Re: Financial topics
Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2020 6:49 pm
Generational theory, international history and current events
https://www.gdxforum.com/forum/
Higgenbotham wrote: Thu Jun 18, 2020 9:00 pm We discussed the square root rule here. It's something like the square root of the number of employees in an organization do half of the work.
Back to this topic.Higgenbotham wrote: Thu Jun 18, 2020 7:48 pm I'll break this out as a separate paragraph to explain how incredibly bizarre this was. A project with 4 basic boilers to characterize was allotted the same amount of time as a project with 35 complex processes that nobody had characterized before.
One of the star employees was a woman who was around 40 (Gen X) and had 2 young girls about ages 5 and 7. Before I started working there, management dumped massive amounts of work on her and she rose to the challenge. She was very smart and was an excellent engineer. Her father was a college professor and she remarked to me that by taking on these high profile projects and being recognized in her profession for doing so, she was able to become almost as respected in her profession as her father, but that she felt she would never quite rise to his level.Higgenbotham wrote: Sat Jun 20, 2020 10:55 pm At the last job I had, there existed a few star employees who were among the people who did half the work. They all had serious health problems. Probably the best career progression in America from the standpoint of being economically secure is to become a star employee, accept the fact that you will be overworked and abused, let the inevitable resulting health problems set in, and then hope for the best.
The third time was the most recent experience I summarized. Once they started down that path, I immediately handed my resignation like I did the first time. About a week after that, they said I could rescind my resignation. I told them no. About 4 months later, they contacted me through their team leader, said I was missed, and asked me to apply to a job they posted. I went in to interview for the job and they basically told me they were offering to double my work load for a 25% increase in pay. I think the odds they were playing was to hope I was low on money and would cave in.
Unlike the previous story, this is mostly a story about what "diversity" did to a workplace. The short story is that I refused to cover for the affirmative action hires who couldn't do the work. In the end, management was willing to lose me and keep their affirmative action hires who clearly couldn't do the work just because I refused to cover for them. I was able to hang on for 4 years because they didn't want to justify that to the media and or a judge. By the end of the 4 years I had ratcheted my output down to just above the Chinese woman who had a language barrier.Higgenbotham wrote: Sat Jun 20, 2020 10:55 pmHiggenbotham wrote: Thu Jun 18, 2020 9:00 pm We discussed the square root rule here. It's something like the square root of the number of employees in an organization do half of the work.The second time was at an engineering job. The place had terrible engineers and they were falling behind on their work. That was when the bizarre behavior quoted above started. Out of the blue, they pretty much doubled my work load. Basically they played the odds, expecting I would start taking work home and working evenings and weekends. Some other people were doing that. I refused and instead of increasing my output, I reduced it. I told them in so many words that if they wanted to be nice I would bring my output back to previous levels, which was already more than everybody else was doing anyway. Otherwise, we would be at constant never ending war. They thought they could break me in short order and refused to back down. From that point, I lasted about 4 years. Instead of doing extra work, I gathered dirt on the management and threatened to expose them to the outside. They would back off and then come at me again. They hired an attack dog supervisor to go after me and I chewed him up. Finally, they brought enough resources to bear against me that I decided the best option was to quit. By that time, the head personnel attorney for the whole 3000 person organization was involved and driving 80 miles to meet with management on the site.Higgenbotham wrote: Thu Jun 18, 2020 7:48 pm I'll break this out as a separate paragraph to explain how incredibly bizarre this was. A project with 4 basic boilers to characterize was allotted the same amount of time as a project with 35 complex processes that nobody had characterized before.
The affirmative action hires and I got along great. We all became friends. You may wonder why that was if I refused to cover for them and made it obvious that I was refusing to do more. They didn't look at me increasing my output as covering for them, only management saw it that way. They looked at me increasing my output as raising the bar so that they would be required to do more work. They could have gave a shit less about whether the work got done or not. Down we go.Higgenbotham wrote: Wed May 27, 2020 5:37 pmhttps://getpocket.com/explore/item/the- ... ket-newtabThat suggests that U.S. costs are high due to general inefficiency — inefficient project management, an inefficient government contracting process, and inefficient regulation. It suggests that construction, like health care or asset management or education, is an area where Americans have simply ponied up more and more cash over the years while ignoring the fact that they were getting less and less for their money.
Common theme here.
Reasonable people may ask whether this can be fixed. It can't for the reasons I've specified, mainly that US corporations don't want competent people who can fix these problems. Instead, they want continued corruption and bailouts. Down we go.