My last job for five years was as a consulting engineer for a government agency I had worked for years in the past. When I worked there, they wouldn't listen to me. I left and had a very successful career at other jobs at much higher wages. When they hired me as a consultant after I retired, they listened to me while paying me four times the rate they paid their engineer employees. I told them the same thing their employees tried to tell them.

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Originally posted by Sigmund:

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Originally posted by m1009:
Thats the way it usually happens. Good luck!

Yep. Too often I've worked for people who did not deal with poor performers but instead heaped work on the good workers.

True.

I can recall pushing back after being assigned yet another project. I asked my manager why he didn't assign it to one of the other folks on our team, particularly one young woman who always seemed to have plenty of time to spend on the phone talking to her friends.

His response was: If I give it her, I'll have to monitor he constantly, but she'll take twice as long and screw it up anyway. If I give it to you, I'll know it'll get done correctly and in half the time.

That's when I learned a key management lesson (at least in that company). Rather than do something about incompetents and slackers, just ignore them and dump even more work on those that actually do their jobs.

Leemur, you must be another of my brothers. Your post is the life I'm living right now. At least I can see the end, 5 more years. Hang in there brother.

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hat's when I learned a key management lesson (at least in that company). Rather than do something about incompetents and slackers, just ignore them and dump even more work on those that actually do their jobs.

I remember some of that shit when I was managing for a large computer company. I would suddenly get an employee assigned to me from another manager/department. Almost universally they turned out to be poor performers. I finally had enough of that shit and went to my 2nd and 3rd level managers and asked what the hell was going on. I was told that they knew when they sent those people to me, that I would either turn them into effective employees or fire them.

In the longer run, it turned out not to be all that bad. I kept getting promoted, and even got several business trips to Europe to help them solve some problems (employee as well as some production/design problems.

Finished out my career one level below Corp. executive level. Reason I retired was that I knew that there was no way I was going to reach that level. I was too blunt, direct. Which was BS for didn't take or hand out bull shit.

My average work week was about 70 hours.

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Originally posted by Elk Hunter:

I remember some of that shit when I was managing for a large computer company. I would suddenly get an employee assigned to me from another manager/department. Almost universally they turned out to be poor performers.

Yep. That's another management lesson I learned. I was hired for a position in another division of Motorola. Back then they had an unofficial rule that the new manager had to connect with the old manager and negotiate a transfer date so as not to disrupt any ongoing deals.

My transfer ended up taking over 2 months. I found out from my new manager that the old manager ducked his calls for a couple of weeks, and then ran me down when he did talk to him. My new manager said that he took that as high praise for my abilities. He said that when the old manager calls back right away, and then raves about the employee, that he knows he's hired a bum.

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Originally posted by Elk Hunter:
Finished out my career one level below Corp. executive level. Reason I retired was that I knew that there was no way I was going to reach that level. I was too blunt, direct. Which was BS for didn't take or hand out bull shit.

Hehehe. I know what you mean. I was told that my career path was negatively impacted by my refusal to "suffer fools". You'd think that would be a positive, but not at Motorola.

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Originally posted by muzzleloader:
Leemur, you must be another of my brothers. Your post is the life I'm living right now. At least I can see the end, 5 more years. Hang in there brother.

IF my heart doesn’t kill me first, I’m still about 16 years from retirement. My liver may fail first.

Reminds me of the last time I was in management. I turned around with my crew a department that was underperforming. By the time I left we had increased the inventory turns to what was suggested by both the inventory control company and the auto manufacturer. We also increased the retail and wholesale business and participated a program by the automaker to market fast moving parts to the dealerships at a deep discount when purchased in larger quantities. We had to hire a dedicated delivery driver due to the increase in outside shops purchasing. As a Buick Pontiac GMC dealer we outdid the local Chevrolet Oldsmobile dealership in wholesale and retail sales, a fact that the district service manager bragged about. And as a P.S., my dealer had previously owned another GM dealership since the late 1960's and I was his first parts manager that had ever won a GM award trip for top performing parts managers in almost twenty years.

He "thanked" me by cutting my compensation package by 33% saying that his consultant felt that I was being overpaid. Five and a half days a week, usually spent the last half of Saturday onsite doing paperwork and other tasks like returns, audits,etc. Did that for almost three years. When I tended my resignation his son who was trying to get daddy to sell him the dealership came back to give me a pep talk and how I should stick it out, things will get better. This is after I gave him thirty days notice that I was leaving.

In fact his line to me was, "Stay, the way you have increased the business your pay will be back up to where it was".....to which I replied "What? So your old man can cut me again? I look that stupid?" Kind of surprised that I didn't get fired on the spot.......

Kind of surprised that I didn't get fired on the spot.......