OK Bob, if they're basically equal but different systems then riddle me this.

Dave gets hired, Dave really stinks at his job. I mean he just kinda half hearts it and probably never should have been hired in the first place but he slipped through the cracks. He shows no signs of improvement and is really just dead weight.

1. What happens to Dave if his employer is...oh lets say "
XYZ injection mode corp"?

2..What happens to Dave if his employer is... "The greater Cleveland municipal road commission"?



My answers are :

1. Dave is confronted by his manager(Earl) and given an ultimatum, shape up or ship out. The other employees are pissed that Dave gets away with doing so little and so the poor attitude/work habits spread like a cancer in the plant. Earl is concerned that Daves poor performance is reflecting badly on his department and hurting his own chances for promotion.

Odds are Dave is fired, but if he works at it he can change and keep his job.

2. Daves manager (Susette) hasn't spoken to Dave much lately, she doesn't see the point since he doesn't do what she asks anyway. Susette and the other managers get together to decide what to do with Dave.... they ultimately decide to give Dave that office down the hall they haven't been using and to change Daves title to something like "technology director" so he can't do much harm and it won't matter much if he doesn't do his job. Susette has an $8 latte during her 2 hour lunch to celebrate her good managent skills:)

(BTW, when I typed "FRAM" in my browser, I loved listening to the hard drive spin up like it was solving the collective of SETI.....)

Len

In most public sector jobs, there is a period of probation. It can be 6 months up to one year. At any time the individual can be "let go" without any recourse. Also, if the "public sector" job is considered appointed or "exempt", the individual serves, like the private sector, at the pleasure of the management.

Once again, you are assuming that the "public sector" manager is somehow more inept than the private sector counterpart. Is there quantifiable evidence to back this assertion? Truth of the matter is, whether public or private, no manager wants someone on the team that reflects badly. Since management serves at the pleasure, this situation could, in your scenario, result in Suzette being out on her butt. Just remember what happened in Chicago in 1979 because of all the snow.....

Individual managers have individual approaches to problems, regardless of the employer.

If there is concrete evidence to the contrary, please post. Otherwise, respectfully, call what you post what it is..an opinion not based upon experience.

The only public employees I have ever heard of being fired (lets stick to last last couple decades) were do to illegal activities or repeated violation of written-in-stone rules(like "show up for work"). I have never, ever heard of a public emplyee being let go because they were inept or slow or blah blah. They get moved, not fired. And even then it's very very very rare, cause there just isn't any vested interest by management.

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm sure you and everyone you personally worked with in Gov. just busted ass all day cause you knew it was the right thing to do:)

Opinion, sorta I guess but not really since most of what I say is common knowledge. What's that old saying about what you have to do to lose a government job......dead girl or live boy??? Yea something like that:)

Like I have said before I have multiple contacts in government employ (all levels), and most have confided in me that I am pretty much spot on. I am actually talking about a documentary with a couple of them to show what the "institution" does to human drive and work ethic.

Also, I'm not sure what your six month story is about regarding private business. We can fire anyone we want whenever we want. We just have to be able to show just cause (read documentation of warnings).

And once again, I am not slamming the people. The people are just that, people. The system is what is jacked up, it saps the life right out of them. Big business is almost the same for that matter.

The people who do really well in Gov/Big business employ are generally the cream of the crop, real go getters. Because they have succeeded inside a system that tried like hell to kill their drive. I know these people too and they are rare.

Ah yes, when you claim that cops, soldiers, firefighters and teachers do no 'REAL' work cause their organizational units are not skimming off a profit to give to people who really don't work, you are not slamming them. :rolleyes:

Is XYZ injection mode corp a union shop? If so, it sounds like Dave's management material.



PS-Sorry Lee. Hope things get better. Maybe an accounting degree? When you retire-4 years investment won't seem like so long.

I have a BA in business majoring in management. I can't imagine going back to school at 40. Since my wife is a pilot and is gone a lot I intend to find something where I'll be around for my 5 year old daughter.

I really need to be self employed.... just without the 25 employees I had when I sold my last business. I don't have the time required for that sort of venture.

Lee, can you trim expenses? Make your income go farther.

Income isn't the big issue. I sold my business right before my wife got pregnant with out daughter. So, I've been a stay at home dad for six years. I NEED TO DO SOMETHING!

Charity work. Dyno shop. Horse stables. These are things I will pursue when money is but nothing. Dig deep.

Lee,

Just a thought, help some of your friends set-up websites or become a part-time consultant in accounting as some of these guys have mentioned. Do you still have a lot of stay at home responsibilities in which you can't work outside the home? You can also go after professional certifications in business with a few classes, CPA, CMA etc.

Chris

Len, my friend, remember that so-called "common knowledge" is usually wrong.

Was the wirld ever flat?

Can mercury be transformed into gold?

Is the earth the center of the universe?

"Lord, let me not criticize my brother until I have walked a mile in his moccasins"


Hope you never have to call those "slackers" from the Fire or Police Departments......I have, over the years lost three friends in Public Safety

Bob, you refuse to see my point and rather choose to paint my comments as derogatory to individuals when they are not. I am railing against the system, not the people. I can only say that so many ways, so if you don't get it well.....what can I say?

Lets try this again.

Take any private sector middle/upper management type of guy we'll call him Javier. He does a pretty good job, and almost always hits deadlines, etc...

Well all of a sudden he is told that his rules of employment are changing. The company will now adopt the "teachers union system" for all management.

Javier doesn't know what this means so he asks. He is is told that since he's been there for 12 years he cannot be fired, no one will monitor his progress, and it's really up to him as to how much work he does and how well he does it. The company will rely on Javiers conscience to throttle his output and quality of service.

So Bob, do you think Javier is more productive/efficient manager before or after the switch? Is he still the same person? So if Javier is still....Javier, but his quality of service has fallen, who's fault is it? Or maybe better worded...what was the cause of this?

Perhaps you would argue that everyone/all employees should work under a system like the one teachers have created for themselves? Man, that would be interesting:)

I would never put the current teacher situation up as a shining example. However, from a historical standpoint, there was a time when collective bargaining was necessary. Please look at the industrial/civil situation before 1900. Literally a handful of individuals held the entire wealth of the country and were labelled "robber barons". Government, that nasty old thing, under the laedership of people like T.R., took action and began to change the situation. As time went on, the private sector part of the movement (read Gompers and crowd), demanded more and more "benefits" from industry and got them. For the past two decades or so, the unions have been blamed for just about every ill that has befallen the country but without them, many of us who enjoy a reasonably good lifestyle would still be working 6 1/2 day weeks at a bare subsistence level. Remember: Most "concessions" given to unions are applicable to middle management and professionals as well, just to keep parity.

Now..as for another reason for the creation of unions. The original concept, in the public sector, was to reduce the number of individuals being "let go" when political parties changed, to be replaced with the party loyal. This caused a disruption in service, another "learning curve" situaiton and demoralization. The idea was to provide continuity in operations with specific controls that would allow for termination under malfeasance, misfeasance, and extreme insubordination. Public sector employees are forbidden by civil service law to participate in political actions while on the job.

I worked in Research for a large east coast manufacturer years ago. Much of my duties were involved with machine shop personnel and assembly lines. If you wish to talk of demoralized people, speak with assembly line individuals.

You have some interesting points, but if I read you right, your main sources are in only one sector. "Fair and balanced" would dictate equal time to the other side before making a blanket statement that one is far superior to the other.

You assume Javier's performance will falter. Why? Are we leaving self-motivation out of the equation? You continue to put up straw men for others to knock down. And, since you have no empirical data to back up your assertations, what is the purpose of the discussion beyond that point? You have developed your conclusions and are bending the logic to fit these conclusions. One cannot successfully debate this type of logic.

I enjoy our exchanges up to the point they become internally inconsistent and pointless, and this on has reached this point. Conclusions made on "hearsay" are not admissible in court for a very specific reason.

See you in another thread...

Cheers!!!

Because my head is not buried in the sand:) Sorry couldn't resist.

Hearsay???? I call it common sense. Oh well, if you think it is likely that his performance would stay the same or improve then you and I have a basic disagreement on human nature.

lendaddy
Interesting take on teachers employment. I was a teacher for three years. Pink slips are issued every year due to budget crisis and teachers are let go, so there is no real guarantee of employment.

http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2003/06/12_pugmiret_teacherlayoffs/

My progress was monitored by my principal who can request transfers. Teachers are monitored/evaluated by their customer, ie. the parents. And parents can easily jump on a principal and a school for poor teachers. I know, we have done it. The principal will then get some training for the teacher if needed, or make a personnel change if necessary and teachers have left. Now I am not sure where they went, though.

Steve,

I agree it CAN be done. What I'm saying is that it is (in general) an altered reality in which they operate. Even the teachers in your story were laid off only because there were 1,400 less students, hence less teachers required. I have NEVER heard of a teacher being fired because they are bad at what they do, never. Now I'm sure (I think) that it has happened, but it is crazy rare. In the private sector people are let go all-the-time because they cannot/ do not perform. That's life.

Now I only used teachers cause it was a handy example, the same really applies to ALL government employees. I will also ask when the last time you heard of ANY government employees being let go due to poor quality of service/efficiency/etc... It just doesn't happen man.

When Public employees are let go it is usually because they broke some law or got caught balls deep in a goat during lunch break or something. Actual job performance is of no concern. (in general:))

I am not sure any school district will advertise that they fired teachers, but I do know my child's high school did fire one last year. But you won't get that from them.

The teacher was basically incompetent. My child learned nothing that year in Spanish. A language in which I could not really evaluate his progress, but other students parents apparently could and did complain to the principal.