Tit For Tat
The thing is, most employers tend to frown on this kind of behaviour. Employers want to see someone that is dedicated to the company, someone with ambition, someone willing to go that extra mile. They want happy customers and completed deadlines, and if that means taking an extra phone call at 4:58 PM or coming in on a weekend then so be it. Employers want a team player, someone personally invested in the company, someone they can count on.
It took me a long time to figure that out. So I gradually made small changes. Sticking around for an extra fifteen minutes made me look good even if little was happening. I still made a point of leaving at five o-clock regularly but I also made myself available when asked, and then I would advertise my extra work a little bit to the managers. If I'm going work extra time, I want the credit for it at least.
I will even offer to work extra weekends provided that I am paid the expected overtime. Ah, but that's where things fall apart. Suddenly these looming priorities and impending emergencies can wait until Monday if we have to pay time and a half to get them done. Money puts everything into perspective for a manager, it seems.
Companies, owners and managers want and expect employees to go that extra mile. And not only that, but not going the extra mile and sacrificing personal time is viewed poorly. It's a negative trait to refuse to work unpaid overtime or ten hour shifts.
The irony here is that these same companies will demand that everyone arrive on time at the start of the day. They will reprimand people that make personal calls or check their private e-mail. They will quell casual conversations between co-workers and split up teams that are too noisy. (And they usually don't realize that removing this freedom actually makes people work more poorly, not better.)
So companies place these demands on their employees and they often offer nothing in return. It's not a give-and-take proposition, it's a take-and-take deal. And if an employee challenges this, it's the employees reputation and standing that takes the hit.
As a manager and programmer, whenever I had deadlines looming I would make sure I got them done every time. Often enough, I would stay and work that extra Saturday shift in order to meet Monday's due date. I figured that was better than forcing my team to give up their weekend. As a by-product of setting that example, my team was then more willing to give up a few hours the odd Saturday every six months because they knew that I did it several times before for their sake. And as a manager, I tried to ensure that these types of extra shifts were not necessary in the first place because that would indicate poor planning from the start, so making a habit of it would be a systematic problem.
Companies can certainly have high expectations, I'm not disagreeing with that. However, companies need to offer something in return as well. If companies take-and-take, eventually the employee will have nothing left to give. Like strip mining a natural resource, the ground will be torn up. New ground and new people will be needed as the old people feel like they are forced to leave.
If we want to get the most from our employees, we need to give them something back.
12 comments:
You know, every single time you post something like this, I feel overjoyed that I'll never, ever work in that kind of corporate atmosphere.
It sounds like a nightmare of regimentation and bureaucracy. A team player? Personally invested in the company? Ha!
You're kidding me, right? You think this stuff is going to be an easier as a university professor? :)
Shona has a recent blog in which she says that the honeymoon is over. She became a teacher last year and thought it was great, but recently she saw how all of the politics and back-room shenanigans suck the life out of the workplace.
http://goldrefining.blogspot.com/2007/10/honeymoon-is-over.html
Methinks you'll experience much the same, with a little mroe experience as a prof. Everyone is a boss or has a boss, so everyone has to deal with the human factor at some point...
Interesting comment, though, Mike. That gives me a whole new train of thought...
Oh, sure, I know there's plenty of politics and beaucracy in universities. But what I've never seen is this expectation that we're supposed to have "corporate spirit" or be a part of a "team." Whenever something resembling that arises, it seems more to be a matter of cold practicality than some kind of personal identification.
There's also no one hanging over your shoulder, checking to see if you stay a few minutes later. Annnnd that thing about breaking up chatty groups? So utterly alien. Reprimands for emails and personal phone calls? Yowza.
The nice thing about being a professor is you can work any 80 hours a week you want.
I find that showing up early is as well regarded as staying late, and interferes less with my personal life.
Calgary was interesting because it's a huge employees market, particularly in the low-paying jobs. Every store has a 'hiring' sign in the window. So employees show up late, leave early, and don't work hard, knowing they can get a job at the next building over.
The nice thing about being a professor is you can work any 80 hours a week you want.
That is the catch, though. 80 hours a week with a master standing watch over you is very different from 80 hours that you yourself control.
Interesting. So if the professor is in control of their own schedule, does that make them similar to a manager in a workplace? As in, professor is to boss as student is to employee.
A professor can make or break a students education, can't they? Apply too much pressure, have too many intense exams, ridicule kids in class, punish free-thinkers, etc.
Perhaps people-management is like student-teaching...and you're just on the flip side of this one coin, Mike.
Sure, those are possibilities. I still think there are good reasons why the corporate atmosphere you describe and the university atmosphere I experience are very difference.
Professors don't profit if their students go the extra mile. An excellent student does not advance the professor's position at all (A superhuman student might profit the prof in terms of reputation, though). Any workload the prof places upon the student is entirely for the student's sake.
And of course, the professor has to match the student's workload because they have to read everything the student produces.
(Even TAing, which does involve an explicit employer/employee relationship, has very little room for abuse, since TAs are only allowed by the union to work 10 hours a week)
Yes, profs have the ability to be jerks in class. But in six years, I've never once seen this happen. I've heard students ask plenty of stupid questions, though, and a potentially snarky response by the prof to a stupid question is hardly the same thing as reprimanding people for checking their emails or breaking up a "chatty" group.
A friend of mine is currently TAing for a prof that loved dominating the class. The prof is like 70 years old, and seriously old school. In the first two months of school, she has already kicked 6 people out of class, for various reasons. I've never seen anyone kicked out of class, and neither has anybody else I've ever spoken with. Not a single one. But this prof does it 6 times in 2 months. So yes, profs can be jerks... but when it happens, its so extraordinary that it becomes an amusing story rather than a traumatic event. She's crazy, and no one takes her seriously.
Interesting dialogue. I'd like to offer a few comments.
1. I'm all for balance and have been guilty of too many work hours at some stages of my career. We all have other responsibilities that we must absolutely tend to.
2. I wonder what your views of the corporate environment are based on. I don't think it describes my place of employment. Have you ever been to Union station near 5pm? A ton of people call it a day by 5. Highways in Toronto are jammed by 4pm.
3. Most of us have plenty of time in our schedules for 'me'. Think about sports, movies, reading, video games, internet and other forms of entertainment. When we are unwilling to put in a little extra time for the team at work, it may well mean that we are unwilling to give up our 'me' time for the team.
4. Dialogue about people watching, masters etc. was interesting. Please consider who the 'master' is. Col 3:23 - Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men.
If we want to get the most from our employees, we need to give them something back.
I always thought that was called "salary" or "wages".
It definitely does sound like you've had a raw shake, or believe you've had a raw shake in the "corporate environment", if that's your picture. I've never really experienced that where I work...even going back as far as retail/wholesale. Sure, there will be people who annoy and frustrate you, but there will also be drivers who annoy and frustrate you, or customer service reps...etc.
2 further thoughts as I do my laundry:
1) The boss or company is responsible for sustaining people's livelihood. A good many people. And they do it a lot better than the old master/servant system.
2) Without the company, you personally wouldn't have a job. No job means no food, etc.
Good to hear your perspective, tt. Much of my professional experience is within small companies, from 3 to 30 people. I would certainly like to hear more about this from a corporate perspective.
Based on conversations with friends inside large companies, though, the paperwork and infinite meetings and multiple bosses are some of the common headaches there. And rather than reprimand people for personal e-mail, they just block entire websites with their firewall. Policies effect hundreds or thousands at a time rather than just one person. Seems like a similar encironment to me...
I don't feel like I've gotten burned in my own career by inane policies. However, I'm very concerned about this topic because I want to be an effective manager. As the one creating the policies, I don't want to frustrate and annoy employees and take away their job for work.
Speaking of which, I certainly do believe that work is more than just a paycheque. The employer expects more from the employee than just their job description, and the employee expects to find fulfilment of some kind.
I'm not against working for small or large companies. (Though being retired and rich is a better option. :) I just want people to really enjoy their work and be the best that they can be, and as a manager I want to do my utmost to make that happen.
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