Termyn8or
Posts: 18681
Joined: 11/12/2005
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[Borrowed that titling style from the Bullwinkle and Rocky show]
This is partly borne out of the thread about getting caught checking CM at work. There is more. This is just too far off that topic to put there.
Used to know people who worked at Ford. They told me they had a thing going. See Ford is a big place, this was the Brookpark, OH plant and even that was a big place.
They got to the point where about three employees would get together and punch each other in and out. Most of them showed up in the morning but many, except one, left early. He would punch the others' time cards for them. Now that is out and out theft IMO and I knew people who did it, but hadn't really thought of it that way.
This goes way beyond checking private email at work, this is blatant theft. Theft of time, and therefore money. If one is paid by the hour, one should deliver the service purchased.
Then on another occasion with steelworkers. Through people I hear this guy has an AC unit for sale, $250. Says it's worth $700. I go look and it's new in a box stacked up with a bunch of identical boxes. I didn't expect this but I bought it. It was very hot outside. I set the world's record for the fastest time running a 240V line, seriously.
Then I find out they were stolen from the steel mill. Later I find out the this same steel mill changed over to left handed lightbulbs because the employees were stealing so many lightbulbs it affected their bottom line.
Not saying I am any better than anyone, in fact way back I profited from trafficing in ill gotten gains. That stopped a long time ago. Let's just say I was the black light king of this town. They were in vogue at the time and I had the four foot REAL flourescent kind, not just the coated ones.
But the point is, how much of this pilferage can any economy take ? At what point does it become significant in light of the golden parachutes and whatever for the execs ? Let's forget those lightbulbs and other crap, get back to Ford.
You are paying three guys quite well, and they are accruing retirement benefits and all that, but only one of them is there to do the work. If it happened in Brookpark, it can happen anywhere that is run similarly. I'm sure that these few incidences of this that I personally know of are not unique. I am not blowing smoke, one of these people was my own Uncle and not only did he tell me of this, I saw him at home when he was supposed to be at work.
You also hear stories of people who sleep at work, have caught coworkers sleeping at work and so forth. Who is doing the work ? If I were to close my eyes at work I would most likely be sent home, because it means I am too tired or am overwhelmed by something. No three ways about it.
Where I work, if the boss comes up behind me on the PC and asks "What's this ?" the answer is "I'm trying to get us something on this" pointing to my currently assigned job. My last job they were quite the sticklers about time. One partner always wanted to see people at their bench, inherently logical yes, but not in this case. I had no print for the unit, I was downloading a datasheet for an IC used in the circuit which I do frequently and frequently it saves us from having to get the full print.
After the tone he took, I said "Come with me" and took him back to my bench. Sat him down so to speak, pointed at the bottom of the board where there was a 64 (IIRC) pin IC called a jungle IC. I said "Here is the scope probe, I need you to find which pin the sandcastle pulse is on, and whether this chipset has it as an output (in which case it feeds the COMB filter) or an input, in which case I need to look elsewhere for the problem, like what generates it".
He never said another word about the subject, in fact we remain on friendly terms, and the do call be back temporarily when business is more than they can handle. But they trust me, and that is not only because they can, it is because they do.
Quite early in my employ at the new place, I was left completely alone. They said don't worry about the phones, the doors are locked. I don't know what others would have done but you know what I did ? I kept working and also due to that, had positive results to show for it. To be honest, I found out later that there were no cameras on me, but the fact that nothing was missing and some work got done was enough.
People like to talk about "grass roots" organisations and grass roots this and grass roots that, which means spurred on by us common people (well almost). Well how about one for a work ethic ?
They bit the hand that fed them, and we all paid. But just what percentage of it was that ? It could be bigger than any of us would think, or it could be infinitesimal compared to the golden parachutes. Remember we could be talking about millions of people vs a few people. So which has the greater impact ?
T
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Stealing from the boss (or Grand theft automaker) - 
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