Workplace cynicism

[Elok]

I'm relatively new to working in the formal sense; until I graduated from college, I mostly did jobs for my parents when I wanted cash (my dad ran a little business and often needed help). I've worked at three jobs in the past two years: a badly-run pizza place, the U.S. Census Bureau, and now substitute teaching. And at all three, I quickly developed a feeling that my place of work was, in essence, FUBAR. Nothing seemed to work as intended, inefficiency abounded, and much of what I or my coworkers do/did seemed pointless or self-defeating. And everybody else seemed to realize this state of affairs as well, adjusting accordingly: they did the bare minimum of work, cut corners knowing they were unlikely to be caught or punished, and worked the system for personal gain without regard. Not that I'm blaming them--I do/did much the same thing, because the flaws seemed unfixable. Now, this might be a result of my having the three jobs I did, and/or my talent for seeing the worst in every situation. But dang, three in a row!

Hence the poll. How big of a fustercluck is your current place of work? Is this something I just need to get used to?

[Asher]

You get used to it, and all places are ****ed up.

[DaShi]

And changing it is very difficult because many people get very set in the routine. But do try to make a positive impact somehow, it's a great resume booster.

[Docfeelgood]

Well, if it was fun it would not be called work.

[Elok]

I'm not alleging that work is unpleasant, but that a general atmosphere of incompetence prevails. I mean, look at Charlie Chaplin's character in Modern Times. His job sucks; all he does is tighten nuts for hours on end. It would be horrid and dehumanizing, and not at all fun, but still be efficient if all those plates he tightened nuts on eventually became part of a well-assembled, functioning machine that sold well--something that even the lowliest worker could, to some extent, be proud of.

But it probably didn't work that way. Odds are, they don't even need any more plates-with-nuts, but they got an order to continue production from some higher-up who didn't entirely understand the situation. Several people lower down noticed the error, but all let it pass, half of them because having more plates made got them higher pay somehow, and the other half because they were afraid of making waves by showing up the boss. When the error is caught, someone may or may not be fired, but if someone is fired there's a good chance it will be someone unpopular but innocent. They will hold a number of meetings to decide what to do with all these unnecessary plates, and eventually hire an expert team to decide on the most cost-efficient way to handle the situation. The expert team's fee will be at least a third of the total value of the plates produced, more likely half.

They will conclude that the plates should be stored in anticipation of future need. The company will therefore buy a large amount of extra warehouse space to hold the plates, but not bother with maintenance. So the plates will sit in a damp warehouse uncovered and untreated for a year and a half, or however long it takes for damp iron to turn into 50% rust. At that point they will decide they could use the plates for an exciting new product. They are not ideal for the product, but they could be used for it with some modifications, and after paying to store the damned things forever they're determined to find a use for them. Someone will observe that the plates are now so rusty as to be worthless. Someone else (who doesn't like the first someone) will counter that his division has the technical expertise needed to make them work. He will be talking completely out of his ass, of course, but he'll say it anyway just to score points.

Upon inspection of the plates, he will panic. Unwilling to go back on his word, he will fire a scapegoat and add several weeks to his initial projection to buy him some time. He will not be able to find a way to use them, but not for lack of trying, and tying up plenty of company resources for weeks as the best-paid engineers (who were previously working on the product these stupid things aren't even needed for anyway) struggle in vain to find a way to make crap into gold. The exciting new product's release will be pushed back multiple times until the director loses patience, gets unbelievably pissed and fires people at random. They will pay one final, enormous lump of money to dispose of the rusted junk, which is so wasted by now that it can't even be melted down. And everything will go back to normal, somehow.

Until they find out that, while everyone was distracted during all the hubbub, the manager of a factory 300 miles away heard that management has been really hurting for those old plates with nuts lately, and he just happened to have all the dies and material needed, so...

[Jon Miller]

For us the main problem could be fixed by a good manager. The workers are self motivated, intelligent, diligent generally. The problem is of allocating these workers, sometimes important tasks go unclaimed or multiple people work on overlapping tasks.

The construction even finished early and under budget.

Of course, even students don't want to be managed, and forget about managing professors.

JM

[OzzyKP]

Yet somehow, despite all this incompetence and inefficiency people have managed to build the pyramids and create the Internet. Not bad, eh?

[KrazyHorse]

I am constantly impressed at the level of productivity of the great majority of my coworkers

[BlackCat]

@ post #5 : Why don't an employee or low level leader say something's wrong ? That should be the normal procedure.

[SlowwHand]

The Peter Principle, BlackCat.

[BlackCat]

No, what I said is actually fighting that principle - so why isn't that done.

[Arrian]

My (tiny, obscure) department has its disfunctions, sure, but compared to what I see from other comparable outfits we're doing just fine. We do what we exist to do, arguably as well or better than others. That'll do.

-Arrian

[SlowwHand]

No, what I said is actually fighting that principle - so why isn't that done.

Yes, it would be actually fighting the principle, but who will do it? They're all already in over their head.

[Barnabas]

One of the worst problems I have seen is someone quitting suddenly, and the company hiring someone not very good, only because they were in a hurry to replace the person who left the company.

[BlackCat]

Yes, it would be actually fighting the principle, but who will do it? They're all already in over their head.

Ehrm, those that observe it. It can't be that big a problem to observe that there is something wrong and say it.