Leemur; A lot of companies will ride a good horse to death and then find another horse. Let them know you have saddle sores.

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I’m at about 50% staffing going into the busy season and my closer calls out because he’s “feeling stuffy.”

Does he make a habit of this? I'm asking because I have broken a long-standing policy of mine (that if I could stand and walk without keeling over, I was going to work and putting in a full day) because of the Chinese virus. I was however feeling a lot more than just "stuffy."

Makes me wonder about what percentage of the 200,000 illegal immigrants per month
Are hard working, hungry reliable, sober , drug free and non felons.

If big corporations could find ,sponsor, cultivate and acclimate the the right people their prayers could be answered.

The days of finding and hiring the " perfect person" are pretty close to being gone,
In the blue coller labor fields, if you ask a lot of employers in the Midwest.

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Originally posted by ChuckWall:
This is a hub to see what's going on. It ain't pretty.

https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/

I read that often, since it's like a research project. And came to a couple interesting conclusions.

About 2/3rds of the posts on any given day is simply raw entitlement. "I exist give me free stuff" type bullshit. Typical utopian commie crap.

That other 1/3rd is actually a lot more interesting because most of that is what I'd call valid issues. Now, a lot of those folks work at lower level jobs, and there's still the issue that they get that and want to stay there rather that grow as a person, move to other places with more skills, responsibilities, and pay. What they're supposed to do in life and not be fast food lifers.

But since their gripe is what I'd call valid, it's almost always terrible management, no matter how skilled the job. So much of it is flat out illegal behavior and has been for decades, like "we're keeping your tips to balance the cash drawer" type things. It's funny how it's never "The cash drawer was over, so we're adding that to your tips" either. And it's so common these exactly management mistakes.

That actually reinforces something I've thought for at least 20 years now. Management needs to be a career in and of itself. That for most people, promotions should not be something they get to be any higher than maybe a team lead, unless they've taken management training. I've had that in a few positions, where I've worked for someone that didn't "move up from the ranks and gotten promoted over peers," instead were what I'd call professional managers and they were as a rule better for what their job is.

I want a manager who knows how to manage people, them knowing how to do my job is far lower on the requirements. I think most professional managers should be able to step into a restaurant, manufacturing plant, technology company, where ever, and be effective after some initial training into what the role requires. I'm sure many would disagree, that only someone who came up through the career can make decisions, and in some places that might be correct. But not most, because in my experience, those type managers only ever trust themselves to make a call. While professional managers will trust their team to give advice on what the correct decision is. Or at least a couple tech leads or whatever.

Now, I'm not necessarily talking about people with MBAs and such, that's the wrong focus, focused on upper management and directed upwards in the org chart. I'm talking about some type of management training focused on working with upper management but focused down on the people who work under them.

quote:

Originally posted by K0ZZZ:
Management needs to be a career in and of itself. That for most people, promotions should not be something they get to be any higher than maybe a team lead, unless they've taken management training. I've had that in a few positions, where I've worked for someone that didn't "move up from the ranks and gotten promoted over peers," instead were what I'd call professional managers and they were as a rule better for what their job is.

I want a manager who knows how to manage people, them knowing how to do my job is far lower on the requirements. I think most professional managers should be able to step into a restaurant, manufacturing plant, technology company, where ever, and be effective after some initial training into what the role requires. I'm sure many would disagree, that only someone who came up through the career can make decisions, and in some places that might be correct. But not most, because in my experience, those type managers only ever trust themselves to make a call. While professional managers will trust their team to give advice on what the correct decision is. Or at least a couple tech leads or whatever.

That sounds like my Dad, who's basically a "Professional Manager". He has worked for 30+ years as a Project Manager for several different companies in various industries - Airlines, Software, Insurance, IT, etc. He doesn't have extensive experience or deeply specialized training about each of these industries, but he knows how to effectively manage a team whose members each have the detailed knowledge needed for these industries.

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Originally posted by RogueJSK:
That sounds like my Dad, who's basically a "Professional Manager". He has worked for 30+ years as a Project Manager for several different companies in various industries - Airlines, Software, Insurance, IT, etc. He doesn't have extensive experience or deeply specialized training about each of these industries, but he knows how to effectively manage a team whose members each have the detailed knowledge needed for these industries.

That's what I'm talking about. Almost all the BS going on is because there are managers who have no idea how to manage, but they were either the ones with seniority, knew how to schmooze people, went golfing with the boss, or whatever reason they got promoted outside of what they should and now are failing the Peter Principle. It seems like almost every time I see a valid point being made about someone's job being horrible, that's the reason.

Back to the "People don't quit jobs, they quit managers" which has always rang true.

quote:

Originally posted by K0ZZZ:
That's what I'm talking about. Almost all the BS going on is because there are managers who have no idea how to manage, but they were either the ones with seniority, knew how to schmooze people, went golfing with the boss, or whatever reason they got promoted outside of what they should and now are failing the Peter Principle. It seems like almost every time I see a valid point being made about someone's job being horrible, that's the reason.

Back to the "People don't quit jobs, they quit managers" which has always rang true.

Reminds me of the worst manager I ever had.

I ended up transferring out of his department and was talking to my new boss. I asked how my old boss got into the Manager position being as incompetent as he was.

I was told that he was a degreed Mechanical Engineer from Cal Poly and was found to be completely incompetent in that role. They felt they couldn't fire him because his degree "proved" that he was competent, so they promoted him.

Turns out he was a worse Manager than he was an Engineer so yeah, I quit him and went to another department where I worked for a great Manager.

“People don’t quit jobs, they quit managers”

Except that little gem doesn’t apply when you’re posting a job with all the same wording, parameters, etc that you have in the past, same population base, and you get less than half the applicants you used to..
They haven’t even started the job yet, so there’s no one to quit. There’s a real dearth out there, imho.

I get it, trust me.
I get these people in who show up, maybe, and show no interest. I tell them to ask the trainers questions, start slow and learn the basics and then work on speed. They want to take multiple breaks an hour so they can look at their phone or call the baby mama.
I just send them on their way and start over.
Its frustrating and I get one good one, possibly, out of every 15 or so.

I’ve got two good full time people. The aforementioned closer that called out is a good guy but his call outs are almost always at the worst possible times and it drives me crazy. Just hired a mid shift full time. They let me do the interview and I got a good feeling about him. No obvious mental issues. I could be wrong but he can’t possibly be worse than the head case I just got rid of last week.

My guys may not love me but they all know I’ve got their backs when deserved. I went to bat for one of my guys last year against the store manager and that encounter got a bit tense. Only problem is that about a month later the idiot got arrested and we had to let him go anyway. Two of my people this year have already moved up to specialist positions. I take pride in cultivating actual talent. The only problem is that it puts me back at square one with the next hire. Gotta love it.

My work can't get people to even show up for interviews. 8 interviews in one week & only 1 showed up. The lack of help is taking it's toll on the employees who have been there a long time & want to work. I told my manager last week that unless the company makes the job more enticing by either more benefits/pay, people are not going to apply & soon the people already here are going to get fed up with it & quit too. Mon., 1 of our people put in her 2 weeks notice. I already told him that I am starting to look elsewhere too unless things change soon. It's too bad, because I like my job.

Got a bit of a shot in the arm this week. The normal manager meeting this week didn’t take place. The meeting was all top level management and they were discussing Q2 strategy and department level managers that are underperforming and/or don’t show energy or take a stake in the success of the company. The manager I report to said the store manager made the comment about me and my counterpart that runs commercial sales, “We don’t have to worry about those two, they’re giving it everything they’ve got every day.”

It’s nice to know the effort hasn’t gone unnoticed.

My stepson hires for the warehouse operation he manages. He said his biggest problem in hiring is that his management hasn't adjusted to the wage increases brought about by the shortage of those willing to work. He can't compete with the local chain convenience store which is paying $18/hr to the shift supervisor.

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Originally posted by Leemur:

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Originally posted by Edmond:

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Originally posted by Leemur:
I’m at about 50% staffing going into the busy season and my closer calls out because he’s “feeling stuffy.” I’m too old to be running a freakin $8 million department by myself.

What industry is this?

Previous poster was correct retail. I’m running the lumber and building materials (roofing, concrete, drywall, siding, etc) part of it. In addition to all the administrative duties and ridiculous meetings I’m out there loading concrete and shingles for customers, helping pull orders, unloading trucks, cutting wood, cleaning up, stocking shelves...all of it. Half the time I’m being pulled all over the store helping everyone else. Why? Cause I get shit done. What do I get in return? Employees complaining that I’m “mean” or “scary.” The scary thing I can’t do shit about. I’ve got resting angry face and a deep voice. The mean thing...well fuck me for expecting anyone to stay busy. And if you expect me to help you without all the info I need to get things done properly, I WILL call you out on dumping your problems on me and disappearing.

Rant over. Temporarily.

Sounds like my time working at Lowes in 2006. Working 55+ hours a week and no extra for 40 hours.

cpeek69, I notice that you have your email address displayed in the location field of your profile. This is a risky practice. First, the web crawlers will pick it up quickly and you'll see an uptick in spam email at that address, and secondly, scammers on sites such as this will get hold of it, and that''s no good, either.

If you put your email address in the "Display Email" field of your profile, only members who are logged into the forum will be able to see it. This is a best practice.