December 16, 2011 at 1:07 pm
Mad Hacker (12/16/2011)
The sad thing is that these individuals are costing this origanization thousands of dollars every year when we already have financial issues, yet the managers take no initiative themselves to address these issues. Welcome to life in the sublic sector...
No, welcome to world of "being scared to death of a lawsuit." It has literally paralyzed many organizations today. not to mention our government sectors. Sad but true, and people wondering why no one is buying American made products anymore, the unions and the lawsuits are driving their costs through the roof, meanwhile they have to put up with the deadwood because they are scared to death to fire them. So people starting buying everything from China, or export the jobs to there or India. It's a trickle down effect. 😀
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
December 16, 2011 at 8:01 pm
TravisDBA (12/16/2011)... welcome to world of "being scared to death of a lawsuit." ... the unions and the lawsuits are driving their costs through the roof, meanwhile they have to put up with the deadwood ...
I have to disagree; I've not noticed union workers to be any more likely to "sluff off" than exempt workers, supervisors, or managers. In my experience, most managers do not know how to document a poorly-performing employee. Or work with one to improve their performance either. Sad in both cases.
I've experienced both having to deal with co-workers who refused to perform even their regular job duties, and having managers who tried to hold me to a different standard than my co-workers and team mates (not a Higher standard, mind you, just a different one). In all cases, these were resolved by appropriate action at the manager and the Human Resources level. I'm very good at documenting the realities of a situation - to the benefit of one manager, and the re-training of another (not sure how much they appreciated it at the time, but probably saved them a lawsuit later in life by nipping it in the bud, so to speak).
Proper documentation will head off most of the "frivolous" lawsuits - and that includes documenting the frustrations of an employees co-workers. Treating all employees with respect and fairness to start with will head off even more.
More companies ought to try that second one; it would save a lot of money in turnover rates - and THOSE carry a hefty price tag.
Steph Brown
December 17, 2011 at 6:19 am
Paul, yes, I do have a lawn guy:-), sort of - he cuts my grass once a week!
December 17, 2011 at 6:23 am
The point about rewarding those that get it done is well taken. I'll admin to valueing the trait but also probably too much expecting it and not doing enough about those that don't get it done. No team will have all superstars. I think the one thing that the get it doners get is the chance to do the interesting stuff. Yes, that could be manager speak for the hard stuff, but it's also usually the stuff that builds skills and careers.
December 17, 2011 at 11:13 am
I absolutely agree with taking ownership of a problem. However...
The problem is that "people that make it happen" frequently aren't the "people that make it happen right". The article hints at that by talking a bit about people identifying when a project schedule is in jeapordy but I've found very few people that will actually bring up even important problems if they think it will be perceived as them causing a schedule problem. Because of that, the 4 things that suffer the most are proper design, performance/scalability, the amount of rework required, and readability/ease of modification of code which, of course, includes some embedded documentation.
As a side bar, there lately seems to be a rash of articles on this site about the general topic of people getting things done and meeting schedules. Nothing about getting things done right... nothing about the ridiculous expectations of some managers... nothing about ridiculously complex projects with short timelines spawned during a shared ride in an elevator... nothing about not killing the messenger... nothing about how where if you want it real bad, that's the way you'll normally get it... and nothing about the costs of rework because people were too busy getting it done instead of getting it done right.
Let's see something about the other side of the story and the real costs of putting something out that's bad simply because people rushed to meet a ridiculous schedule. Let's see something that talks about the real costs of rework and putting something wrong or non-scalable into the customers hands. Let's see something about the real costs of losing inhouse experts to another company because some manager is making promises to look good that his/her team has no chance of doing correctly and still meeting schedule without working 12 or 16 hours a day.
--Jeff Moden
December 17, 2011 at 4:01 pm
call.copse (12/16/2011)
This puts me in mind of the classic Spolsky hiring diatribe on the theme of 'smart and gets things done'. To be honest in my experience the smart bit is not that important. I can live without that, but you definitely need the 'gets things done' every time.
A lawyer would object based on "assuming facts not in evidence". Come on, smart doesn't matter? I have to imagine that if we took a survey of workers and then ranked them based on "smart" and "gets things done correctly" versus "gets things done poorly", we would find a lot of smart and get things done correctly together, and a lot of not smart, gets things done poorly together.
Getting something done is important, but I do not believe Steve was looking for "just get it done". That attitude is partially responsible for the bad reputation our industry has.
I'll take smart over getting things done every time, because by definition, a smart person is smart enough to understand they have to get things done correctly, on time, and under budget.
Dave
Dave
December 19, 2011 at 2:35 am
djackson
Getting something done is important, but I do not believe Steve was looking for "just get it done". That attitude is partially responsible for the bad reputation our industry has.I'll take smart over getting things done every time, because by definition, a smart person is smart enough to understand they have to get things done correctly, on time, and under budget.
It's all relative. There is plenty of work to get done that does not require that much smart in general, although as I said there is a certain level of smart required to work at all in IT.
December 22, 2011 at 11:53 am
Stephanie J Brown (12/16/2011)I have to disagree; I've not noticed union workers to be any more likely to "sluff off" than exempt workers, supervisors, or managers.
Baloney!!!!!! What you are not realizing is the BIG difference here is union workers are much harder to get rid of than the other groups you state in your post.If you don't believe this then check out this link. Many of these UNION guys are still on the job today, and STILL doing this!. Try that at my company and see how fast you go out the door! and the real kick in the tail is they are building engines for MILITARY vehicles!:-D
http://nation.foxnews.com/undefined/2011/07/14/more-union-workers-smoking-pot-job
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
December 22, 2011 at 5:07 pm
TravisDBA (12/22/2011)
Stephanie J Brown (12/16/2011)I have to disagree; I've not noticed union workers to be any more likely to "sluff off" than exempt workers, supervisors, or managers.
Baloney!!!!!! What you are not realizing is the BIG difference here is union workers are much harder to get rid of than the other groups you state in your post.If you don't believe this then check out this link. Many of these UNION guys are still on the job today, and STILL doing this!. Try that at my company and see how fast you go out the door! and the real kick in the tail is they are building engines for MILITARY vehicles!:-D
http://nation.foxnews.com/undefined/2011/07/14/more-union-workers-smoking-pot-job%5B/quote%5D
Have you ever worked on an assembly line, Travis?
--Jeff Moden
December 23, 2011 at 8:42 am
Jeff Moden (12/22/2011)
TravisDBA (12/22/2011)
Stephanie J Brown (12/16/2011)I have to disagree; I've not noticed union workers to be any more likely to "sluff off" than exempt workers, supervisors, or managers.
Baloney!!!!!! What you are not realizing is the BIG difference here is union workers are much harder to get rid of than the other groups you state in your post.If you don't believe this then check out this link. Many of these UNION guys are still on the job today, and STILL doing this!. Try that at my company and see how fast you go out the door! and the real kick in the tail is they are building engines for MILITARY vehicles!:-D
http://nation.foxnews.com/undefined/2011/07/14/more-union-workers-smoking-pot-job%5B/quote%5D
Have you ever worked on an assembly line, Travis?
Yes, as matter of fact I have, I worked for Cadillac Gage for a short period, and I wasn't high on the job when I did. 😀
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
December 23, 2011 at 4:16 pm
Then you know that not all Union Workers are slouches. 😉 But I do get your point... it's a lot harder to get rid of a unionized slouch than it is to get rid of a non-unionized slouch... you actually have to have proof to get rid of the unionized slouch. 😉
--Jeff Moden
December 27, 2011 at 11:34 am
Jeff Moden (12/23/2011)
you actually have to have proof to get rid of the unionized slouch. 😉
Did you read the link? They had the video proof on these guys and they are still there.:-D
"Technology is a weird thing. It brings you great gifts with one hand, and it stabs you in the back with the other. ...:-D"
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