Q: Ever had a job where you felt like the management folks lost track of you?
A: Yes, but not in the sense that I was receiving paychecks while ownership didn’t know I was in their employ; quite the opposite. About a dozen years ago, one member of our four-person editing staff had to take time off for eye surgery, one eye at a time. During his medical leave, I absorbed his duties. For nine months out of a year-long ordeal, I worked extra hours for the same pay.
The next year, ownership realized they could reduce the editing staff by one position and get the same amount of productivity. So they terminated the position of the employee who had taken medical leave. To be fair, the three of us remaining — all salaried — divided his work among us. But we had to put in more hours. And vacations and family leave meant there were stretches when two of us did the work that had been handled by four previously.
One might guess where this was going. Eventually, ownership cut the editing staff down to two — which meant working 60-80 hours per week (unless one of us took vacation; nothing like working 16 hours a day for 13 days).
This lasted about 9 months. Then ownership realized our supervisor had been turning in fraudulent expense sheets for about 10 years, pocketing the equivalent of one of our salaries each year. That’s when I quit.
"Soon afterward, I’d land a newly created position with an Operations division at the company, which put a weird twist on “I Don’t Work Here” (but that’s a story for another day, heh)."
. . . Part of my job was to train a handful of team leads/managers in more areas of the internal supply chain software, which included the category of tasks completed almost exclusively by me. I trained them so well, I got downsized and my tasks got divided up among those who remained.
I'm not complaining -- I did my job well, and knew I couldn't and shouldn't stay in that role forever -- but maybe the other folks who absorbed extra duties had some complaints about it.
Q: Ever had a job where you felt like the management folks lost track of you?
A: Yes, but not in the sense that I was receiving paychecks while ownership didn’t know I was in their employ; quite the opposite. About a dozen years ago, one member of our four-person editing staff had to take time off for eye surgery, one eye at a time. During his medical leave, I absorbed his duties. For nine months out of a year-long ordeal, I worked extra hours for the same pay.
The next year, ownership realized they could reduce the editing staff by one position and get the same amount of productivity. So they terminated the position of the employee who had taken medical leave. To be fair, the three of us remaining — all salaried — divided his work among us. But we had to put in more hours. And vacations and family leave meant there were stretches when two of us did the work that had been handled by four previously.
One might guess where this was going. Eventually, ownership cut the editing staff down to two — which meant working 60-80 hours per week (unless one of us took vacation; nothing like working 16 hours a day for 13 days).
This lasted about 9 months. Then ownership realized our supervisor had been turning in fraudulent expense sheets for about 10 years, pocketing the equivalent of one of our salaries each year. That’s when I quit.
Ouch!
That eventually happened to me, too . . .
"Soon afterward, I’d land a newly created position with an Operations division at the company, which put a weird twist on “I Don’t Work Here” (but that’s a story for another day, heh)."
. . . Part of my job was to train a handful of team leads/managers in more areas of the internal supply chain software, which included the category of tasks completed almost exclusively by me. I trained them so well, I got downsized and my tasks got divided up among those who remained.
I'm not complaining -- I did my job well, and knew I couldn't and shouldn't stay in that role forever -- but maybe the other folks who absorbed extra duties had some complaints about it.
Great read, Dom! Reminds me of that Seinfeld episode with Kramer “I don’t even work here!” “That’s what makes this so difficult”
Like Kramer, I had zero business training whatsoever. Fortunately, I was an engineer. Brilliant call by you 🤣