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Admin
What's the problem?? My boss does this all the time. He usually informs me of deadlines by saying, "If you can't finish this by Friday, I'll find someone else who can."
As if.
Admin
The paycheck is why you show up and do the job. The environment is what makes you happy to do so. The productivity of some jobs is not much affected by employee job-satisfaction. In others (generally those with large creative, intuitive, or personal interaction components), employee satisfaction has a huge impact.
A manager in a field of the latter type, who doesn't recognize that the paycheck only induces attendance and feigned attentiveness, is doomed to failure.
Admin
Admin
T. J. Watson Sr. (Mr. IBM) recalled that a manager showed up at NCR for work one day after annoying the big boss. He found his desk on the front lawn
... on fire.
Admin
Are you talking about the piece of cake or about the spectacle???
Admin
Do anyone suppose that it was Paula that was in the elevator?
Potential Employee: "So, is this place good?"
Paula: "They work you like a dog around here! I have been trying to get this code done for the past few weeks, and they keep checking up on me to see if I made any progress. They never did that at my old place!"
Potential Employee: "Uh-huh, and the boss?"
Paula: "Oh, he is Brillant!"
Just thought we needed a brillant for today!
Admin
Man eating sharks .. with lasers attached to their heads.
Admin
My director of IT got fired and they got a replacement.
He came in and told the whole staff ... "I wouldn't have hired any of you."
needless to say production went down rapidly
Admin
Gotta watch Office Space again, apparently.
Admin
Admin
The sad thing is, that such mails normally come from the most incompetent guy in the company who also is the exact reason why this happened inthe first place. If i were the CEO, i would ask oth poeple him to speak absolutely open without any consequences, an then let them realize themselves whey they have to quit, or fire them if they don't come up with pretty good reasons why to stay.
the best tactic still is thousands of years old and does work the best. it's from sun-tsu (aka. "sunzi") (sorry, this is translated from german):
If the words of command are not clear precise, if the orders are not understood, then it's the fault of the general (boss).
But when his orders are clear, and yet the servicemen do not obey, then it's the fault of the officers.
I may add, that if you want to have success, then the orders not only have to be clear and precise, but they must also not be stupid!!!
You only have to decapitate the one who's fault it is.
Well. If i think about it: The whole system of a hierarchy with mamagers is outdated and does not really work. Nowadays you don't need a hierarchy. You can let an open source program do the mamagement stuff. With rules that are decided by the team.
Admin
I don't see the problem here. Someone actively sabotaging the company deserves to be booted out hard and fast.
Admin
Very... very... VERY funny!
You never heard of the problems of finding a new job?
First you hardly can find one. Second you have a chance of one in thousand to get a job interview, because of the concurrents. and then the inverviewer will rather not hire someone who quits jobs, because he can get other poeple for less who don't quit even if they are threated as slaves.
Remeber that there is always someone who is more stupid than you and accepts the stuff you don't. this counts for crappy products, contracts, jobs and everythign else.
So let's hope ther will be some epidemic plague to kill them all. ;)
Admin
Sure as hell it was! >:-D
Admin
These posts don't even make a bit of sense.
The job sucks, so rather than leaving, you sabotage the company, putting all the jobs in jeopardy.
Do you think the job is some sort of entitlement? That it will always be tehre even when the smarties who find themselves too good to be working there have won, and trashed the company in everyone's eyes?
Stupid, stupid.
Yeah, I've been on both sides of this, and i've stayed up late worrying about keeping companies going. If you've never done that, you've got not real place to speak here. Be a good, quiet little wage slave and don't fuck things up or maybe your job will just completely go away along with the company, k? Maybe that would make you happy? I can't see the logic in it, but hey, wtf do i know.
Admin
Thank you, thank you very much...
Admin
IMHO, I have to agree - if I were that applicant, however much I might think the employee had no business bad-mouthing his current employer, I'd probably be grateful for the warning to not jump from whatever frying pan I might be in - into the fire.
Admin
I don't know that I've met anyone who has been completely unable to complain about their job. Maybe it's just on a bad day, maybe it's just part of their nature.
But I do know that I want to work with people who, whether they complain or not, know that where they are is the best place for them to be. They can take interviews at other companies, and if they think the grass is greener, let them jump the fence and see what the world beyond is like. For one thing, it'll help them focus their complaints on improvements (or let everyone recognize it as simple venting). I never want to work with sheep (or with people who are so afraid of complaining that they don't know who to suck up to next).
On the other hand, during the downturn, a buddy of mine had the guts to park himself outside the VP's door in an "Angel of Death" costume on Hallowe'en. Fortunately, the VP seemed to get the joke, but some others considered it a CLM ("career limiting move").
Admin
It was almost impossible to get fired at the place I was at. They had to go through the "layoff" process so that they could get rid of the people without handing out massive severance packages (because that is what the company normally does).Admin
What's the problem?? My boss does this all the time. He usually informs me of deadlines by saying, "If you can't finish this by Friday, I'll find someone else who can
-----------------------------------------
A boss once said something similar to me, my reply was: and if you need it fixed by Tuesday, you'll know where to find me.
Admin
The given memo spells "doomed company" from my past experience. Employees at that place can't complain that they weren't warned after that incident.
l.
Admin
All these assumptions based on what the CEO said he heard the recruiter say the candidate said that the employee said.
Look at it from the candidate's perspective. If you were on a job interview, and you got a minute unsupervised in an elevator with an employee, wouldn't you asked pointed questions about what it's really like to work there? Wouldn't you want to know that there's been "a series of pay cuts, mandatory overtime, and benefits slashing"? Would you consider getting truthful answers "cowardly" or "shit-talking" or "sabotage"?
And why does everyone, including the CEO, assume the employee isn't quitting? Maybe he was in the elevator on his way out the door.
Candidate: Say, isn't that a box of personal effects you're carrying?
Employee: Well, now that you mention it--
Ding
--RA
Admin
wow.... talk about fascism...
Admin
That happened somewhere I worked. Not that uncommon. Person doing the recruiting isn't always the one 'letting staff go' and isn't always informed either.
Admin
Mate, you have to add those irony/sarcasm tags for people to get it, 'k?
Admin
Wow, not only is she announcing her powerlessness to everyone, but she is almost demanding that people conspire to oust her. She couldn't possibly have lasted in that position, could she?
CAPTCHA: Zork, feel the memories!
Admin
"If you don't like this company -then GET THE HELL OUT.
The rest of us are trying to accomplish something here."
There's a senior manager at my company who writes this kind of stuff fairly regularly. Don't worry - when the time is right I'll quit.
My rule of manager recognition (resembling Catch 22's definition of an enemy):
Someone who provides neither direction nor support for my project when I ask for it is not my manager - no matter where he apears on the org chart.
Admin
Well the boss man is almost certainly bluffing about that. If he had any hope of ID'ing the rogue employee, there would be no need for the puffed out speech about how "we'll find ya out, ya might as well confess!" I mean, does that even work on little children?
It would be less effort if he were to just show up to work in a T-shirt reading "I am a huge jackass".
Admin
Wow, I sense a lot of impotent rage talking there.
Admin
No it wasn't a little bit funny, it was hilarious!
Admin
I think the original post made it pretty clear who the wrong person is in that company.
Admin
I had a manager like that once. I was "managed out" partially because I spoke up for the group. After I was canned, the group stopped speaking behind his back and a few months later the manager was out on the street looking for a new job.
Admin
V. funny dr. freud, but no.
you guys sound pathetic. Go to work. do the job. take the check . you don't like it? don't clog up the world with the whining. it's boring as hell hearing the same stuff over and over from wage slaves who find "empowerment" by talking about how the man be keepin' them down.
okey dokey?
Admin
I would sense more than impotent rage, I would sense fascism.
Writing an email out of anger with hate and agressivity is not a smart moves. I would say that a normal adult try to avoid that. Now, it comes from a CEO... WTF??? I hope he feels bad about it.
But I still think the candidate should have kept his mouth shut.
Admin
<FONT style="FONT-FAMILY: verdana" face="Times New Roman">Me either. I was just on that site and found it entirely worthless. Used to be you could get lots of funny stuff for free, and the the site itself was worth something. Now it's a bunch of losers whacking their penises and posting 'first'. Abolute shite. </FONT>
<FONT style="FONT-FAMILY: verdana" size=1><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3></FONT>
</FONT><FONT style="FONT-FAMILY: verdana" face="Times New Roman">
<FONT face=Arial>Exactly. No reason it has to be exclusively IT stuff. </FONT>
<FONT face=Arial></FONT>Admin
Lol the visuals of this cracked me up. I like the bluntness of the CEO guy, nothing wrong with that.
Admin
It's amazing these glimpses into the US corporate world you get sometimes and how employees are treated in you country.
In Sweden it's an absolute right to express any view you have without the risk of lossing your job or risk the CEO comaing after you with a blow torch.
Another thing I recently heard was that a lot of compnaies had threathen to fire people that participated in the demonstrations against the new proposed immigration laws, again, to exercise your democratic rights it's an absolute right in Sweden and you coudl NEVER get fired for that.
How can you stand this kind of behaviour ? How about demanding your rights as human beings, demand to be treated like valuable human beings and not just somethign that can be disposed of at any time ?
Of course, here in Sweden it's been taken too far, to the point where companies are almost afraid to hire to people because of all the regulations, but in the US it seems you can be fired for just about anything and that's just not right in a supposedly democratic country.
Admin
OP here again.. You're inventing stuff that wasn't there... I remain amused by the ongoing amateur psychoanalysis, which like most amateur psychoanalysis, says more about the analyst than the subject.
btw, the manager's e-mail was completely out of line and I've never said otherwise... I've not commented on the manager previously, but on the postings here about the incident... take another look at this thread and i think you will see lots of real pent-up impotent feelings from the posters.
Wage slaves, you're always gonna be wage slaves if you keep acting like this... sabotaging your source of income and your co-workers/peers/fellow sufferers is never a path to anything good.
Admin
I think most people here miss an important lesson.
Loyalty is earned, not handed out for free.
Obviously there is a reason for the person who told the candidate that it was a shitty place to work.
Being a manager implies that you are the one to keep the workforce productive, and that can only be done when you care for their needs.
This CEO should be ashamed of himself.
The whole event should be an alarm-clock that something isn't right within the company, and efforts should be made to solve the problem with unhappy employees.
2 Swedish crowns from me.
Admin
IMO it's not sabotage to tell a candidate that the company is a shitty place to work if this is actually true. It's a truth that is hard to hide in the long term; so if the (unwarned) candidate started working here, he would probably leave anyway soon after, causing additional costs. Only desperate people work at a shitty place, so let's say the hint from the employee was a "deperate enough" screening of the candidate.
Admin
In the United States, a distinction, at least in the past, was made between the government and private individuals/businesses. The government is bound by the Constitution to not violate its citizens' freedoms. However, that does not mean a private individual (or business) is required to facilitate/promote anothers freedom when the two have entered into a voluntary association. Some would view your arrangement in Sweden as totalitarian - the government threatens to use its monopoly on the use of force to coerce a private organization to its will.
Admin
That's a false assumption. Organizations shall not have any right whatsoever to regulate the rights of the people.
Admin
Consider the contradictions in what you've written for a moment, and the content of this thread that I was writing about.
I wasn't reflecting on this candidate-employee interaction, but on the posts here not only defending it but calling for (and bragging about) even more such acting-out... feeling good about all the crappy things an employee can do in a crappy company to make it even worse.
This is imo not smart, not praiseworthy, not something to brag about or emulate.
btw i've at least a few times nudged people away from situations that were obviously inappropriate. In one case, a manager in an academic lab made clearly inflated promises to a recruit. I didn't have to bad mouth the manager, didn't call him a "liar" or say that his students didn't like his research group, to solve this. I gave the candidate a few pointers about some more information he could find on his own, had a small chat with some of my peers he'd also be talking to, and left it at that. In the end, the kid made the right decision and the other research group self-corrected in time. It wasn't our place to make the decision for him, but it was our prerogative to help him find enough information to make his own informed decision.
Admin
Well, I didn't say the state did anything, as with anything the state sets a framework with a number of laws but then it's up to the union and the companies to make agreements.
The thing is, in Sweden and most european countries the union is very powerful for the simple reason that the politicians want them to be, the laws regulating the job market is in place to protect the unions and the workers rights, that doesn't mean they can't fire people but they have to negotiate with the union everytime they want to fire someone.
It's kind of hard to explain the differences between our systems in a short forum post, but if you really think Sweden is totalitarian you should come and visit sometime.
I would say having military posted in every street corner in NY and allowing the police to do "sweeps" where they check everyones bags and personal belongings int he subway is WAY more totalitarian than having laws that protect the workers rights.
But like I said previously, It's gone to far in this country, it's way too hard to get a job because the companies know it's hard to get rid of people.
Admin
Gotta be Jim Marshall at Agentis Software. He was famous for this kinda behavior at Apple.
Admin
So, did you ever find out which of your employees warned off the job applicant? Or did that misguided crusade go down in flames like so many others before it?
Admin
I'm pretty sure John Locke never wrote anything about people being entitled to indefinite employment.
Admin
I recently heard that the moon is made of cheese. People can be fired for unannounced absence no matter what they're doing. Someone who voluntarily takes the day off without getting it cleared first is screwing the management, who had goals for that day, the customers, who were expecting products that day, and all the employees who played by the rules and came in to work. "I was out protestin" is not an excuse for that kind of irresponsibility.
Admin
Beyond your officious need to call everyone here a "wage slave" (when were you born, 1920?), I'm not sure what you get out of this. According to you, you're not defending the CEO (whom you persist in calling "manager" for some bizarre reason), you're just attacking everyone who is pointing out what a jackass he is. And you're puzzled why people think you have pscyhological issues. That Internet sure is a great release for you, isn't it?
Admin
John who ? Seriously, where did you get "indefinite employement" from ? Did I say that ?
My posts was about the fact that you don't seem to have ANY protection for employees over there.
Being sacked for expressing your views, excercising your democratic rights...etc
That's the real WTF here, you certainly need to mature as a society, you've had 500 years, what have you been doing ?