I had friends who worked the counter of a dry cleaner and they just read books the whole time waiting for costumers, owner was cool with it. I guess it wasn’t realistic to watch the counter and also do the actual cleaning.
BS jobs
- Thread starter RezClone
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I had friends who worked the counter of a dry cleaner and they just read books the whole time waiting for costumers, owner was cool with it. I guess it wasn’t realistic to watch the counter and also do the actual cleaning.
I was in a different industry but by the end, well, bad example because I wanted out and was purposely offloading things and not taking them back after maternity leave but the intensive day to day stuff went to more junior people. I had my own things to do, sure, but nowhere near 40 hours of work. I'd answer questions, train them on new things, handle anything that needed to go up the chain, strategic decisions - and when **** happened, I was in the trenches putting in the time. I think for many lines of work this is common and why a 5 day 40 hour workweek is really outdated and inefficient.
And even then, I'm sure my junior people weren't really pulling 40 hours and that was fine with me. They got done what they needed to do, and did it well. I know one automated the hell out of stuff that took me days. Excellent. Enjoy that extra time.
So here's a question (I also find that poster's comment incredibly naive about how corporate America works yet somehow fitting with their worldview but I digress)
What's the difference between a BS job and deadweight employees? Because as I think about this question I go back and forth between jobs that don't take near 40 hours a week but do have a function and purpose, and people who were absolutely useless in their role yet never seemed to draw attention to that fact.
Totally agree. Show me a company that waits until the end of the year to review an employee's performance, and I will show you, in general, an underperforming company as compared to its peers.
Was there consideration to have that person automate as many areas as possible to trim the staff?
Yeah. I always went to the shops where you could see the plant right behind the front counter.
Good points. A lot of both exist imo - bs jobs and deadweight employees.
No. The consideration was to deny the person a raise multiple times even after they got a high value graduate degree (and then give them way undermarket increase), force them to RTO when they had an hour commute and infant and then shocked Pikachu face when they left for nearly double.
Easy way to determine if you have a BS job.... If you are on CF while on the job, you have a BS job.
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Could have been. These same twin girls also had a mall kiosk job where they did the same thing just reading books, pretty smart actually. I’d come bother them and sometimes the one not working would be there too reading.
Probably not high paying kind of work but you’d arrive home relaxed and happy (and not have any homework left). I’m sure I was getting a dollar or two more an hour at my hs jobs but they were actually exhausting jobs.
I particularly liked all of the new safety protocols after the buyout. It is amazing that we didn't have people getting taken to the hospital on a daily basis prior to that./s My favorite was having to wear safety glasses when walking by a cardboard compactor but they didn't need to bother to let us know that the work they were doing on the other side of the wall that caused dust to fall on our desks was asbestos remediation. Thank God we now have temperature sensitive signs some even with flashing lights to let us know when it could be icy though.
I think your question about deadweight employees is great. People can do a lot with a given position or choose to do as little as possible with it. I would like to know the percentage of people that can get the job done in 20 hours, but don’t push for more work or changes to help their company. In some cases they may have tried at one time and got shut down, so it killed their drive. In others, they just try to hide right out of the gate…..
Here is my very cynical take - if I'm getting done what I need to, and I'm pretty sure I won't get paid more.........I'm not going to jump at taking on more work. Earlier in my career I definitely would have but I've generally found that more work is more work for the same pay.
And if you do it once then you're on the hook for doing it again and again.
No mission creep
And I've been stuck more than once in the in-between where you try to get a raise based on proving you can do the work but the argument is well you've been doing it so why would we want to pay more for what we've already been getting.....
I had fun at my first job where I'd do my work and then help another employee complete her duties.
Then I was told that she was amazing and was so good at what she did!
Um. I've been doing that for her. Crickets.
To a certain extent, you also get punished for competence.
I had a miscarriage and was out of office on Friday for my D & C. They had a rush project so called me while still woozy from anesthesia to come in on Saturday. There was a guy who was assigned to the the same stuff who could have done it, had been there longer than me, made more money than me, but was not very competent. Every difficult project came to me. Their excuse was they thought it would take my mind off it and be better for me. Such a load of crap.
I spent 14 hours at work on a Saturday the day after a D & C to get it done, while husband was home explaining to our toddler why he was going to have to wait a bit longer to be a big brother.
So sometimes a job is bs just because anything difficult gets pawned off on someone else while an idiot drinks coffee and pontificates.
Yes, and companies like this, generally lose top performers over time. Average companies equal a lot of average performers.
I led tours of the Iowa State Center twice a week. If no one showed up I was still guaranteed two hours of pay. Sometimes they would have me do the liquor shopping for Schemen but mostly I watched basketball practice. This was in the mid 70’s so there wasn’t too much to watch