The control (freak)

Meeting 1. Today is a typical Monday here in hell. The sky is puking up more of the white stuff. Crazy April ran our meetings in the usual unorganized fashion, jumping from topic to topic and ignoring some staff completely while word vomiting out nonsense about how she is so experienced. Yes April, we can tell by your hideous and dated wardrobe that you are old, that doesn't make your ideas anything but done before... Old Hat!

Exactly one week later...

Meeting 2. Huge fight in our meeting this morning between the staff and the supervisors. I mean a showdown like the Wild West.

It could be the highlight of my day! I was perplexed because it was like seeing a teacher out of school or a zoo animal in your backyard. I have never seen a company or persons lose control so quickly! I am going to try to give you an idea of what happened, I still am not quite sure how to even write it.

Background: Most of us are on salary, and although that does not make us all exempt we are all compensated the same way for overtime. For every one hour of OT you work you get .25hours of paid time off. Totally illegal in IL btw.

Supervisors' perspective: the staff should put in mandatory overtime with no compensation of any kind to be expected for a project we don't have yet. AKA we are desperate and can't figure out how to run a company!

Staff perspective: Yeah right! Not going to happen. Most of the staff is on reduced salary still without raises or bonuses for years (I am not sure who would last that long personally), and without promise of that if we get the project it is just take, take, take from the company with no balance. 

Mr. O: We will be having an unusual schedule in the next few weeks and will be extending our expectations.

April: We will be expecting you to work overtime.

Employee: What will the compensation be if this is 'unusual'?

April: There is no compensation for it.

Joe: Well I want you to want to do it so if you can't then tell me. 

Every usual blank stare in the room shifts to her. 'Has she lost her mind?' is clearly splashed upon every person's face in the room.

Employee: Yeah, so that is not going to work, we are on a reduced salary already, what would be our intensive here?

April: Well this is how we have always done it.

Employee: Well have you always promised to give people back their pay without doing it too?

Dun dun dun! It just gets better from there, but I think I blanked! Talk about a death march! My co-worker next to me whispers "can we strike?"

I contributed some comments about how you should have your employees want to work, not feel obligated to OT.

Another co-worker mentions a balance of work and personal time for a better product.

April, listened to nothing we said. Mr. O said we were at an impasse, and Joe was confused because he didn't think that it should be mandatory. Talk about not knowing what the left hand is doing from the right!

Research... Read on if you like or skip to the bottom :)

Any place I have worked before has offered food (at the least) to its staff for putting in even a little of overtime on someone missing a shift, art competitions, or un-acquired projects. These people are nuts! Not this company they believe that working an employee into the ground is better means of utilizing their staff. 

In Japan this goes on and there is even a special term for it "Karoshi" it means Death-by-overworking. In Germany a company cannot require overtime because it makes them liable for lawsuits, as it is accepted worldwide that sleep deprivation and overwork can be a form of torture.

It is not void in the US or this office, it is called Burn-out. Over the past decade, a rise in workplace violence, an increase in levels of absenteeism as well as rising workers’ health and compensation claims have hit an all time rise. Many workers are forced by their superiors to perform tasks outside of their job description (or within) and working hours. Typical examples of power harassment or Rankism include:

1.     being scolded in front of other colleagues, rebuked in a loud voice (Check)

2.     neglect (Check)

3.     false evaluation and demotion (we will see :))

Kenexa Research Institute in 2007 says that those employees who were more favorable toward their organization’s efforts to support work-life balance also indicated a much lower intent to leave the organization, greater pride in their organization, a willingness to recommend it as a place to work and higher overall job satisfaction.

Yes I know Blah Blah Blah, but it is true! Which meeting would you have taken? Does anyone know how to stop Rankism? 

Next post topic... How a bad boss makes a bad employee, I know because I think this blog is proof!