posted
So my shop foreman at work has a talk with me. He tells me he wants my efficiency up, but my flat rate hours are good. He tells another tech that his efficiency is good, but his flat rate hours are not good.
I don't think you need to understand the shop jargon to get that he is pushing two standards here. This seems to happen often.
How do you guys deal with difficult bosses? What kind of irritating things do your bosses do?
Posts: 4229 | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted
I think the most irritating boss I ever had to deal with is the overlords in Zelda. That or the final bowser in Super Mario 64.
Posts: 959 | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Nick: So my shop foreman at work has a talk with me. He tells me he wants my efficiency up, but my flat rate hours are good. He tells another tech that his efficiency is good, but his flat rate hours are not good.
I don't think you need to understand the shop jargon to get that he is pushing two standards here. This seems to happen often.
Well, actually...
I don't understand how this is a double standard.
He has two separate goals for two different measures of work, and wants both workers to live up to both goals. Each is not up to speed in one goal but is in the other. Doesn't seem that unusual to me...
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted
I guess I should have explained better, the two goals are directly related. You can up efficiency with timecard manipulation, but flat rate hours you have to earn.
He's placing more importance with one thing for me, and more importance with another thing with another tech.
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posted
Well, I did have a boss who negatively compared my performance to someone else on the number of documents handled, and it not too much later came out that the way this "efficiency" had come about was effectively sorting all their work into someone else's pile, then going to take a smoke break...
But fortunately, I'm not working for that boss anymore.
Posts: 3826 | Registered: May 2005
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Usually I just ignore my boss and keep doing what I'm doing. It's worked for the last few years. Bosses at my work usually only really get up in arms about anything when they get yelled at by THEIR bosses, so I let them yell themselves out a bit, then go about my business, and in the meantime they remember how good a job I normally do on a regular basis, and they come back down to Earth.
Does it suck getting scolded for something you aren't doing wrong? Yep. But I've more or less come to grips with the fact that in my particular position, putting up with crap is an unspoken part of my job description. So long as they keep paying me well and giving me hours, I won't complain.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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I don't know if this is the case here, but if there's a potential for a raise or promotion, many bosses seem to look for anything to ding you on, just so they can then justify giving you less money.
Posts: 3950 | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:I guess I should have explained better, the two goals are directly related. You can up efficiency with timecard manipulation, but flat rate hours you have to earn.
Yes, but it is possible to have both high efficiency and good flat hours, right? It sounds like your boss is pushing you to do well by both measures, rather than trading off one for the other.
quote:I don't know if this is the case here, but if there's a potential for a raise or promotion, many bosses seem to look for anything to ding you on, just so they can then justify giving you less money.
I think that's a bit unfair to bosses in general. The job of a boss, a.k.a. manager, is in theory to make employees more effective. So I'm sure as many see it, their job is to look for things their employees are doing wrong and motivate them to do those things better. That's their job - if they weren't doing that then they would be skipping out on an important role as manager. Of course, it doesn't mean they necessarily know how to manager or motivate well.
Posts: 8120 | Registered: Jul 2000
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I guess it's more complicated than that Tresopax. He wants both, but he seems to say one is more important than the other to two separate people.
Posts: 4229 | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted
Come the revolution we will lines up all zee bosses along zee wall, and Bang!
VIVA LA REvolutione!
See if he cares about zee hours or zee efficiency with 13 bullets vhere his capitalistic bosses heart never vas!
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
My boss was hovering over me, watching me work and started criticizing my technique. At one point, he told me I was leaving the filter on too long. I know from experience that if I pulled it off, it would be completely ruined. When I asked why it was too long, he said, well, I don't remember, but I know that when I did filters, leaving them on was bad. So, you need to do it differently. And he also vaguely remembers put them on from left to right not laying them in the middle, like I do. Well, I can't lay them on straight and centered without using the middle point and I know that if I don't leave theme as long as I do, they will be totally ruined. So, based on his vague memory, I am supposed to take my system (which has always worked fine for me) and start doing things that I know will fail. That batch ended up being the worst batch of filters I have made.
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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posted
One possible interpretation of what your boss might have been driving at is that your balance between flat rate hours and efficiency is lopsided in favor of flat rate hours, while your coworker's balance is lopsided in the other direction. So to move both of you towards the equilibrium point, the advice would be place higher importance on the area you are weaker on.
That or your boss just likes to complain, which in my experience is more likely.
Posts: 34 | Registered: Jan 2008
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Bosses who boss people just to be bossing them are bad bosses. And those who provide performance feedback out in the open where others can hear are just asking for trouble ("but you told Johnny..").
I'm happy when I have a boss who makes his expectations for ME clear and they remain consistent/predictable over time.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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Well, at least these metrics are within your control. It would be much worse if you were being measured against some factor that was not entirely controllable by you.
Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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I have to add, it sounds entirely possible that your boss is not actually difficult. Having different standards for different people is normal and natural; you shouldn't be concerned with what he tells the other guy. You should only be concerned with what he tells you. Are the goals he is giving YOU reasonable and acheivable? Doubtless he is in a position to know more about the other guy's performance than you are. So there are probably factors you're not aware of.
Good bosses don't have the same goals for the same workers, they recognize what different workers need to have success, and try to coach them on an individual basis.
(I'm not saying your boss is one of the good ones, I don't know.)
I'm curious: How do you know what he is asking of your co-worker?
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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My boss at my new job is tough...like, he's not entirely aware of the time it takes to do our job, and he's not entirely aware of exactly how to do it. He's not a "people" person. He's a really nice, cool guy, but yeah...sometimes it becomes pretty obvious that he's not the "people" type. Not quite sure how to deal with that one yet. But I've only been here three weeks. Everybody else just seems to let him talk and then does whatever needs to be done regardless, so maybe eventually I'll get to that point?
Here's a little tip for every Zelda boss you'll ever encounter: USE THE ITEM YOU GOT IN THAT DUNGEON! Then hack them with your sword. Rinse and repeat.
Posts: 1569 | Registered: Dec 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Tstorm: Well, at least these metrics are within your control. It would be much worse if you were being measured against some factor that was not entirely controllable by you.
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