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Skill with a Skill

I knew the answer. I wanted to hear it from him. There *are* bosses who expect people to be early and work late, then bitch about paying for it.

Don't get me started on smoking breaks.

Reply to
-MIKE-
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Wow. I'll be sure to note for future reference that you have a short fuse to go along with being passive aggressive.

Did I talk too loud? :-)

Reply to
-MIKE-

And please! We're the first one in and the last one out because of all this crap we have to haul. :-)

Reply to
-MIKE-

Unfortunately they are mostly gone! Dead, retired, working for peanuts because nobody will pay for the quality workmanship anymore! Around here it's all about the low bidder. How cheap and can I get it yesterday! Hell, The good ones show up sober and ready to work. The great ones know how to work! It doesn't take any extra time to do most things the right way. takes a helluva lot longer to fix all the f**kups. I've thought about headin your way for work but sadly I aint up to the task anymore. The old bones just dont work that way anymore. Nobody wants to hire us old farts anymore. We are dinosaurs [they say] and the wetbacks will do it so cheap that we can't compete anymore. It's a sad state of affairs for sure! Enjoy those men while ya can swingman. They are a dying breed and soon enough they will all be gone. then we be in realy deep shit!

skeez

Reply to
skeez

Coming from the other end, I have trouble with the kind of boss who's standing there with his stopwatch making snotty remarks when you come in thirty seconds late, but he was long gone when you went home at 2 AM the night before.

Reply to
J. Clarke

Absolutely. And I have had more than one that wanted >a raise< because they had not only attended several day in a row, but wanted a reward for not being late.

Except of course, the times it wasn't their fault.

My first boss in construction had been trained by the union. If you were late by one minute, you had to wait 1/2 hour in your truck before you could start. If you were more than 10 minutes late, you had to wait an hour before you could start. You had to wait in your vehicle so you couldn't fudge and say you were working.

If you protested too much, he sent you home. If you did it more than a couple of times you were fired. There were no exceptions. With that kind of rigidity, none of us ever gave a thought to being a 20 minutes early so we could catch up on things a bit before we cranked up the machines. Everyone was on time.

His personal philosophy was that he paid us to WORK for 8 hours. Work did not mean "getting your tools out" or "putting your tools up". He always held himself to that same standard. As another bonus, he was unconcerned with your watch. His was the only one that counted.

If things poorly on the job, just to screw with us, he used to set his watch back about ten minutes so we would get upset and he could yell at us for something else. It seemed to kind of keep things in balance.

I actually liked and respected that man more than anyone I ever worked for or around. He was a rigid taskmaster, but boy were we all proud of he work we turned out when working with him. We felt like real first class MOFOs when we worked on his crew.

Sadly, when he retired from work he was so confused about today's work force he was completely miserable. It made him old before his time.

*chuckles*

Yeah, we do. I'll admit there is a little fartage coming on....

I wish some of those children that work for me from time to time would quit calling me "an old dude", though.

Whippersnappers!

Robert

Reply to
nailshooter41

Yeah, and if we get stuck in traffic and *don't* get there before everybody else, setup is a nightmare because you have to trip over everybody else's junk and grouse at them to move it so there's enough room to set up the drums!

Reply to
Steve Turner

No, he got aggravated that you didn't take the time to understand what you read and then compounded it by replying to something he didn't say.

Maybe you like responding to people who don't listen to what you're saying, but most people don't.

Reply to
Upscale

Or like the lead singer who gets there first and sets up his $3000 acoustic on a $10 guitar stand, right in the middle of the stage while everyone with road cases has to tip-toe around the thing, which he plays out of tune on 3 songs.

Reply to
-MIKE-

I've been doing this usenet thing for more than a decade and this group, without a doubt, contains some of the most thinned skinned, crotchety, sense-of-humor-less, hair-triggered folks of any group I've frequented.

If R.W. were a bar, there would be a big section of guys kidding around with each other, taking jesting jabs at one another, laughing it up, and there'd be one booth in the corner with 4 guys whining and moaning about youngsters who don't respect their elders, pining away about the old days.

Reply to
-MIKE-

"-MIKE-" wrote

Beg to differ ... ran a FidoNet node back in the 70's, and co-wrote the very first Windows mail software for Fido ... IME, nothing has changed in that regard whatsoever.

Just ask Jack about the OS wars back then ... :)

Reply to
Swingman

ROFL!.....

nb

Reply to
notbob

I don't know. I thought your other post was hilarious. ;)

nb

Reply to
notbob

That's why I wrote,"some of." :-) I've been in other groups and a majority of guys see the usenet for the pub-like atmosphere that it is.

Reply to
-MIKE-

Agreed. I've jes been reading for a couple days and already like it. Lotta geezers with old work ethic, like myself. I find older crowd to still have tolerance and humor. Granted, lotta curmudgeons, but good humored curmudgeons. ;)

nb

Reply to
notbob

Still keep my 77 greased and ready to kick ass. It's the 1911 of jobsite saws. I regret selling my Rockwell 315, which handled a lot of the lighter chores.

The 77 is heavy but, if you use it right, it and gravity are your friends.

Once we got the ribbons up we flopped up the joists and eyeballed the cuts, holding the 77 vertical and the joist resting on our boots. Would have made an OSHA dude crazy but it was a fast way to frame up flat work.

Regards,

Tom Watson

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Reply to
Tom Watson

I've always showed up for work 20 minutes early, I started with the Bell System and was a union member from the first moment I was allowed to join until I retired

32 years later, then went to work the next 5 years working in a shop fabricating laminate for custom closets, Still got to work 20 minutes early and waited outside the shop till they opened it. It just never felt right to me to be showing up as they were opening the doors. I get to the doctors office early too. I hate being late, just ruins my day I see the younger guys drive up and park just as they were opening the doors to the shop and wonder how they could live with that. Guess new values, or is it lack of pride in self and work ethics CC CC
Reply to
CC

That's a great trait

I'm impressed, from what I've seen, union membership often sucks the initiative right out of motivated workers.

... snip I get to the doctors office early too. I hate being

I'll do that the first time or so. If the doctor or other professional keeps *me* waiting more than 10 or 15 minutes, I take that into account for future visits and am not quite so fussy about getting there on time. I'll allow for a bad day the first time this happens, but after the second time in a row, I take this as an attitude on the part of the office that clients' time is cheap while their time is valuable, so making the client wait is the way to keep the office humming properly. I am also a professional and my time is valuable as well -- if they don't value *my* time as much as they expect me to value theirs, I get a bit snippy about that and am likely to start factoring in the standard office delay when timing my future visits.

Working as a non-hourly employee, I can't directly relate to that. I've always put in more than a regular day, so start and stop times are a bit fuzzy. When one's regular shift is 9 hours and one normally works 10+ hours, I'm not sure how to count "showing up on time" except in the sense of making sure one makes scheduled meetings on time.

Reply to
Mark & Juanita

Lord knows I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth or anything, so help me understand this. I get showing up early to do what you have to do in order to start "working" at clock-in.

But these guys can't even get in the shop doors, right? Are you saying they should show up and sit in the parking lot for 20 minutes?

Reply to
-MIKE-

...I had to learn that ethic. Never a problem once I got going...it was just getting going. You get taught things only when you pay attention...there were a couple of mentors along the way, and it was

*always* like this, that just flat made me look bad...quietly. Call it what you want, pride or whatever, but one day I woke up and joined 'em. THAT was a cup of coffee I'll never forget. I teach high school kids something far from the trades; competition marching and movement. But know this...they get *that* lesson first and foremost...not as calmly nor quietly...but they most certainly *get* it!

cg

Reply to
Charlie Groh

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