Inefficiency at work

ajetrumpet

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I'd like to address something here. Does anybody else have trouble calming stupid people down at work? What the hell is the big "rush" all about anyway? Did we get to be this way because the United States sent all of the labor intensive jobs over to Asia? Or are we just chasing the consumerism concept like always? I go into work somedays and it's almost like people are intentionally trying to kill my common sense. I know they aren't, but I also know that people cannot stand to stare at computer screens all day.

Some of the work I am doing right now is sooooo not needed, but it gives jobs to people who need to do something for employment purposes. What the hell is going on here anyway!?

Currently, I am working with an AS400 IBM database from the freakin' stone age, and people are STILL doing inefficient work on it. Maybe this is just part of working in the "big business" corporate world. I haven't worked for very many large companies, but the ones I have worked for seem to be very panicky and very inefficient at the bottom rungs of the ladder. Anyone else have any comments on this seemingly endless crap?
 
Mate, I think it can be the same with all "large" companies. Peoples jobs and rolls at the bottom end seem to have little purpose to the outsider. What I find more infuriating is writing systems, applications and software for people to "help them do there job more effectively", and end up being the resident expert on Contract management, Traffic Management or Asset Management because we have to pull the job to bits just to write the application.
So you end up with some guy who is paid 5x what I am asking me for advice and options so he can look good in a meeting. You sit thinking, "if I had known you were such a dumb ass, I would have written you out of the process in the first place".
 
One word -

DILBERT



.
 
From my experience, the higher up the food chain, the less computer literate they are. Not always, but in most cases.

I think you are close to the mark - If one person in a developed country can't do it, there are about a million unemployed Asians / Indians who would happily kill for the chance of having a job and eating tonight!

Unfortunately, the willingness of the 'developed' director / manager to develop one's skills are about as likely as Mars leaving our solar system in the next year - it is far easier to yell at underlings "I want this now, give it to me!"
 
don't get me started -
- its probably cos they don't like change - scared that their jobs might go


g
 
don't get me started -
- its probably cos they don't like change - scared that their jobs might go
Some good comments guys. Gary, I think you've nailed it here.

That's a common problem: the "business" factor. How much longer can we try and "look" busy without our transparency showing through? :rolleyes:
 
my view is let me show you how to do the job better than you are doing it now - and then let me go and get more income in with lower expensives

they just don't see it ..

mad

where I work I have offered to show then how to save £100-150 K over 3 years and increase work flow and production (smarter -faster)

less work more productivity and yet cos its "new" they would rather be old fashion - "idiots"
 
Guys,

I have worked for two large Blue Chip comapnies, Procter & Gamble and Starbucks, both huge players in the world of manufacturing and retailing, and I have found that as suggested the higher you are in a company generally the less equipped you are to use and embrace modern computing technology.

Starbucks particularly was a bad example as their business until recent years was pretty much entirely run using Excel!!

I am now a senior manager with a large UK retailer, I am waiting patiently for my prmotion to Director and the accompanying degradation of my brain cells to eliminate all sense of modern technology!!
 
A lot of people fall into the trap of believing their own BS, especially management. I try to make a point of not falling in love with my own ideas, if someone says that something can be done better some other way. Fine ditch my idea and do it another way.

The difficulty that somepeople have is letting people adopting their own ideas most people have their own ways of doing things which they do generally because it works best for them. Big companies don't like this and try to regiment everyone which leads to systems that are inflexible and reactive.

Then a company develops middle management that has never understood the technical aspects of the systems. They then have to make important policy decisions that often depend on technical items. Of course if you don't understand any of the new ideas you won't even be able to pick out the good from the bad which is where companies start to break down.

Small companies on the other hand tend to employ people often cos they are mates and the management knows them cos they seem competent. They are then given more freehand and surprise surprise they do a better job.

To my mind there is not enough emphasis on a deep understanding of how systems work and how people interact with them...
 
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I take the view
show me and if its better embrace it - if it isn't then kick it into touch .
 
This is systemic in any medium to large organization. It's usually a function of cost vs utility.

The database I've been working on with your kind help and guidance originally took life as a dbase program in 1986. Our IT people, for lack of funds, refused to support any programs not compatible with the network. That left the dbase program languishing on a Windows 95 computer. Yep - only one computer in a building with 450 employees would run the program. That hard drive dies and the database dies. Keep in mind this program is an index for 15,000 files. That's why I took it upon myself to go through the Access minefield to update the database. At least now it is networkable (new word?) and updatable. Soon it will be transfered to an Oracle server and IT are willing to maintain it in that environment.
 
I am now a senior manager with a large UK retailer, I am waiting patiently for my prmotion to Director and the accompanying degradation of my brain cells to eliminate all sense of modern technology!!
Hey Scott,

I can tell you that if you are start working with people, and have to manage them and make them happy, you should stay away from the computers. Just from experience, I can say that working with computers all day "focuses" your brain too much, and it gets harder and harder to relate to other people in the "personable" sense. You really lose the "BS factor", which is very helpful when you're trying to sell something!!!

Hell, that's why most IT personnel never speak to the rest of the company employees!
They're either tucked away in a dungeon somewhere, or they're over in India. (j/k) :)
 
where I work I have offered to show then how to save £100-150 K over 3 years and increase work flow and production (smarter -faster)

less work more productivity and yet cos its "new" they would rather be old fashion - "idiots"
Careful here Gary,

the "smarter-faster" thing is really getting annoying nowadays. You find yourself doing too much of that crap, and you'll lose your ability to think. I myself, find that to be rather important!

And what's this Dbase things guys? I never got the privilege of working with it, but a lot of old-timers say it was the talk of the town back in it's day...
 
Just from experience, I can say that working with computers all day "focuses" your brain too much, and it gets harder and harder to relate to other people in the "personable" sense.

Interesting observation, Adam. Maybe this explains why I'm rapidly graduating to 'grumpy old bastard' status these days! :D
 
Interesting observation, Adam. Maybe this explains why I'm rapidly graduating to 'grumpy old bastard' status these days! :D
That's very possible Craig, you have my vote! :D

Hey Gary, if you ask me, I would say the people at your company are pretty damn smart. You get to a point where you don't want to scare the livin' sh** out of people. It's no secret that technology is well-advanced, and can do many, many of the jobs that humans do right now. Keep that in mind the next time you want to present an "advancement" idea to the boss. ;)
 
My own favorite gripes center around the US Government office where I work. The fewer details, the less likely someone will recognize themselves.

This morning I had to file a trouble call with our vendor. This call was a normal problem but had to be escalated because someone got a burr up their butt thinking that they needed to have this ready by this weekend. But did they send out a schedule earlier than that? I found out yesterday. Spend yesterday running diagnostics. This morning filed the trouble call when I had something intelligent to say to the vender. (Like, it is this data path that is failing because the redundant path over there is OK.)

So... the department boss suddenly says, "Give me the phone number of the vendor, I want to escalate the call." But of course I had already jumped it to "Mission Critical" status anyway, and I think the only higher rating was "This gets fixed tomorrow or the world ends." The panic in the manager was unfounded because the call went in this morning, the guy from the vendor showed up at 1300, the problem was fixed by 1530, no need for feather ruffling. But hell, if a manager doesn't ruffle feathers some kind of way, he doesn't seem to be productive.

I once told off a manager who was hovering over my shoulder vulture style. He came by every twenty minutes for a detailed update that took one minute to deliver and nine minutes to explain because he was dumber than a box of rocks. Finally I said, "Tom, I can work 50% of the time on this problem and 50% on your education, or I can work 100% of the time on this problem until it is done and then educate you once. I'm getting tired of seeing your eyes glaze over every 20 minutes. Go get some coffee and get really hyper. But do it on someone else's time." Well, this morning it almost got this bad and I was probably minutes away from running for a bucket of cold water to throw on someone to shut them the hell up.

Folks INVARIABLY want to make life tougher than it already its. I haven't figured out why, but they do. And U.S. Government offices are certainly not immune to that failing.
 
My 'favourite' was being hauled in by a company director (a multi multi million $ company, mind you) wanting to know why our email system was not working - people were not getting his important email

Quick dig into the 'sent items' - he had sent it to himself!!

and this 'directs' a company?
 
ha! That's funny.

I must admit though, I have stupid moments (aside from the posts on this forum, that is): I called the OFFICIAL IT department the other day because I could not get logged into a machine. One reset of the password, and I said, "I still can't get in". He asked if the CAPS LOCK was on, I said no 3 times, and he said he would get with his supervisor to work it out. When I hung up the phone, I noticed "correctly" that the caps lock was on. :rolleyes:
 
my job is making my bosses jobs easier.. pure and simple! oh and yes the company i work for is a major one (BAE Systems) and yes the whole bloody company runs off excel and may I add that although BAE Systems IT is outsourced to CSC this does not help matters in the slightest. CSC had early success with smaller companies (i know they are massive in the states) but I have never seen such a ridiculously crap company. The whole 'one soloution to fit all' is an understatement, they have adapted techniques to cater for BAE's IT however I know for a fact that these are completely the same for other major companies that are in completely different fields.
My point is that we have hundereds on CSC monkeys running round our site constantly trying to improve their service when in actual fact its just rubbish. Just two weeks ago I put together a report stating how we could restructure data storage & handling within the company 1/2 current storage capacities thus saving 5+ million. This report also provide detailed info on how storage expansion can be decreased thus reducing storage financial growth by 20%.. but of course I got shot down because CSC cannot/doesnt want to make such changes and my bosses take CSC's word as law!

my job is baisically hiding from these keyboard bashing monekys... jumanji its not!
 

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