How To Demoralize Employees: A DIY Guide for Terrible Companies
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Since this thread transcended Blakey's previous job, I'm reviving it.
A prospective client that's running an Asian shilling network just demonstrated a gamification system he'd set up for his employees.
Whenever they perform some task, they have to enter it into this software, that's like a combination of a project tracker and CMS. They are then awarded points based on what they did (eg. bring in a blogger with over 100K followers = 1000 points). The points are tallied into whatever competition the boss has running at the moment.
For example, the current competition is called "New Year Battle", and the leader Paul has a massive 35K lead over the second ranked Emilie, who only has 10K. In the previous competition called "The Battle of Asia", he had them split into the regional teams (eg. Team China, Team Korea...). Team China won thanks to Alex, who led the charge with a massive 56K points by the end.
The client didn't go into how this translate into the bonuses or paychecks, but it probably does. I wouldn't want to be on the bottom of this guy's little graph.
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It might also translate in to some sort of "rank and yank" system.
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Oh Christ I forgot we'd moved onto rank and yank here in my corner of WtfCorp.
Now I get to lose sleep over that process.
Unless our management got distracted by a squirrel or possibly a butterfly and forgot about it.Which is likely.
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rank and yank
Is that the kind of system that asserts that the bottom n% of your workforce must simply be terrible, workshy people who should be let go at the earliest opportunity? And then you repeat this process year in, year out, practically guaranteeing that your workforce is dominated by those who are more interested in gaming the system, and undermining others in an effort to look good according to whatever the arbitrary metrics-du-jour are, rather than actually putting their heads down and working for the benefit of the company? I hope it is, otherwise this is a wholly offropic rant...
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You summarized eloquently how it usually goes.
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Better to be a yankee than a rankee.
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rank and yank
In California, the performers must now wear goggles while practicing this system.
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@Polygeekery said:
rank and yank
In California, the performers must now wear goggles while practicing this system.
and condoms, although I think that's only in LA.
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You winterized eloquently how it usually goes.
FTFY.
And here I thought that 'rank and yank' was how most teenaged boys decided which men's magazine to, uhm, 'read'...
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@Polygeekery said:
You winterized eloquently how it usually goes.
FTFY.
And here I thought that 'rank and yank' was how most teenaged boys decided which men's magazine to, uhm, 'read'...
Thank you for your useful contribution to the discussion. The 26 day necroing was valid and worthwhile.
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You are quite welcome, especially in your lack of sarcasm.
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He would have, but he has a problem with popping off early.
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Today's way to demoralize employees: schedule a requirements gathering meeting outside of normal working hours.
There is a more subtle way, schedule a 1h meeting for 30min before the shift ends.
I'll just leave this here:
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@antiquarian said:
Today's way to demoralize employees: schedule a requirements gathering meeting outside of normal working hours.
Proper response: "That's fine, can we have this meeting at the pub and have the company pick up the tab?"
I wish I could up-vote this more than once.
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Update: the PM I complained about earlier who scheduled requirements gather meetings after hours has scheduled 3 1-hour calls in a row today at 11 am, 12 pm, and 1 pm. If my boss can get one of them rescheduled, I'll be taking at least one of the calls from a local sushi bar.
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I wish I could up-vote this more than once.
This post got more likes than the one it quoted
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@redwizard said:
I wish I could up-vote this more than once.
This post got more likes than the one it quoted
What's also interesting is that the post that was quoted got a few likes after the quoting. It's like wine - got better with age!
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Today's way to demoralize employees: instead of sacking the guy who deafens his co-workers with acetylene bombs and shits in their lunch boxes, promote him and sack the guy who complained.
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You might want to look over into the "Bad Ideas" thread :)
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shits in their lunch boxes
He testified that defecating into a coworker's lunch is not a fireable offense.
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sacking the guy who deafens his co-workers with acetylene bombs and shits in their lunch boxes
<xaade>
Not if company's religion requires carrying acetylene bombs and shitting in employees' lunch boxes, you Godless Australian Muslim. We value freedom of speech and that means companies have the right to practice any religion and bear arms, and eat whatever shit their religion demands of them ...
[[sentences]] * 47Therefore climate change is also a hoax.
</xaade>
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@flabdablet said:
shits in their lunch boxes
He testified that defecating into a coworker's lunch is not a fireable offense.
It's probably like that soccer dog movie - it's not in the rules that you can't shit into your coworker's lunch, so it's not a fireable offense.
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Holy fucking hell. Mr. English should consider changing his name to Mr. Blonde. He sounds like a true psychopath and/or the next Unibomber in the making.
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Therefore climate change is also a hoax.
A oscar winner said climate change is a serious problem that should be taken care of
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Today's way to demoralize employees: instead of sacking the guy who deafens his co-workers with acetylene bombs and shits in their lunch boxes, promote him and sack the guy who complained.
That's not exactly the way that things happened.
But, they both should have been fired. Or, more properly, everyone under Mr. English should have quit and found new jobs.
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they both should have been fired
If you mean both English and Fletcher, I agree with you. The claimant did nothing to justify being fired as far as I can tell, unless perhaps he was Working While Black.
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Are we still here on the topic of corporate demoralization? Lemme chime in with some more nonsense.
Remember that bit about grid locations when it comes to desks, and serial numbers of employees?The conference rooms where I work don't follow that pattern. They are named after classic video games, probably because it would make it more "cool". Of course that naming scheme tells jack shit about the actual room's location.
Also, if you happen to leave your laptop at your desk for the night and anything happens to it, it's your fault and you owe company the cost of that laptop; and no, you're not allowed to work on your own equipment.
By the way, the laptops are some kind of cheapo ultrabooks with Ivy Bridge i5-U CPU. It just so happens that stuff we do is sorta CPU-intensive. Nah, not because it is very heavy math or something. It's just written this way. NoSQL, ya know -- all joins and aggregations painstakingly reimplemented in Java/JavaScript (it's mongo, ENOTADATABASE). Several man-decades down the drain. The laptop cringes even on a minuscule dataset. Add the overhead of full disk encryption, and the disk in question is not even an SSD.
The meetings are being conducted over Cisco IP communicator. It's when skeuomorphism turns its ugly face towards you: looks like a phone but the buttons don't quite work; you cannot define your own shortcuts to the WebEx conferences you use daily (options are locked), and you cannot dial them in a single click in any other way.
I think some might even have guessed where I work. shrug
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Also, if you happen to leave your laptop at your desk for the night and anything happens to it, it's your fault and you owe company the cost of that laptop; and no, you're not allowed to work on your own equipment.
Humm... This is so common and normal that I have problem to see it as .
When the company "lend" the laptop to you, it's very reasonable that the company expects you take good care of it. (At least you should lock it against non-movable objects)
In Hong Kong, we have law that if company want to claim damage from employee, the amount must not exceed 1/3 of the monthly wage, though.
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I think some might even have guessed where I work.
Why would we? It's not very distinctive.
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There are a few users here from the same city as I.
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Humm... This is so common and normal that I have problem to see it as
.The problem I see here is that this is a pure liability with no benefit whatsoever.
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- Be a consultancy sending your employees out on various contracts.
- Don't actually tell them the details of their contract until a week (at least) after that contract starts.
- Have a standard number of hours/day they have to work on any contract (you may allow them to work longer and shorter days, but be sure to expect them to work at least 5*$daily_hours each week), then sign them up for half an hour a day longer than that on one contract, without telling them that it's different from the standard number until you send them the contract details at the end of their first week.
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The claimant did nothing to justify being fired as far as I can tell, unless perhaps he was Working While Black.
The claimant was acting like a child.
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How so?
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until you send them the contract details at the end of their first week
Knowing the consultancy you work for, this doesn't surprise me one bit
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The schedule they sent me also has an on-site bonus about £5 a day less than what they offered me/I accepted. I have emailed back asking
? and I'm hoping that it's just a mistake and they won't make a fuss, but it's not just a typo/misreading, every digit in the number is different.
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sign them up for half an hour a day longer than that on one contract, without telling them that it's different from the standard number until you send them the contract details at the end of their first week
On the bright side, this is legitimate reason for you to apply for OT. Your company has even been so nice to provide the proof of OT job for you.
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This would be the bit in the latter half where he's getting passive-aggressive. E.g. the "Do you know there's a policy against abusing sick leave?" bit, and where he's asking him whether "blowing shit up" or "terrorizing other employees" would help him get a promotion.
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So when some prick has been making your working life a misery for years, pushing back with a bit of snark is "acting like a child" and/or "passive-aggressive"?
Yeah, no.
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Yes, it is. Not saying I wouldn't do the same, mind you.
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Of course you wouldn't understand what acting like a child entails. You have the ideology of an entitled child, despite your age.
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Get off your high horse, lest I become insubordinate.
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The schedule they sent me also has an on-site bonus about £5 a day less than what they offered me
Well if you are making £1000 / day (not down to £995 /day), I would not make much of a stink...Of course if you were only supposed to be getting £5/day and they reduced it by that amount....
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When I was working for them, the on site bonus was £2 per hour so £5 is a couple of hours
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In practice, you have to have half an hour 'off the clock', but the EU doesn't know or care whether you're actually getting a break in that time. If you need to work through your lunch break you'll be expected by your employer to work through your lunch break, but you can't count it towards your required hours, and if you're paid by the hour or get paid for overtime it'll be unpaid.
If your employer expects you to work through your lunch break, then they are - with very high probability - involved in illegal shenanigans.
Even if there is no explicit law that states an employer is required to give an employee a half hour break, as an employee you are usually still legally required to take a break. In that event your employer cannot force you to continue working, because they cannot force an employee to perform an illegal act on their behalf.
Usually though, there are additional provisions in law that make it legally required for an employer to force an employee to have a timely break.
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it's your fault and you owe company the cost of that laptop; and no, you're not allowed to work on your own equipment.
By the way, the laptops are some kind of cheapo ultrabooks with Ivy Bridge i5-U CPU
Eh baws. My laptop, she is de shits. Need new one.
nononono. laptop is yours. you breaka it, you buya it.
Okiedokie.
Eh baws. My laptop, she is de broken. Here is 
is what she is worth on eBay. new laptop to be pleasing?
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Also, if you happen to leave your laptop at your desk for the night and anything happens to it, it's your fault and you owe company the cost of that laptop...
The labor laws where you live kinda suck. In at least one state I used to work in, it's plainly illegal to force an employee to pay for any loss or damages.
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The labor laws where you live kinda suck. In at least one state I use to work in, it's plainly illegal to force an employee to pay for any loss or damages.
See: Domino's drivers killing people.
