed to the year) to stave off redundancies, before doing so anyway. They weren't business decisions, they just used it as a chance to get rid of some people who were out of favour. Some really decent people were shunted, purely as they weren't liked. As Covid continued to worsen, we then had to take another 10 days unpaid leave. I left a few months after, without taking a day of statuary leave. They told me I could go early, but I sat it out just to get that money. It wasn't a massive amount, but it felt good doing it. 

Back to Milky, she now works for a mental health charity, and still does her soup kitchen service in Brighton every other evening.

 

Thanks,

Many Thanks,

Kind Regards

Did you ever tell her she's a legend in these parts? If so, what did she say?

[scottsdad]

I was talking to a guy I occasionally work with. He is 80 years old now, but he told me that in the 70s when they had the three day week, the productivity of the factory he worked in went up. He suspected the company might just keep it that way but no, as soon as they were allowed to they were all back in 5 days. 

[ParsJake]

3 hours ago, BFTD said:

My last employer would say, "so you worked 8 hours and made us <x>, and now you say you can make <x> in 6 hours, so go do it and then everything you make for us in the final 2 hours will be a bonus for us". The new daily total would then become <x>.

[LondonHMFC]

29 minutes ago, microdave said:

Did you ever tell her she's a legend in these parts? If so, what did she say?

Yeah I did at her leaving do. Can remember there being a bit of confusion as to why a Scottish football forum had a section about work colleagues. 

I'll need to go back and have a read of the posts, I remember her being lactose intolerant adding to the hilarity. 

[Guest]

Can almost guarantee this 4 day working week being more productive will just lead to managers expecting more from everyone. If you can get a weeks work done in 4 days then here is an extra couple of days work for you to do on the 5th day will 100% be their thought process.

[Busta Nut]

Are these 4 day weeks on the same 7 hour day? Or is it longer days?

[Jambomo]

4 hours ago, LondonHMFC said:

Back to Milky, she now works for a mental health charity, and still does her soup kitchen service in Brighton every other evening.

 

Thanks,

Many Thanks,

Kind Regards

Glad to hear this, her sign off might be a bit ott but she sounded like a nice person. 

[Fullerene]

25 minutes ago, Empty It said:

Can almost guarantee this 4 day working week being more productive will just lead to managers expecting more from everyone. If you can get a weeks work done in 4 days then here is an extra couple of days work for you to do on the 5th day will 100% be their thought process.

At which point the employees will revert to the lower productivity that they were doing before. 

You can't expect them to increase productivity  if there is no incentive - such as extra pay or extra time off.  

[DiegoDiego]

Not necessarily.  There are plenty of companies that do not allow you to leave early simply because you have got your work done.  Therefore you find a way to stretch it out to fill the working week.
Parkinson's Law: Work expands to fill the time available.

Yes, but if they hadn't overhired then their employees wouldn't be able to stretch work out and be unproductive, they'd work at a decent pace to get it finished.

[scottsdad]

1 minute ago, DiegoDiego said:

 

Yes, but if they hadn't overhired then their employees wouldn't be able to stretch work out and be unproductive, they'd work at a decent pace to get it finished.

Bit of a myth to think that hiring more people means less work for everyone else. In my experience, more folk are hired and more work is piled on (then folk leave and the original staff have more to do).

[BFTD]

Aye, I've never worked anywhere that overstaffing was a problem.

I have, however, worked in several places where one person was (poorly) doing a job that used to be done by several, but because the wheels hadn't completely fallen off yet, they were expected to just get on with it.

Lone working has also become very popular among employers who don't give a shit about their employees' safety.

[scottsdad]

20 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Lone working has also become very popular among employers who don't give a shit about their employees' safety.

This is an interesting wee debate for my wife. She is in the office 3 days per week and her manager is going nuts working out a rota to make sure there are 2 folk in the office at all times. Safety has been cited as a reason.  Quite why is anyone's guess - others have their own offices, and the office next door to my wife's has people in it too.

It is being used as justification for bringing people in 3 days per week as opposed to the 1 or 2 they have been doing for about a year now. 

[BFTD]

13 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

This is an interesting wee debate for my wife. She is in the office 3 days per week and her manager is going nuts working out a rota to make sure there are 2 folk in the office at all times. Safety has been cited as a reason.  Quite why is anyone's guess - others have their own offices, and the office next door to my wife's has people in it too.

It is being used as justification for bringing people in 3 days per week as opposed to the 1 or 2 they have been doing for about a year now. 

Well, nice that they're thinking about it, I suppose, even if it is part of an agenda.

I was thinking more about off-licences, bookies, that kind of thing; late-night customer-facing jobs where dealing with violent jakes and robberies is commonplace.

[DiegoDiego]

Bit of a myth to think that hiring more people means less work for everyone else. In my experience, more folk are hired and more work is piled on (then folk leave and the original staff have more to do).

If you can cut man hours by 20% without any loss in productivity then what other explanations are there?

[Fullerene]

You can also increase productivity by increasing salary.  Funny that.  The more you reward your staff the harder they work - up to a point.

More motivation probably.

More time off can be just as motivating as more money.  

You are assuming that everyone is working flat out but if they were then why would you ever give them a salary increase or other improved conditions.

It is always a trade off.

[DiegoDiego]

You are assuming that everyone is working flat out but if they were then why would you ever give them a salary increase or other improved conditions.
It is always a trade off.

Because your competitors are offering more and your salaries need to remain "£ competitive".

You do talk sense though and the world of "jobs" encompasses a huge range of tasks along a spectrum of how time sensitive they are

[coprolite]

55 minutes ago, DiegoDiego said:

2 hours ago, scottsdad said:

Bit of a myth to think that hiring more people means less work for everyone else. In my experience, more folk are hired and more work is piled on (then folk leave and the original staff have more to do).

If you can cut man hours by 20% without any loss in productivity then what other explanations are there?

Productivity isn't the same as production. 

If you cut man hours by 20% and that cuts production by 19%, productivity will have increased but you won't have enough resource to do the 100% production that the firm was doing. 

[Boghead ranter]

8 hours ago, Fullerene said:

Parkinson's Law: Work expands to fill the time available.

Parkinson's Law 2 : Cock expands so as to fill secretary.

[Thistle_do_nicely]

On 03/06/2022 at 12:48, BFTD said:

Don't forget the P&B favourite - a good long shite right after your lunch break has finished, and not before.

I can also recommend nipping out with the smokers - good ten minutes per outing knocked off the working day, and you get to keep up with all the office gossip.

I've learned so much from this forum.

I mind when i finally got decent at doing multi drop home deliveries i finally had the time to have a smoke both before and after completing runs, and no i wasnt an awful White Van Man, just learned the best routes to go and what i could get away with when parking, genuinely drove very safely/responsibly as it was made clear it was my driving licence on the line if i fucked up; the "sound" supervisor didnt really care (basically as long as i was meeting the schedules and not fucking up the deliveries she wasnt fussed) but the store manager and one off the other supervisors hummed and hawwed about it, eventually the manager actually fucking watched me on cctv and pulled me up after a delivery run "oh i saw you have a cigarette and left 5 minutes late on the schedule, i know you got back on time but please dont do that again, we need you out on time in case theres traffic issues". Found it a bit weird/voyeuristic but hey yo. I mean she was right at the end of the day but i never hid that i was smoking.

Normally im not one for shithousery but after that i did exactly what they asked, no smoking before runs - still sparked up whenever i got back - but at the first high rise of the day i delivered to (very common so just about guaranteed to get at least one highrise each run, often early on the run with the way the routes were calculated) id spark up. They could theoretically track the van location after the delivery, but if they queried it it'd be easy to bullshit that the lifts were slow or they took a minute to answer the door, oh sorry lol it was really hard to park there etc. etc.

The manager liked asking me to do pointless busywork/fucking cleaning stuff if it was quiet. I saw the job a bit different, all i cared about was making the deliveries to the right people and not damaging any goods/the van tbh, wasnt paid enough/given enough leeway when the roads were murder with temporary lights everywhere to care enough about any other shite they asked me to do so quite happily just half arsed any """additional reasonable duties as requested by your manager""" they flung at me. Pfffffft.

I did merrily chainsmoke once i handed in my notice there tho, have to admit.

Edited June 6, 2022 by Thistle_do_nicely

[Wile E Coyote]

2 hours ago, Boghead ranter said:

Cecil Parkinson's Law 2 : Cock expands so as to fill secretary.

FTFY