Reading harold_maude's journal

After my recient and brief time at a factory assembling things,
I started thinking about how time is used and the cost on all levels that affect the person and the company and eventually the buying public.
Alot to consider when you realize that as consumers, we are being directed more and more to become garbage producers.
Which in turn affects everything from the water we drink to the food we eat to the levels of stress we live under.

I had the opportunity to observe a young man who worked in the same line as I did. He seemed to be working but in reality everything he did was done very slowly, and often not very well.
He was interested in taking as much time as possible to achieve the maximum time allowance of 40 hours a week.
From the view I had the realization that he was a determent to the company.
It was costing them more money keeping him on rather than finding an employee who could do what he was doing in at least half the time, probably more.

But the company kept him on. I noticed as well that the superviors and the manager we both worked under saw what was going on and still did not deal with the problem.
I kept wondering why a company looking for ways to do things better and faster would keep someone who was wasting time and doing things badly and slowly.

It doesn't make much sense. The things that could get a person fired were being late and failing building audits.
Being fired for being habitually late is understandable, but once or twice in a working year is not so understandable.

Another thing that puzzles me about this company, after being there a short time, less than two weeks I was asigned to a team, in which this young man who wastes time was also assigned,to come up with ways to cut the time down on a certian build because the company was consistantly loosing money.

All of this has made me question why things are done the way they are.
The whole picture that becomes evident when looking at it from a distance is that there are many things out there being done which are self defeating.
Basicly built with flaws which have the effect of making the end result completely useless.
They are designed to fail.

This young man, who was quite personable and easy going, was better suited to janitorial work, or fliping burgers, or something that didn't require alot of enegry expendature on his part, and would end up not having such a huge impact of stress and frustration on thoes around him trying to actually work.

My guess is that if he keeps showing up on time and keeps getting his work covered by the people working along side him so they don't all get audit fails, alot of the work he did in the area of packing finished products had to be redone, then the company will keep him on.

I have to ponder why it is that in many companies that pass the cost of having people like this young man working for them, to you and me, the consumer, and at the same time push thoes who already are carring a heavy load to work harder and faster, why they don't send someone in who knows the process to observe what is going on, and get rid of people who are there just to take up clock hours and who arn't really intersted in working.
It would help cut waste, and end up saving themselves and us, the consumer alot of time and money.

Which brings up the subject of efficancy experts. The problem with efficancy experts is that most of them have no practical experience in what they are observing.
A good example is a manager who has never stocked shelves in a store, and doesn't understand that when stocking a shelf, if you have people milling around trying to buy things it hinders the person trying to stock the shelf.
So the person doing the stocking keeps getting yelled at because they arn't doing their job right.
Or a manager who gets hiered because they've been through college to over see people who know what they are doing, and this person comes in and starts messing with how people are doing things, because it isn't done according to what works on paper.
It's pretty self defeating to bring in someone with no practical experience to try to manage and make people do things in a way that will cost more time and more money.

I've come to believe that in most cases, managers should come from the rank and file of the best workers who have practical experience working in a company.
They know the operation, they know the problems that the workers face, and being in a management possition they can then take time to work out bugs, and give the kind of real support that workers need.
And get rid of waste, whether it be in processes that hinder or people like this young man who's true objective was just to collect the paycheck.

I have begun, because of all of this, to look at what I do, and what I spend my time on and money as well. I suspect that as I observe there will be need for more change to give me ultimately a better quality of life, that has as little stress as possible attached to it.
Stress is one the biggest life stealers as far as I can figure.
If a person is stressed out they don't sleep so good.
But their body still requires rest so in order to keep going they injest caffeen or some other outside substance to keep them from falling asleep.
If the stress is minimized, then a person can sleep better, thus reducing their need for caffien and down the road maybe avoiding the side effects of long term use.

Something else I've noticed is that I used to be able to work on a project for 12 to 18 hours with no problem. In the last few years I have been only able to manage 6 or 7 at a time before my body forces me to take a break.
I wonder if I had taken time back then and worked in shorter incriments of time if in the long run I would still be able to do long stretches of time with out getting tired as much.

It makes me wonder if that's part of the reason that working 4 10 hour shifts in a row was as exausting as it was.
Part of it was that I was only getting 3 hours of sleep before I had to get up to be awake enough to drive another person to work.
I know, I know, why don't they get their own transportation.
That's another set of things altogether.
But for the moment, things are the way they are.
There are some obsicles that need to be worked out, and I am working on them. And hopefully they will be solved soon.

Anyway, I need to get on to other things and sort some more things out.
Lots of food for thought, and hopefully action as well.

Ideas without feet are useless wastes of life.

It only looks that way because your standing on your head.

This post was edited by harold_maude on Apr 29, 2005.