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It's difficult to say
I know people that do that... anytime you ask them they'll say "Uhh my God, I'm so busy"
and then you find out that they spent weeks editing some document, even though that's not even in their line of work.
Bad thing is that when you are a hard worker .... they give you more work to do.
General answer to the question -- because the boss actually doesn't know what they do, so takes their statement "I'm so swamped" at face value while dumping more on the person quietly doing their job. Much like most bosses are looking at butts in seats rather than productivity.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thunderkat59
Being the supervisor of a union shop for a while I noticed a weird phenomenon that had me questioning what "lazy" really was. The union pressman would find an hour worth of little, useless, totally unnecessary chores that "had" to be done in an effort to get out of a real 20 minute job. So what is lazy? The actual effort you put forth or a state of mind?
Not lazy so much as just created another hour of pay for themselves. All about creating extra work so you have to hire extra employees who then create more extra work. We have workers who if they need to go from door A to door B, will get in the truck and drive all the way around the plant at 15 MPH (plant speed limit is 35) to get to door B. Basically turning a 10 foot walk into a 20 minute drive.
The people who claim to be swamped all the time are the people who whine the loudest about how no one helps them, or how other people aren't doing their job. I've shared this story on this forum before, but it works well here:
I had two hag co-workers who sat on either side of me. It was just us three in that particular department, other than our manager. My first job of the day was to answer all of the emails from the customers, then I would work on other aspects of the job that we all had to do, (each with their own "product").
These hags would stroll in to work, put their coats on the back of their chairs, mingle a bit, situate the plants on their desk a few times, go get coffee from the break room, make up some excuse to talk to someone on the other side of the building, mingle some more, finally turn on their computer, mingle some more, suck up to the boss (by this I mean: asking the dumbest of questions as a way to tell the boss what they had done the day before...for those who say sucking up doesn't happen), mingle with some people on the way back to their desk, FINALLY sit down, try to mingle with me, mingle with each other, read their emails both personal and business, type as slowly as humanly fricken possible in response to many of them, mingle some more, make a personal phone call, get the giant stack of sheets (that green and white striped paper...you all know what I'm talking about), get out their ruler to follow it line by line, get their markers set up, get their pens set up, get up to use the bathroom, mingle in the hallway, mingle with each other, sit down again, do 5 lines on the report and then, bam, it was time for their first break. Eventually, the end of day would be approaching, and they still had not completed the report that they were handed in the morning. And they would cry about how overworked they were.
No, I'm not exaggerating.
"You sure seem to pay an awful lot of attention to what they were doing instead of concentrating on your own work."
Because they made it a point TO concentrate on what they were doing.
I would come in, spend my first two hours answering the kabillion emails from the customers, get my report (that green and white striped printer paper), get down to business, make my calls that were necessary, and be done before my first break.
No, I'm not kidding.
I would be DONE with my work before my first break. Not because I'm a bad ass, not because I'm better than anyone, but because I was brought up to get work done, right now, have fun later.
So they get back from their break, I'm done with my work, they aren't even barely started, and because THEN I decide, ON MY BREAK, to do something personal, complain to the manager that I was goofing off all day and not working. Nevermind the fact that because I was done with my work, I would help out another department, or sometimes my manager's manager with some work when I went asking for more work. People say "why take on more work", I say, "why sit at work bored to death and wait for the next six hours to tick by?"
The manager made us all fill out a task card, (like we were children, because these 40 year old bitter hags acted like children), every single day for two solid weeks. We had to say what we did, what time we started, what time we completed...account for every single moment of work during the day.
Guess who came out looking stellar while two certain hags did not?
Guess who got the raise at evaluation time?
Guess which hags came out of that manager's office at evaluation time in tears?
Guess who got promoted shortly after?
Yeah, so to heck with those lying sacks who claim to be busy all of the time. I've said it for years: We could cut out about 80% of the people in any office, keep the 20% who actually work, do the work correctly, and the office would suffer zero loss in productivity.
I find this especially in doctors' offices. It can take as long as half a hour just to get someone to answer the phone, then they're always giggling, like they were interrupted in the middle of some joke. I've NEVER in my life been seen on time, the usual, standard wait for any appointment, even the first of the day, is 20-30 min, but you can hear them back there yakking.....Check-in and check-out you feel like you're interrupting something, as they continue to ***, and sometimes you have to interrupt their conversations to get them to do their job Try getting anything accomplished, like RX refills, insurance forms filled out, billing errors corrected, and the standard answer is "they're so busy" Busy doing what?
I've learned long ago to block off the entire morning or afternoon for a doctor's appointment, after all, the patient isn't the priority! Its a power kick, they know you're stuck there with your health issues and will wait as long as necessary, you're not going anywhere
Ugh, Marylee, I'm sorry to hear that! I used to work for doctors about 10 years ago, and we were never like that! One of the doctors I worked for, who was a top, top, top surgeon, would have never tolerated that! They would've been fired so fast....Maybe these workers are not paid well. Do you live in an area of the country where there are lots of jobs and it is hard to fill positions? Maybe these were the best employees your doctor could find? Sad...I would take my business elsewhere
Personally I have a bunch of work to do and have made little progress. I had lots of meetings that broke up my day and the task I have requires a few hours of absolute focus. I find when I have those types of tasks it is really hard to get done, and they get put off, due to schedule.
we got one, always walking around with folders, never cleans off his desk, always on the phone. Basicly he too stupid to do the job, so he hides behind paper and books. always on the phone to his wife, thirty times a day
Yes in 2015 everyone who works in a office has out their phone and browsing social media or watching videos.
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Try getting anything accomplished, like RX refills, insurance forms filled out, billing errors corrected, and the standard answer is "they're so busy" Busy doing what?
