Stupid ideas our companies came up with

[Khan]

Might have mentioned this before:
Outsourcing your mission statement.

 

[tryan]

American Airlines buying TWA ...

BOA buying Countrywide ...

Both on the verge of bankruptcy and could have had thier assest purchased for pennys. But no, let's pay billions for them instead.

 

[DeborahB]

In my world (emergency medicine) 10 minutes is a long time. We spent 5 hours last night with part of our IT system off-line and the help desk "working on it". They finally gave up and said we would have to wait for the day crew. We limped to the finish line and exited with the comments that it is now a "DSP" (Day Shift Problem).

My favourite IT comment was when we were unable to print prescriptions one night because of a printer failure and were told that there is no one available to fix hardware at night. We were asked if we really needed to print prescriptions for patients "late at night" .

I do hear you though about $ support. Our hardware is outdated and overwhelmed. They are willing to spend money on software though - much of which works poorly. Oh and we will be "updating" to Windows XP service pack 3 mid-July .

DD

You have my sympathy!

I agree that 10 minutes is a lot of time in the clinical world - but they put the IT staff a 10 minute walk from where the doctor was. Even if they located IT staff closer (using up expensive hospital space) it still would take quite a while to reach some parts of the large hospital. There's really no good solution. This was a hardware problem so someone had to go to the PC.

We have a lot of software that isn't great - but is very expensive. I feel like we do the quality testing of the software, not the vendor.

We have 24/7 support although certainly it's less available at night. They don't pay shift differentials to IT staff - we get called at home if it's urgent and the help desk can't fix it. Shift differentials might make some people willing to actually work a night shift in IT .

We try to have workarounds in place. Actually where I work is very high-tech for a hospital/health system. But they moved the main IT support out to the suburbs to save money leaving only a few on-site people at each location and most of us are not. We can remote in and see the PC issue, though.

I mostly work on the financial programs so don't have too much contact with the clinical side. Which is okay with me, fewer night calls...

Another favorite call (not from a doctor) which has happened many times is the one we get at around 4 PM on a Friday - the caller says "this has been happening all week but I thought I should report it before I leave for the weekend."

 

[DeborahB]

Certainly Health IT costs money, lots of money, but as I said you have to keep the system running ALL THE TIME No, a doctor will not wait 10 minutes for you to show up. Even in the classroom IT system no one would wait 10 minutes for a tech to show up and start fixing the system. One way or another you have to keep the systems running and respond, in person or electronically much faster.

It was a 10 minute walk to the location. In a huge building, there is no way to walk faster than that... No computer system works all the time, perfectly.

 

[Rustward]

American Airlines buying TWA ...

BOA buying Countrywide ...

Both on the verge of bankruptcy and could have had thier assest purchased for pennys. But no, let's pay billions for them instead.

Yeah but ... in the BOA/Countrywide case BOA was using somebbody else's money ...

 

[scrabbler1]

Annual employee surveys. A third-party comes up with 20 questions relevant to all but the actual worker bees. The results are compiled and lo and behold without fail lack of leadership and failure to communicate vision float to the top of the list as serious problem areas. So what does management do? They assemble a committee of worker bees to study the problem, non of whom have the authority to change anything.

When I was working, I always got a chuckle out of these. They were not given out every year, thankfully, but they often asked the wrong questions (and often the same useless questions from year to year).

Then, we would get some booklet which contained a nice presentation of a summary of the results which did nothing more than kill some trees. At least some of that stuff got delivered electronically after a while. Or, we would get dragged from our desks in the middle of the workday to be given a glitzy presentation (with transparenceis/slides) about the results. Another waste of time.

 

[M Paquette]

Outsourcing your mission statement.

You've gotta wonder what sort of workplace has a mission statement like this:

"To satisfy our customers' desires for personal entertainment and information through total customer satisfaction"

Then there's the Buzzword Bingo statement:

It is our mission to dramatically initiate performance based opportunities as well as to proactively leverage existing quality leadership skills to meet our customer's needs.

I can only hope this was a joke...

 

[Emeritus]

It was a 10 minute walk to the location. In a huge building, there is no way to walk faster than that... No computer system works all the time, perfectly.

Proper system design includes response time. You don't put the nurses or the crash cart 10 minutes from the patients. The mission drives the system design, not the other way around.

 

[ls99]

M Paquette
You've gotta wonder what sort of workplace has a mission statement like this:

Quote:
"To satisfy our customers' desires for personal entertainment and information through total customer satisfaction"

The happy hooker's?

 

[Texas Proud]

Had a boss that would call and ask how many new recruits he could expect. If the number wasn't what he wanted to hear he'd say "You know, Keim, a goal should be achievable, but it should make you stretch. I think you can recruit more this week. Stretch. I'm going to call you in about an hour, and I expect you to tell me that you can recruit X number of people this week." This happened weekly, so we soon learned to give him inflated production estimates. Then he'd wonder why the projections he gave his boss were never accurate. When he moved on the new guy couldn't believe how rosy our estimates were. He got burned once by believing them, and reporting them to his boss. After that, he talked with us about giving ACCURATE projections.

I remember having a boss who had moved to another section... it was annual budget time... they wanted a 'stretch' budget.. she actually thought she could achieve a 60% growth in revenue with only a 20% growth in expense... after submitting it... and it getting 'updated' from upper management... her new goal was a 120% increase with a 10% cut in expenses... and they expected the cuts right away...

I remember being in her office when she submitted the monthly variance... her comment on why she did not achieve the income targets was 'these are you stupid numbers, you get them'... she was gone in about another year...

 

[brewer12345]

I have another one, fresh from the rectum of my employer: "we do not care how much value you add or how far above your supposed peers you might be. You will not be put up for promotion or even a decent raise until you have been here for X years. No, we will not tell you what X is."

So long guys. I have had enough.

 

[MikeD]

Best Job I Ever Had

at least in terms of employee satisfaction: I had a boss with the same sense of humor I had. In all seriousness, when I asked him what he expected of me on my first day, he replied "Just don't get caught f'ing off. I will get in trouble. Other than that I don't care what you do." And he meant it. I was in my last year of college at the time and did all my homework assignments at work. As long as I was responsible and answered my phone or voice-mail in a timely fashion I was OK. Got all A's that year. What a great boss. Did I mention that it was a gov't contractor job?

Mike D.

 

[soupcxan]

Situation: My boss reports to the department head. I am a full-time employee and we're getting a summer intern (who reports to my boss).

Boss: The dept. head is reviewing the list of projects for the intern. Once he's selected the project for the intern, you'll handle the rest of the list.
Me: So basically you're telling me that I'm going to work on the projects that weren't important enough for the summer intern?
Boss: Well, your projects will take longer...

Classic.

 

[brewer12345]

Situation: My boss reports to the department head. I am a full-time employee and we're getting a summer intern (who reports to my boss).

Boss: The dept. head is reviewing the list of projects for the intern. Once he's selected the project for the intern, you'll handle the rest of the list.
Me: So basically you're telling me that I'm going to work on the projects that weren't important enough for the summer intern?
Boss: Well, your projects will take longer...

Classic.

Translation: you are stuck here so we can kick you longer and harder than we can kick an intern.

 

[Westernskies]

I have another one, fresh from the rectum of my employer: "we do not care how much value you add or how far above your supposed peers you might be. You will not be put up for promotion or even a decent raise until you have been here for X years. No, we will not tell you what X is."

So long guys. I have had enough.

Not that unusual. Sounds like they are weeding out the short-timers to me, and rewarding experience and commitment.

 

[Nords]

Things you really didn't want to know: remedial training of people responsible for launching nuclear missiles.

Back in 1985, at the height of the Cold War, our ballistic missile submarine went out for a 90-day patrol with a couple of extra crew: a command-selected post-XO commander (O-5) and a weapons lieutenant (O-3) who was senior to our Weapons Officer. This was unusual, but no one felt that this situation was worth explaining to my O-2ness.

A few days later even I was aware that things were not good. It turned out that the Navy was really really short on submariners in that decade and couldn't "afford" to lose any of them. The O-5 had more or less failed the submarine force's command qualification course. Rather than send him to a [-]training command[/-] dead-end staff job for the rest of his career, he'd been assigned a remedial deterrent patrol. [-]When[/-] If he satisfactorily completed it then he'd be considered "passed" and would proceed on to take command of another boomer.

The O-3 was in a similar "fail" situation with his own Weapons Officer qualification. (Those pesky safety rule are so hard to remember.) It was felt that 90 days of tutelage under the beneficent supervision of our easy-going chain-smoking mustang Weps, "Mad Dog", would be enough to turn around even the most hopeless cases.

By about Day 10 it was clear that we were in for a very long patrol. Those two didn't get any better, but the rest of us certainly learned a lot.

The recommendations that our CO wrote on them were emphatic enough to persuade BUPERS to cancel the entire "remedial" program.

Translation: you are stuck here so we can kick you longer and harder than we can kick an intern.

... whom we will later hire and make your boss, so that you can train him on his new responsibilities.

Brewer, it's clear that Wall Street needs you back. And now you have even more of what they need.

 

[brewer12345]

Brewer, it's clear that Wall Street needs you back. And now you have even more of what they need.

At this point, I am so mad I am tempted to take my newfound skills and sell them to the highest bidder who wants an employee that will help them play rope-a-dope with the oxygen-wasting bureaucrats who attempt to enforce regulations in between bouts of drooling.

 

[Emeritus]

At this point, I am so mad I am tempted to take my newfound skills and sell them to the highest bidder who wants an employee that will help them play rope-a-dope with the oxygen-wasting bureaucrats who attempt to enforce regulations in between bouts of drooling.

It's interesting how people think we can get good regulatory talent in the USA with low pay, overwork, political abuse, crappy working conditions and minimal technical support.

 

[brewer12345]

It's interesting how people think we can get good regulatory talent in the USA with low pay, overwork, political abuse, crappy working conditions and minimal technical support.

Don't forget conservative political commentators screeching about gubmint workers making more than the average US worker. Hey morons, most gubmint workers put up with tons of crap and generally are required to have a college degree or better to get the job. And, oh yeah: most could make a lot more in the private sector.

 

[Emeritus]

Don't forget conservative political commentators screeching about gubmint workers making more than the average US worker. Hey morons, most gubmint workers put up with tons of crap and generally are required to have a college degree or better to get the job. And, oh yeah: most could make a lot more in the private sector.

you forgot the pressure to contract out essential services to politically well connected corporations.

 

[soupcxan]

Don't forget conservative political commentators screeching about gubmint workers making more than the average US worker. Hey morons, most gubmint workers put up with tons of crap and generally are required to have a college degree or better to get the job. And, oh yeah: most could make a lot more in the private sector.

You don't think private sector employees put up with tons of crap and need to have a college degree (or better)? And when was the last time you saw a private sector worker with the job security and gold plated pension benefits that come with a government job? Granted the feds have cut back their pension benefits, but the states' programs are way more generous than you will find in any company.

I have yet to read about a private sector worker taking a ton of overtime his last year at work and then spiking his pension for the next +30 years, or "retiring" so he can start drawing his pension but remaining in the same position, thus getting salary+pension simultaneously. There have been several articles about these practices by government employees recently.

 

[brewer12345]

You don't think private sector employees put up with tons of crap and need to have a college degree (or better)? And when was the last time you saw a private sector worker with the job security and gold plated pension benefits that come with a government job? Granted the feds have cut back their pension benefits, but the states' programs are way more generous than you will find in any company.

I have yet to read about a private sector worker taking a ton of overtime his last year at work and then spiking his pension for the next +30 years, or "retiring" so he can start drawing his pension but remaining in the same position, thus getting salary+pension simultaneously. There have been several articles about these practices by government employees recently.

I have been in the private sector for virtually my entire career and am quite familiar with the game. Most private sector jobs do not require college degrees. If they did, we would have a massive labor shortgae given that only a quarter or so of the US population has such a degree.

Personally, I'd love a gold-plated anything. Never seen it. Obviously the pension schemes in place for many public sector (thinking especiall;y state and municpal) workers are egregious. Clearly they are going teh way of the dodo.

 

[Emeritus]

The people are you describe are not regulators. I train engineers to be regulators. Virtually none get overtime at either federal or state levels. Their starting salaries are about 20% below industry equivalents.

I was a civil servant for 32 years. Not a dollar of overtime.

 

[Texas Proud]

The people are you describe are not regulators. I train engineers to be regulators. Virtually none get overtime at either federal or state levels. Their starting salaries are about 20% below industry equivalents.

I was a civil servant for 32 years. Not a dollar of overtime.

I think there are a lot of gvmt workers who do not get overtime... and they work 8 to 5 or 9 to 5 (in NY)...

But there are enough that do get overtime... police and fire... there were a lot of NYC police that retired a year after 9-11 because of all the overtime they got that year... if they waited to retire, they lost a lot in their pension... (not specific knowledge... just reading about it in the news)...

And then you can do 'other things'... if you are a teacher... work summer school... go to training that pays you... etc. etc.. not really overtime, but extra work that last year or two to boost the pension...

 

[Westernskies]

You don't think private sector employees put up with tons of crap and need to have a college degree (or better)? And when was the last time you saw a private sector worker with the job security and gold plated pension benefits that come with a government job? Granted the feds have cut back their pension benefits, but the states' programs are way more generous than you will find in any company.

I have yet to read about a private sector worker taking a ton of overtime his last year at work and then spiking his pension for the next +30 years, or "retiring" so he can start drawing his pension but remaining in the same position, thus getting salary+pension simultaneously. There have been several articles about these practices by government employees recently.

Here's a recent public pension scam that cost the taxpayers of Scottsdale, AZ $2.5 million...a little last minute rule change by the same folks who would benefit the most from it.
azcentral.com blogs - Laurie Roberts' Columns & Blog - LaurieRoberts - Scottsdale parachutes not just golden