Work colleagues

[coprolite]

45 minutes ago, Hillonearth said:

Almost exactly the same experience - we'd brought in a couple of new systems and a minority...the usual suspects...were vociferous about not having been trained on it.

Apart from the intranet site that was set up specifically for that purpose, the video tutorials and the readily available quick reference guides that had all been out there for months before we adopted the systems, I'd agree with them.

There are a few old-school types that don't consider themselves as having been trained on anything until someone sits them down in a room and physically reads out to them how to do something, preferably with the aid of a whiteboard and a laser pointer.

Whiteboards and laser pointers are not "old school" and are in fact teaching aids from the future. Proper training requires an OHP. 

[Hillonearth]

5 minutes ago, coprolite said:

Whiteboards and laser pointers are not "old school" and are in fact teaching aids from the future. Proper training requires an OHP. 

Coupled with an A1 flipchart and an assortment of permanent markers for full effect. We recently had smartboards installed in a couple of our presentation rooms which also caused predictable meltdowns: 

"What manner of sorcery be this?"

[GordonD]

11 hours ago, ellichtie said:

I worked weekends in a kitchen when I was at uni, met a few roasters in my time.

One new boy who lasted about two weeks. Microwaved a giant metal ice cream scoop to heat it up because "the ice cream was too frozen to scoop properly".

A sous chef who played either dubstep or country music on the kitchen speaker, and liked to tell everyone his favourite conspiracy theories, including that global warming was a myth peddled by the Chinese to sell plastic toys. Big Donald Trump fan.

A kp who was Finnish I think that had a swastika branded into his arm. Got fired for starting on one of the shift managers after she asked him to wash more cutlery for the waiters. Also spent a whole shift telling me about how much he hated brown people.

Had a shift manager who would only hire ugly guys or 8/10 and above 18 year old lassies. Had a habit of squeezing folks arses and jumping out at folk whilst they were carrying glasses or knifes.

A big fat speccy bartender who would spend hours telling you stories about all the birds he pumped that looked like Megan Fox or Mila Kunis. Biggest VL I've ever met.

 

Presumably that's how you got the job.

[welshbairn]

11 hours ago, ellichtie said:

I worked weekends in a kitchen when I was at uni, met a few roasters in my time.

One new boy who lasted about two weeks. Microwaved a giant metal ice cream scoop to heat it up because "the ice cream was too frozen to scoop properly".

A sous chef who played either dubstep or country music on the kitchen speaker, and liked to tell everyone his favourite conspiracy theories, including that global warming was a myth peddled by the Chinese to sell plastic toys. Big Donald Trump fan.

A kp who was Finnish I think that had a swastika branded into his arm. Got fired for starting on one of the shift managers after she asked him to wash more cutlery for the waiters. Also spent a whole shift telling me about how much he hated brown people.

Had a shift manager who would only hire ugly guys or 8/10 and above 18 year old lassies. Had a habit of squeezing folks arses and jumping out at folk whilst they were carrying glasses or knifes.

A big fat speccy bartender who would spend hours telling you stories about all the birds he pumped that looked like Megan Fox or Mila Kunis. Biggest VL I've ever met.

 

I worked for a few months as barman in a posh Highland golf hotel. The head chef got sacked just after I started for punching a porter's lights out.

A French guy came in to take over, got caught trying to defrost a chicken by pouring boiling water on it, defence was that it was only for the crew's meal. Sacked.

Another chef was arrested and eventually sent down for raping a woman in one of the hotel bedrooms.

Apart from that everyone was nice.

Edited June 6, 2020 by welshbairn

[Honest_Man#1]

3 hours ago, Hillonearth said:

Almost exactly the same experience - we'd brought in a couple of new systems and a minority...the usual suspects...were vociferous about not having been trained on it.

Apart from the intranet site that was set up specifically for that purpose, the video tutorials and the readily available quick reference guides that had all been out there for months before we adopted the systems, I'd agree with them.

There are a few old-school types that don't consider themselves as having been trained on anything until someone sits them down in a room and physically reads out to them how to do something, preferably with the aid of a whiteboard and a laser pointer.

I get the training one every year. It’s that they haven’t been given expensive external training with a certificate or accreditation that they can use to get a better job elsewhere that they’re complaining about. The huge amount of online and in-house training is seen as worthless.

[Bairnardo]

I get the training one every year. It’s that they haven’t been given expensive external training with a certificate or accreditation that they can use to get a better job elsewhere that they’re complaining about. The huge amount of online and in-house training is seen as worthless.

In my experience, online elearning is a pure box ticking exercise to ensure the company have a training record presentable to the HSE when you f**k up. I have encountered very little training relevant to my job in the industry I work in. Actual learning how to do the job is passed from journeyman to new guy, and if you get landed with a shit journeyman..... Well guess how you end up.

Fortunately in my occasional dealings with Union officials and HSE inspectors I have been told that the HSE are wise to the tactic these days and will not accept a shitty CBT as proof that the employee is entirely to blame for any mistakes they make.

[GordonD]

3 hours ago, welshbairn said:

I worked for a few months as barman in a Torquay hotel. The head chef got sacked just after I started for punching a porter's lights out.

A French guy came in to take over, got caught trying to defrost a chicken by pouring boiling water on it, defence was that it was only for the crew's meal. Sacked.

Another chef was arrested and eventually sent down for raping a woman in one of the hotel bedrooms.

Apart from that everyone was nice.

FTFY

[Hillonearth]

2 hours ago, Honest_Man#1 said:

I get the training one every year. It’s that they haven’t been given expensive external training with a certificate or accreditation that they can use to get a better job elsewhere that they’re complaining about. The huge amount of online and in-house training is seen as worthless.

I could believe that was the case if we were talking about some young and driven go-getters who are looking to move on to something else, but in these cases it tends to be more the middle-aged plodders who have been allowed to fossilize in the same job for years and who treat any change to their routine as a personal insult who scream the loudest.

[superbigal]

We got told we could take holiday pay on top of our furlough money and gently encouraged to do this (I think it was explained as being encouraged to avoid problems with the whole department using all their leave over a 5 month period since almost no-one has taken any holidays abroad etc. this year); great, I booked a full week off to get some extra cash.
Then got a call advising that this was incorrect and that if we do take any leave while on furlough, we basically get 100% of our normal wage for that week instead of 80% but using 100% of the holiday entitlement... so basically 100% of holiday accrual would be used for an extra 20% of pay which then gets tax, NI etc. deducted from it. A fairly shite deal all round.
Was able to cancel the week's holiday promptly at least but it was a bit frustrating, although at least it was sorted out quickly and before it got paid out. Means I've still got a decent chunk of leave payable to soften the blow if they decide to punt me over the next couple of months too.

You seriously expected to be paid 180% ?
You are indeed lucky they allowed you to cancel.
Many employers have cottoned on that as long as they give legal notice they can force furloughed workers to take holidays whenever they want.
Certainly employees with long standing bookings for holidays (say a fortnight in July) have a brass neck if they try and cancel.

[Barry Ferguson's Hat]

No they don't. They're just looking out for themselves. Employees get fucked over at every turn and should be encouraged to try an manipulate the system in their favour as much as possible. 

[BFTD]

2 hours ago, Bairnardo said:

In my experience, online elearning is a pure box ticking exercise to ensure the company have a training record presentable to the HSE when you f**k up. I have encountered very little training relevant to my job in the industry I work in. Actual learning how to do the job is passed from journeyman to new guy, and if you get landed with a shit journeyman..... Well guess how you end up.

Fortunately in my occasional dealings with Union officials and HSE inspectors I have been told that the HSE are wise to the tactic these days and will not accept a shitty CBT as proof that the employee is entirely to blame for any mistakes they make.

I was recently told that all of the training I required to do my job was on the company's website. Took more than a year before anyone bothered to tell me.

Finally sat down to take a look and discovered that none of it is relevant to my job, or even department.

Edit: sorry, that's not true - I found some digital copies of the forms I've been having photocopied for all this time.

Edited June 6, 2020 by BigFatTabbyDave

[Derry Alli]

48 minutes ago, superbigal said:

Many employers have cottoned on that as long as they give legal notice they can force furloughed workers to take holidays whenever they want.

I take it you mean pre-booked to tie in with furlough? Your employer cannot force you to take a holiday. 

[Moomintroll]

6 minutes ago, Mr. Alli said:

I take it you mean pre-booked to tie in with furlough? Your employer cannot force you to take a holiday. 

They actually can if you do not prebook your allocation & they have to do so for the needs of the business. You might choose not to take it but then you would lose it. There has been a major stramash around it in our Company & the Union have said, yep it's legal & there's nothing we can do.

[Derry Alli]

6 minutes ago, Perkin Flump said:

They actually can if you do not prebook your allocation & they have to do so for the needs of the business. You might choose not to take it but then you would lose it. There has been a major stramash around it in our Company & the Union have said, yep it's legal & there's nothing we can do.

Towards the end of the allocated time, I take it? I posted here about guys being told if they wanted 3 weeks furlough they had to take 2 weeks holiday and asked if it was legal. Certain folk agreed (shitebag) and then were told Wednesday they're not getting it but they will be sending other guys up the road who never asked for it, so they can get on the scheme. It's an absolute clusterfuck. 

[Moomintroll]

2 minutes ago, Mr. Alli said:

Towards the end of the allocated time, I take it? I posted here about guys being told if they wanted 3 weeks furlough they had to take 2 weeks holiday and asked if it was legal. Certain folk agreed (shitebag) and then were told Wednesday they're not getting it but they will be sending other guys up the road who never asked for it, so they can get on the scheme. It's an absolute clusterfuck. 

Amazingly not, we have been told to prebook 20 days of our whole teams Entitlement which runs until next March,or as Managers we have to allocate it to ensure it is smoothed out. The people who are sheltering as vulnerable have had 2 weeks built in to their 12 week isolation but we had to phone them to get another 2 weeks booked in. It is a complete shambles.

[superbigal]

I take it you mean pre-booked to tie in with furlough? Your employer cannot force you to take a holiday. 

Of course they can. It's not a pleasant thought but employers can 100% dictate when holidays are taken.As long as they give you 2 days notice for every day you are asked to take.

 

Clearly some people will have contractual agreements that would not allow employers to take this route.

 

 

[Derry Alli]

13 minutes ago, superbigal said:

Clearly some people will have contractual agreements that would not allow employers to take this route.

Yeah that's probably what's happened in my place then. That would never come to pass in my place. 

[Doctor]

It's a bizarre situation with my work at the moment, things have slowed to a crawl, we were already a fairly up-to-date department before lockdown and were anticipating things getting busier in the months before Covid halted everything. I was furloughed for 3 weeks in April but asked to come-back to work after that despite the regulations in Scotland meaning we can't actually do the on-site things that would generate my work.

Right now theres work to do but only enough for maybe 2 hours a day, my boss is keeping fairly distant other than the odd weekly phonecall just for a chat and a catchup. I'm kind of anxious about job losses because I essentially share 50% of a overall job with someone else and if people do get made redundant things like that will be the first target. The person I do share the job with is much more dedicated than I'll ever be despite having more life commitments than I can count.

I have desperately enjoyed a lot of aspects of the lockdown, the same tank of fuel I put in my car in March has 200 miles left, although I miss going to restaurants or even getting takeaways (which stills feels oddly wrong) I'm making more of an effort in cooking meals and doing a bigger variety than spaghetti bolognese and mince n' chips. Just not having to drive and commit 9 hours a day to travel and sitting in an office has changed the pace of life for the better. 

The only thing causing me real anxiety is whether my job will continue long-term, and if so, will this change of working culture be a permanent one. Its really opened my eyes that its never been working I dislike, it's the environment around it and the expectations that come with it. 

 

 

[D.A.F.C]

I take it you mean pre-booked to tie in with furlough? Your employer cannot force you to take a holiday. 

We were forced to take a weeks holiday for the first week of lockdown.

[Derry Alli]

11 minutes ago, D.A.F.C said:

We were forced to take a weeks holiday for the first week of lockdown.

What did your union say?