aaron
06-19-2005, 06:58 PM
I don't know how many of our readers are out there in the workforce right now, but for those of you that are, I'm sure you can understand what I'm about to rant about. For those of you not yet in there, I hope you can take this and learn from my horrible mistakes.
This, my friends, is a story about the business world no one bothers to explain. This is about greed, idiocy, laziness, and general mishandling of situations and moneys. This is about the stupidest phrase in the business world. Frankly, based on what I know of how businesses like to run, I don't see how this concept ever made it to the drawing board, let alone past it. Mandatory overtime.
What the hell is this thing? Let me see if I can piece together your rationale. You've got a couple people in your office who just can't seem to get their jobs done. They don't have any more work than anyone else. Everyone else finishes their work in the allotted 40 hours a week. But these people, they just can't manage to do it. Instead of firing them or getting them motivated to get it done or be gone, managers seem to think the best way to get them caught up is to force them to work overtime. Gee, what a fucking punishment! I mean, sure, it's a few more hours out of your week, but you also are getting paid 50% more for those hours than normal. For doing the exact same amount of work!
Meanwhile, your coworkers, the ones who can get their work done, are stuck having no reason to come in for overtime. Chances are, they make the same amount hourly that you do. But since they get it done in 8 hours and you get it done in 13, you make twice as much as they do when it's all said and done. That's right! You get paid more for being shitty at your mind-numbing, soul-crushing job. All those decent workers around you? Idiots! They're being short-changed by actually being competent.
From an individual standpoint, it's fantastic. It's the ultimate anti-motivation. They're rewarding you for being lackluster, for being useless, for being hopeless and helpless. Meanwhile, everyone who's competent, hell, maybe even great, at their jobs is suffering. I'm sure you envy their free time, but I'm also sure they envy your extra money far more.
From a business standpoint, mandatory overtime just doesn't make any kind of fucking sense. You are paying incompetents more money. Thus, your profits are going down. And is it worth it? Sure, firing is a bit of a bastard, but with all the extra hours they're putting in, you could hire someone part-time to take up that extra workload. No overtime. Hell, you don't even have to pay benefits to these part-timers. It's absolute genius! Shamefully, this isn't how it works. And I just don't get it.
So, kids, learn from my mistakes. Don't exceed expectations in the business world. Don't even live up to them. Just do barely enough to barely avoid getting by. Do slightly less than absolutely necessary. The financial rewards will dazzle you. It's with this thinking in mind that I decided to work for approximately an hour and a half today. I even came to work early. So they're paying me a bit of overtime, plus the full eight, and I essentially stopped working at 9:30 am. I'm sure I won't be able to live with myself if I keep doing that, but, fortunately for you, most people these days don't have ethics or morals or consciences. So please, for the love of everything sacred, take my advice (because I just can't bring myself to be such an asshole) and be unincredible. Be inefficient. Be wealthy.
-Ben Rice
This, my friends, is a story about the business world no one bothers to explain. This is about greed, idiocy, laziness, and general mishandling of situations and moneys. This is about the stupidest phrase in the business world. Frankly, based on what I know of how businesses like to run, I don't see how this concept ever made it to the drawing board, let alone past it. Mandatory overtime.
What the hell is this thing? Let me see if I can piece together your rationale. You've got a couple people in your office who just can't seem to get their jobs done. They don't have any more work than anyone else. Everyone else finishes their work in the allotted 40 hours a week. But these people, they just can't manage to do it. Instead of firing them or getting them motivated to get it done or be gone, managers seem to think the best way to get them caught up is to force them to work overtime. Gee, what a fucking punishment! I mean, sure, it's a few more hours out of your week, but you also are getting paid 50% more for those hours than normal. For doing the exact same amount of work!
Meanwhile, your coworkers, the ones who can get their work done, are stuck having no reason to come in for overtime. Chances are, they make the same amount hourly that you do. But since they get it done in 8 hours and you get it done in 13, you make twice as much as they do when it's all said and done. That's right! You get paid more for being shitty at your mind-numbing, soul-crushing job. All those decent workers around you? Idiots! They're being short-changed by actually being competent.
From an individual standpoint, it's fantastic. It's the ultimate anti-motivation. They're rewarding you for being lackluster, for being useless, for being hopeless and helpless. Meanwhile, everyone who's competent, hell, maybe even great, at their jobs is suffering. I'm sure you envy their free time, but I'm also sure they envy your extra money far more.
From a business standpoint, mandatory overtime just doesn't make any kind of fucking sense. You are paying incompetents more money. Thus, your profits are going down. And is it worth it? Sure, firing is a bit of a bastard, but with all the extra hours they're putting in, you could hire someone part-time to take up that extra workload. No overtime. Hell, you don't even have to pay benefits to these part-timers. It's absolute genius! Shamefully, this isn't how it works. And I just don't get it.
So, kids, learn from my mistakes. Don't exceed expectations in the business world. Don't even live up to them. Just do barely enough to barely avoid getting by. Do slightly less than absolutely necessary. The financial rewards will dazzle you. It's with this thinking in mind that I decided to work for approximately an hour and a half today. I even came to work early. So they're paying me a bit of overtime, plus the full eight, and I essentially stopped working at 9:30 am. I'm sure I won't be able to live with myself if I keep doing that, but, fortunately for you, most people these days don't have ethics or morals or consciences. So please, for the love of everything sacred, take my advice (because I just can't bring myself to be such an asshole) and be unincredible. Be inefficient. Be wealthy.
-Ben Rice