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BSUTOP25

Do American companies hurt their own productivity by overworking employees?

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Been self employed for many years where I worked 30-40 flexible hrs.  I made many hard choices to be there for my family more than work. I told my employees to plan ahead enough to make sure they got their work done but I did not want anyone doing crazy hours, which  meant they were doing something wrong. Sure there were times we had to put in many hours but those were few.

Do not ever trade having a life with well balanced kids and a solid marriage for being rich.  I remember one summer I spent 19 nights in the back country, taking gun and dog on business trips.  I usually took Fridays off in summer.   Working more than 40 is stupid and no one should do it.   

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11 minutes ago, nashvillepoke said:

Dude I have 20 PMs on a project with three resources.  I seriously spend 14 hours a day on conference calls.  I have to work second shift just to get the work done.

There's something very +++++ing wrong with that setup. The most I've ever had was four PMs, from four companies. >.> 

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22 minutes ago, nashvillepoke said:

Dude I have 20 PMs on a project with three resources.  I seriously spend 14 hours a day on conference calls.  I have to work second shift just to get the work done.

Think of the money they could save by having 1 pm and no conference calls

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1 hour ago, retrofade said:

There's something very +++++ing wrong with that setup. The most I've ever had was four PMs, from four companies. >.> 

We have a philosophy that every workstream needs a PM,  which is fine if you have support resources.  Right now I am charged with consolidating 5 data centers into two new datacenters, with approximately 3 tech resources.  We also have third parties involved who have matched our workstream philosophy,  so I spend all my time reporting why stuff isn't done.

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On 2/9/2018 at 1:00 PM, HR_Poke said:

There are always some people that will do crazy long hours as they feel like that's the only way they get stuff done. My wife is one of them so I get it. But I've been at companies that demand a ton out of their hourly employees and treat them like shit because they think you should feel that it's a privilege to work for them.

So have I, we all have.  Its not just private sector either, I worked insane hours for the Congressman.

At some point you just say no, cant do it, and let the chips fall where they may.  The hardest part isnt letting your boss or company down, its letting your customers down.  But sometimes you just have to say it is what it is, I'm going to my daughter's recital and youre just going to have to wait.  

its not my bosses job to maintain my life balance, its mine.

As far as your and twenty fives point about companies abusing your time, its like complaining that water is wet.  Sure, its true, but thats what companies and organizations do.

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On 2/9/2018 at 8:58 PM, Jackrabbit said:

Been self employed for many years where I worked 30-40 flexible hrs.  I made many hard choices to be there for my family more than work. I told my employees to plan ahead enough to make sure they got their work done but I did not want anyone doing crazy hours, which  meant they were doing something wrong. Sure there were times we had to put in many hours but those were few.

Do not ever trade having a life with well balanced kids and a solid marriage for being rich.  I remember one summer I spent 19 nights in the back country, taking gun and dog on business trips.  I usually took Fridays off in summer.   Working more than 40 is stupid and no one should do it.   

Sounds kind of like me but when I get busier I get paid more and when I am less busy I have get paid less but I have more free time.  I have made more money than I ever made on a salary.  Salary seems to be a giant screw job where the employer has the incentive to get as much out of their fixed cost as possible.  I honestly doubt I could ever do a salaried job again...  

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I work at a Pharmacy here in Memphis. They schedule me 10 hour days four days a week so I get 3 days off (love that)...they offer a Blue Cross/Blue Shield PPO plan with Dental for 20 bucks a check (we get weekly checks)...and I get 48 hours of paid vacation every year.

I figure that's not so bad for a retail pharmacy.

mem skyline sig.jpeg

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1 hour ago, UofMTigers said:

I work at a Pharmacy here in Memphis. They schedule me 10 hour days four days a week so I get 3 days off (love that)...they offer a Blue Cross/Blue Shield PPO plan with Dental for 20 bucks a check (we get weekly checks)...and I get 48 hours of paid vacation every year.

I figure that's not so bad for a retail pharmacy.

That seems really low to me. I get 292 hours of paid vacation a year in a retail setting. It's the main reason why I'm staying and not changing to clinical. We love going on our 6-8 week trips once a year and I can't see myself starting over at a new company with just a week or two of vacation .

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1 minute ago, Stealthlobo said:

That seems really low to me. I get 292 hours of paid vacation a year in a retail setting. It's the main reason why I'm staying and not changing to clinical. We love going on our 6-8 week trips once a year and I can't see myself starting over at a new company with just a week or two of vacation .

we only get that because management and the union got into it over what a 'week' of paid vacation meant. Kroger said it meant 5 days while the union said a week means 7 days...they split the difference and we get 48 hours.

we're also closed Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter as paid holidays.

I agree it's low, but I feel the pharmacy manager compensates by giving me 3 days off most weeks...the joys of retail work

this was the view out our Pharmacy drive through a couple weeks back:

26907193_1541342012579712_39058160299604

it's been stupid cold here lately in Memphis.

mem skyline sig.jpeg

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OK, so this is kinda amusing to me...since I posted a pic from the pharmacy drive through I thought to myself, 'hey, I wonder if I could get a shot of the store's outside from Google maps?'

I get on there and I see myself arriving to work lol I'm the brown VW Jetta on the left hand side. (and you can see a silver car pulling in our drive through)

kroger.jpg.a8a9c7a9a8a80711106ac7fb3eb68aa7.jpg 

mem skyline sig.jpeg

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On 2/10/2018 at 8:56 PM, nashvillepoke said:

Dude I have 20 PMs on a project with three resources.  I seriously spend 14 hours a day on conference calls.  I have to work second shift just to get the work done.

 

22 hours ago, HR_Poke said:

All my PMs are in NYC so I'm sure they are getting 200k a year. Their salary costs 5x what our deliverable costs

This is so bizarre. In construction design the architect is usually the overall project manager and then each sub has their own "manager" that reports to the architect - but the "project managers" generally are senior engineers who review junior designs and even do design and drafting themselves. 

 

Remember that every argument you have with someone on MWCboard is actually the continuation of a different argument they had with someone else also on MWCboard. 

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26 minutes ago, happycamper said:

 

This is so bizarre. In construction design the architect is usually the overall project manager and then each sub has their own "manager" that reports to the architect - but the "project managers" generally are senior engineers who review junior designs and even do design and drafting themselves. 

 

So why do contractors always tell the customer two weeks?

 

bsu_retro_bsu_logo_helmet.b_1.jpg

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On 2/7/2018 at 4:43 AM, BSUTOP25 said:

As a salaried employee, I tend to work on average 50+ hours a week and that increases to 70+ hours a week before an annual event my company hosts in April. During crunch time before the event, I often commit mistakes that normally wouldn't happen. Anyway, this is food for thought:

https://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/12/working-hours 

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/long-work-hours-mostly-useless-and-kill-people-jeffrey-pfeffer/ 

Your employer has a bad reputation in the tech world generally, especially from those that deal with your salesforce. I've heard sales reps from your company referred to as "a pack of trained wolves." more than once. I think with any company it all starts up top and trickles down. 

There are only two things I can't stand in this world: people who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch. 

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9 minutes ago, madmartigan said:

Your employer has a bad reputation in the tech world generally, especially from those that deal with your salesforce. I've heard sales reps from your company referred to as "a pack of trained wolves." more than once. I think with any company it all starts up top and trickles down. 

If it's who I'm thinking of, then I'll agree 100% with that assessment --- especially about the salespeople. Similar things were said about my company before we were purchased last year, and it definitely did start at the top and trickled down. The company culture was completely toxic by the time I left, and had gotten progressively worse over the 12 months leading up to that point. 

I'm far happier in my current job --- even if I do have a +++++ing bitch of a coworker that is out to make my life hell. I don't work over 40 hours a week, I get a ton of vacation days, pension, 401k, fully paid medical, IRS maximum tuition reimbursement. I generally work 715am - 345pm every day, and don't have any pressure to work above and beyond that... the only times I do are when I feel like working on a project because I want to get it done, or if I have to drive before or after normal hours to get to a customer location. 

It's a nice switch from pretty much every other job I've ever had in my career. There were days that I worked 6am - 6pm, and then from 8-10pm later that night for international calls at my last job, and it took a real physical toll on me. It's just not worth it to me to absolutely kill myself for work any longer.

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7 hours ago, madmartigan said:

Your employer has a bad reputation in the tech world generally, especially from those that deal with your salesforce. I've heard sales reps from your company referred to as "a pack of trained wolves." more than once. I think with any company it all starts up top and trickles down. 

Is he still working for oracle?  Eff those guys, tried to get a quote on their version of Azure/Amazon cloud and they spend 90 minutes trying to sell me an onsite server license for 500k....

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11 hours ago, happycamper said:

 

This is so bizarre. In construction design the architect is usually the overall project manager and then each sub has their own "manager" that reports to the architect - but the "project managers" generally are senior engineers who review junior designs and even do design and drafting themselves. 

 

So much money is wasted on project management from my perspective especially when all they do is track deadlines and harras people to meet unrealistic ones...

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On 2/9/2018 at 7:36 PM, Old_SD_Dude said:

At my company we’re under increasing pressure to hire. More bodies = more billing = more revenue. Hard to find good candidates though. Most of our staff are salaried so don’t get overtime. No bonuses anymore. The Millenials won’t really do more than 40 hours and I don’t blame them. Back in the day if you worked late and weekends and took grueling business trips there was at least a real financial incentive to do so (never mind what it did to your marriage, family, etc.). Now not so much. Another year and a bit and I’ll be out. 

No bonuses?  Damn that's brutal on a salaried employee expected to work more than 40 hours per week.  What field do you work in and is your company unique in not paying bonuses?

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