Even people "playing dumb" has been taken so far to the extreme that now these people have basically made themselves dumb. It is practically a prerequisite for managers and high level employees to be complete morons. The more tenure they have, the better they are at it. Being lazy and dumb, that is.
I recently left a 7 year employment in a large factory (name to remain anonymous per agreement). In the shop , they basically only hire people with high school diplomas or GEDs. I'm not dissing those people, they chose to go as far as they did in their formal education and that's where they are. It shouldn't be too much of a problem except they have virtually no training program. So, how does training work? The same way it works in probably half to all of America. The manager takes the new guy{or gal} over to the old employee who has been working there for 30 years and tells the noob to watch them.
Seems brilliant until you take into account the fact that the guy who has been there for 30 years was hired when they didn't require high school diplomas nor GEDs, so he can't read instructions properly, and also has been screwed over by managers so many times, and basically treated like shit so much that he no longer gives a fuck and will do anything to not have to do any work. So, the new hire is trained out the gate to work the system. Since the system is seniority based, it's near impossible to fire him and he's become older, slower, less educated (compared to the basic level of education of new hires). We literally had one man who could not read and there were 10-20 people who could not look at a scale(ruler) and tell you 1/4", 1/2", 1/8", 1/16", etc.
REALLY? Are you that dumb or are you playing that dumb to not have to do any work? Seriously.
They had people who worked the max (60 hours a week, 20 hours of overtime, some double time) who did very little work, and the managers praised those people for their "hard work and dedication." REALLY? If they were doing work all week long during the 40 hour week, you wouldn't even need to pay them for overtime.
This is something I've seen in restaurants that is more often done right. Kitchen staff is told, they are not allowed to work overtime. It's that easy. You hire enough people that you don't need people working overtime and work out their schedules.
I suggested video instructions. Video tape your top employees performing certain complex tasks, then make it available for hourly employees to view at their stations in real time, so they don't have to stop what they are doing to go find someone to ask, which will end up in them getting caught up in a 20 minute conversation about something unrelated probably anyways, but the "powers that be" just say, "we can't afford that" or "that won't work" because they are so prehistoric in most cases that they have no clue about computers. Literally, before he retired, one manager I worked under did not know how to zoom in and out on a Powerpoint presentation, even though he viewed them many times daily. I'm not saying everyone should be able to know that at age 62, but damn, did he even think to try? He got angry that someone made the Powerpoint too large so it wouldn't fit on the monitor. Really? WAAAAAAA! Seriously, I've seen people in their 60's 10 years ago checking e-mail and using Excel or banking software. This is 2013. Computers are a part of life. Everyone uses them and it's not that expensive. It's expensive only because they only know how to lease some $400-$1000 computer per person instead of recognizing a used $30 computer from 10 years ago could play a video. Yeah! So, they pay that guy $120,000 a year for his "expertise" but then lay off 2-3 hourly people who "ACTUALLY MAKE THE SHIT YOU'RE TRYING TO SELL" and then complain they don't have enough workforce.
Our work forces in America however demand the highest rate per hourly pay. People. I understand. You have families. You have wives and husbands. You have children. You need stress relieving fun events. You have holidays. There are tons of factors and variables, but the bottom line is, if we want our country to be the best and continue to be, we each individually have to step up and get this country going.
I suggested video instructions. Video tape your top employees performing certain complex tasks, then make it available for hourly employees to view at their stations in real time, so they don't have to stop what they are doing to go find someone to ask, which will end up in them getting caught up in a 20 minute conversation about something unrelated probably anyways, but the "powers that be" just say, "we can't afford that" or "that won't work" because they are so prehistoric in most cases that they have no clue about computers. Literally, before he retired, one manager I worked under did not know how to zoom in and out on a Powerpoint presentation, even though he viewed them many times daily. I'm not saying everyone should be able to know that at age 62, but damn, did he even think to try? He got angry that someone made the Powerpoint too large so it wouldn't fit on the monitor. Really? WAAAAAAA! Seriously, I've seen people in their 60's 10 years ago checking e-mail and using Excel or banking software. This is 2013. Computers are a part of life. Everyone uses them and it's not that expensive. It's expensive only because they only know how to lease some $400-$1000 computer per person instead of recognizing a used $30 computer from 10 years ago could play a video. Yeah! So, they pay that guy $120,000 a year for his "expertise" but then lay off 2-3 hourly people who "ACTUALLY MAKE THE SHIT YOU'RE TRYING TO SELL" and then complain they don't have enough workforce.
Our work forces in America however demand the highest rate per hourly pay. People. I understand. You have families. You have wives and husbands. You have children. You need stress relieving fun events. You have holidays. There are tons of factors and variables, but the bottom line is, if we want our country to be the best and continue to be, we each individually have to step up and get this country going.
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