Hi Anthony,



AW> I find your ideas not totally ridiculous. I think I stuffed up a job

AW> interview after IBM with this attitude. The interviewer asked me what

AW> I would do if I were a supervisor and someone came in 10 minutes late

AW> for the second time, with the same excuse of major domestic trouble at

AW> home. I said she should be sacked and no one should be a minute late,

AW> even if she was the best worker. Stiff shit about the marriage break-up

AW> she was going through.



AM>So are you a 'supervisor' where you are now?  God help those that work

AM>under you if you are!



I was a supervisor before I left the Navy and the underlings all hated

my guts. I hated the Navy and took it out on those that couldn't fight

back unfortunately. Strangely enough one of them runs a BBS nowadays,

but he has completely ignored my attempts at civility.



I used to hate the fact that I could pedal in to Watsons Bay from

25k's away, have a shower, eat a bowl of soggies, get dressed in work

gear, read the SMH, and still be ready to work before 8:30. The slacko

underlings lived on board and couldn't make it to work on time even

though they lived on board 80 metres away.



AM>Where I work, a small company with half a dozen employees (ignoring

AM>our parent company next door) ranging from a production assistant,

AM>production manager, salesman, and three engineers, no one gives a fuck

AM>if someone is half an hour late even.  If so and so feels sick and wants

AM>to take the rest of the afternoon off, then they take the rest of the

AM>afternoon off.  The other day, I needed to go to the optometrist - I

AM>make an appointment for 10:00am, and was gone a total of fourty-five

AM>minutes or so.  The other weekend, I had to traipse into the city to

AM>remove some equipment from an office that we'd installed some time

AM>ago.  No thanks or remuneration for that annoying episode.



I work flextime which is the best thing ever as long as it isn't

abused. Unfortunately the majority cheat it. I actually 'lose' hours a

week simply because it's convenient for me to get into work earlyish.



It sounds as if your workplace ticks along fairly well the way it's

organised so my "sackem if they're 7 minutes late" obviously wouldn't

work in every case. I've only worked for 3 companies in 12 years, so my

opinions are limited by the viewpoints developed from that.



AM>The price we pay, in contrast to the monkeys in the factory next door,

AM>is that us three engineers can be found at work at 6:00pm most nights,

AM>if not later, especially if there's any imminent urgency for something

AM>to be done.  The six o'clock news?  What's that?!?  Life goes on,

AM>despite the fact that I might have slept in twenty minutes later that

AM>morning.  The company gets its pound of flesh none the less.  At least

AM>I can be thankful they aren't idiotically unreasonable in making us

AM>conform to 'standard hours' and having someone standing at the door

AM>ready to dock my pay because I dropped some groceries into my

AM>grandmothers place on the way to work...  IOW, our management know

AM>not to rock the boat when they're already on a good thing!



That last comment is essentially the gist of it. If you decided to work

to rule, the company would be the big loser time wise.



Regards, Alan.



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