-=> Quoting Rob Mccart to Cougar428 <=-

CO>Not trying to be contentious, but instead of watching and talking
>about the situation - is there something you would do differenty if
>you were the one in charge?
CO>In a lot of places, what I would see is people sitting on the
>sidelines complaining about how the business was being managed, but
>never really stepping up to try and change things in a better way.

RM> Have you ever tried to tell your boss that he's doing something wrong?
RM> And the problem with incompetent bosses is they are paranoid about
RM> losing their jobs so they will either ignore you, tell you to shut up,
RM> or try to get rid of you in case higher-ups realize there is someone
RM> smarter than them available to do the job.

Actually I have. The last 3 places I worked had a management open
door policy. The first job I ended up leaving when the
suggestions I made had the effect you noted above. The second
actually listened to me, but I moved on and found a better job.

The last place was enthusiastic about doing things better, so they
would evaluate and try suggestions. Some worked, some didn't. I
made some suggestions that improved my ability to help workers (IT
Support), but I have retired after working for 50+ years.

RM> I say all that with a smile. I didn't intend for it to sound
RM> confrontatonal with you since I agree with your basic idea.
You don't sound confrontational, but thanks for letting me know.
Hey if we can't discuss things rationally, how are we ever going to
argue about things? B^)

RM> I told him to leave it to me and I'd find a way, and he did that
RM> rather than trying to micro-manage how I did the work. I did manage it,
RM> basically doing about 8 or 10 hours of production in 5 hours.

Sounds like you came through with the goods! That's great as long
as they don't expect you to do more with less as a rule of thumb.
I've gotten bitten by that dog a number of times. The boss sounds
like he trusted his people.

RM> In the end I stopped working for other people by the time I was 32. If
RM> you are your own boss you only have to answer to the customers and, in
RM> most of the jobs I did, my customers actually paid me more than I asked
RM> for so that I would be readily available for them when they needed me
RM> again.

Now there's the ticket! I wish I was as resourceful as you seem to
be. Thanks for the reply!

Cougar

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RM> I told him to leave it to me and I'd find a way, and he did that
> rather than trying to micro-manage how I did the work. I did manage it,
> basically doing about 8 or 10 hours of production in 5 hours.

CO>Sounds like you came through with the goods! That's great as long
>as they don't expect you to do more with less as a rule of thumb.

Yes, I think he was so amazed he decided not to question how I did it.
I definitely wouldn't want to do that too often, nor could a lot of people
if I'm being honest. The speed up involved things like ignoring the
company policy of not lifting more than 70 lbs when dumping materials
into a large mixer we used. That day I was working with up to 175 lbs.

CO>I've gotten bitten by that dog a number of times. The boss sounds
>like he trusted his people.

He was good at letting you do what you were good at and not directly
supervising unless there was a problem. Six months after I started working
there he put me in charge of the quality testing lab, which required three
years of training to do, but I'd started doing the work when he was out
on sales calls and showing him the results when he got back and he realized
that I was quite able to do it, admitted I was even fussier on quality than
he was, so I got moved up a notch earlier than expected. Besides, he
preferred the 3 martini sales calls to running the plant so he was happy
to pass as much on to me as I could manage.. B)

RM> In the end I stopped working for other people by the time I was 32.

CO>Now there's the ticket! I wish I was as resourceful as you seem to
>be.

That was sort of accidental. I took a winter off between that job and
the offer of a similar job at a major competitor at 50% more money where
the job wasn't quite ready yet. They offered to take me on and 'find
something for me to do' until the coming job opened up but I decided I
was going to move anyways so, over a 2 month period, I sold two houses
that I owned in the city and moved into my cottage until the fall and
then took off for Florida for the winter. While I was there I got into
investing the money from the house sales and found I was making more
money than needed to pay the basic bills, so I decided to take some
more time off.. and sort of never went back, other than part time jobs
I set up, mostly to earn enough extra to keep me in fairly recent
computers and other non-essential things, having the investment income
paying the normal bills.

BTW.. That was 36 years ago.. Now I also have a full pension added on
so things are a Lot easier.. B)

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Re: How far I've come...
By: Cougar428 to ROB MCCART on Tue Feb 07 2023 11:20 pm

> RM> most of the jobs I did, my customers actually paid me more than I asked
> RM> for so that I would be readily available for them when they needed me
> RM> again.
>
> Now there's the ticket! I wish I was as resourceful as you seem to
> be. Thanks for the reply!
>

yeah he's really lucky. it's hard to believe that customers paid him more
than what he asked for.
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Re: How far I've come...
By: Rob Mccart to COUGAR428 on Fri Feb 10 2023 12:52 am

> RM> I told him to leave it to me and I'd find a way, and he did that
> > rather than trying to micro-manage how I did the work. I did manage it,
> > basically doing about 8 or 10 hours of production in 5 hours.
>
> CO>Sounds like you came through with the goods! That's great as long
> >as they don't expect you to do more with less as a rule of thumb.
>
> Yes, I think he was so amazed he decided not to question how I did it.
> I definitely wouldn't want to do that too often, nor could a lot of people
> if I'm being honest. The speed up involved things like ignoring the
> company policy of not lifting more than 70 lbs when dumping materials
> into a large mixer we used. That day I was working with up to 175 lbs.
>

what type of job was this? was this manufacturing where you were not showing up for the entire day and they accepted that?
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(Re: Doing 8 to 10 hours of production work in 5 hours)

CO>Sounds like you came through with the goods! That's great as long
>as they don't expect you to do more with less as a rule of thumb.

RM>Yes, I think he was so amazed he decided not to question how I did it.
>I definitely wouldn't want to do that too often, nor could a lot of people
>if I'm being honest. The speed up involved things like ignoring the
>company policy of not lifting more than 70 lbs when dumping materials
>into a large mixer we used. That day I was working with up to 175 lbs.

MR>what type of job was this? was this manufacturing where you were not
>showing up for the entire day and they accepted that?

Not sure what you are referring to about not showing up for the entire day.
It was a regular 40 hour a week job for us.

It was a plant making colouring for plastics, inks and special paints and
we got a super rush order for over a ton of product which had to go out
before the end of that day (5 hours later). Normally a product run that
big would take well over a full day to make up and lab test for quality.

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RM> most of the jobs I did, my customers actually paid me more than I asked
> for so that I would be readily available for them when they needed me

CO> Now there's the ticket! I wish I was as resourceful as you seem to be.

MR>yeah he's really lucky. it's hard to believe that customers paid him more
>than what he asked for.

In general I was charging less than the going rate for things because I was
working out of my house with lower overhead. Some of the jobs I was doing
it was hard to find people to do them at all - things under the heading
of Property Management doing maintanance and such on cottages for people
who were not there enough hours to look after the places themselves if
they wanted to have any time to get any enjoyment out of the place.

I was also doing computer work and, as an example, one time I got a call
from the Town Clerk (think Mayor's Chief of Staff) who had a computer
they couldn't spare out with a major computer place who tried for over
2 weeks to get it working right and I think were finally starting to
suggest they just scrap the nearly new computer and buy a replacement.
She called me and asked if I'd look at it, explaining the situation,
and I told her if they couldn't fix it I doubted that I could, but she
said she'd pay me to try.. I got it working in about 3 hours.
It was a totally hidden hardware issue where everything worked right
when tested on it's own, but didn't work right together, in only one
out of four identical computers bought at the same time.

Later when I stopped in one day she introduced me to a sales rep from
Wang computers as their Computer Guru.. B)

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