I'm an hourly employee, not salaried. I punch a time clock.
Yesterday I punched out for the day, had my purse and gym bag slung over my shoulder and was walking out of the office. A coworker stopped me. "Can I ask you a quick question?" "I'm off the clock, now," I replied, heading toward the hallway. "Ok, I'll walk with you." And she did. And she asked me a work-related question as I headed toward the ladies room to change for the gym. She stopped short of walking into the ladies room with me. Her question was one that almost anyone else (still on the clock) could have answered. I found this rude and inconsiderate of my time. I had told her quite clearly that I was off the clock. When I punch out for the day, my head is instantly not in the work game anymore. I was in me mode. It was MY time. Her question, my answer, took maybe 30 seconds. No big deal, right? Wrong. Those 30 seconds were unpaid. Those 30 seconds, added to the current time I had put in for the day, might have rounded my work-time up to the next quarter hour, which might have been another $6 in pay. It's not a lot to some people. But it's something to me. It might pay for another 2 gallons of gas. And I look at it this way: If I'd been at home, she wouldn't have called to ask me the question (God, I hope she doesn't resort to that!) because she knows I'm OFF WORK. Besides, it was technically illegal for me to "work off the clock" to answer her question. I once went head-to-head with the director of our department at a big major retail headquarters where I worked when he tried to tell our entire department we had to all come in to work 15 minutes early for a meeting, without overtime pay. I told him this was illegal. He was dismissive, I went to employee relations. We got paid 15 minutes of overtime. He was livid, he yelled at me during a team meeting. I cried. I was right. He was wrong. We devote a huge portion of our lives to work. Some of us may love our jobs and are happy to work off the clock. I don't hate my job. But I value my time off work. That's my time. Even the 30 seconds it takes to walk down a hallway. I don't work for free and that's the bottom line.
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I've had dozens of jobs and even more managers, most of them were mediocre, at best. Sadly, I've had very few good managers. I've worked for many bad managers and two were pure Machiavellian.
From my experience and observations, here are some bad manager traits:
There are plenty more poor manager traits and usually mediocre managers possess only a few of these. the really crappy managers have several of the above traits. Really evil managers are usually bullies. Not only do they embrace the bad traits above, but they go out of their way to make their employees' lives pure hell. |
About Sally FarleyI'm a typical, hardworking Midwesterner, enduring (and sometimes participating in) the passive-aggressive complexities of life in Minnesota. ArchivesLinksAsk a Manager
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