Stupid (and now former) new employee

[soulcougher73]

lol $55k? He was probably selling dope to get some extra income

That sounds about right for a new civic grad. My company is #1 in Power and Telecom and that is about what we pay roughly for civils. Or so ive heard.

 

[TecHNooB]

i nef at work :|

 

[CRXican]

No if that were the case then you would not be able to post here, or are you saying you do not give 40hours of "work"?

I can do about a full days of work in 4-5hours if I push myself.

If you tell someone to be at the office 40hours a week they will be there 40hours. That does not mean you will get 40hours of work out of them. If you tell them this is what I want from you this week and after that you can go I bet they work just that much harder to get out a hour or more a day or that week. Same as you don't pay someone to put a roof on your house by the hour, you pay by the job and its quality. Its now in their best intrest to finish sooner with as good or better quality then you expect so they don't have to do it again.

I really agree with this. It was especially true at my first "real" job. I made work last longer to fill that damn 8 hour void. If I had worked faster I'd be doing other peoples work with no additional compensation and that's just silly.

Whatever asshat that invented the 40 hour week and 8 hour days should be dug up and stabbed.

 

[Kanalua]

Stupid. I can understand if he thought he could get away with it back when there was no electronic monitoring of employees, but today with all the ways we can (and are) tracked, especially at work, this guy hopefully learned his lesson (probably not).

I know of one guy who spent on average 7 hours a day on his work computer browsing a dating website. The company had logs to show he did it for weeks, spending nearly every hour at work on his computer surfing dating sites instead of working. He was terminated because of it.

Sad thing is the Union (state job) got his job back (no notice that he would be immediately discharged for spending his whole day browsing dating websites at work).

 

[96Firebird]

I really agree with this. It was especially true at my first "real" job. I made work last longer to fill that damn 8 hour void. If I had worked faster I'd be doing other peoples work with no additional compensation and that's just silly.

This is how I feel right now... Only 2 months in as an entry level Mechanical Engineer. My machine is all designed in SolidWorks, pretty much just waiting on everyone else to get the components/materials ordered. Platform won't be ready for another six weeks, going to be a long six weeks waiting for nothing to happen. I go out on the floor every hour or so to help sort something/see whats going on. All the while I am being complimented on how "fast" I get things done. It makes the day go by waaay too slow...

 

[TecHNooB]

I feel like the slow one on my team 🙁

 

[sunzt]

So was he doing all his work?

I don't care if someone worked 10hours a week as long as I got at least 40hours worth of work out of them.

That type of work arrangement is usually given to an experienced employee who is worthwhile to have around for his expertise and skills. You give that employee more flexible hours and they stay with the company.

This new employee is not a case of such value....

 

[Strk]

This is why I always laugh when people claim "over qualified" for jobs. Qualifications are irrelevant if your work ethic sucks.

 

[Vette73]

That type of work arrangement is usually given to an experienced employee who is worthwhile to have around for his expertise and skills. You give that employee more flexible hours and they stay with the company.

This new employee is not a case of such value....

Does not matter how long someone has worked. What matter is what is expected out of each employee.

If MGT is worth anything then they have guidlines on what work is expectd based on pay/exp. If XYZ is what they expect out of new employees; my question stands, was he doing his job?

 

[Need4Speed]

I pretty much come and go as I please as long as I can be reached and that others are aware I am not in the office.

 

[mattpegher]

This is just one example of the degredation of work ethic over the last 20 years. Sure, you would occasionally see veteran employees finding ways to get out of work, but now even the newbies are trying it.

 

[Regs]

I pretty much come and go as I please as long as I can be reached and that others are aware I am not in the office.

Management?

 

[Demo24]

So was he doing all his work?

I don't care if someone worked 10hours a week as long as I got at least 40hours worth of work out of them.

Irrelevant since he lied on his time sheet saying he had been there for 40hrs when he had only actually been there 32. If he had gotten his work done and not lied on the time sheet then he might not have been fired.

 

[edro]

40 hours should be the minimum if you are a new hire.

$55k is average for a BS in elec/mech/civil/comp engineering etc.
In fact, a new hire EE started at exactly 55k 2 years ago, where I work.
We are friends and he told me.

 

[FelixDeCat]

eh n/m

 

[kranky]

Does not matter how long someone has worked. What matter is what is expected out of each employee.

If MGT is worth anything then they have guidlines on what work is expectd based on pay/exp. If XYZ is what they expect out of new employees; my question stands, was he doing his job?

I'll try to answer that. If you are suggesting that if an employee completes an task, then he can do whatever until someone happens to notice and provides more work to do, that simply doesn't work in our company. We assume people will give their best efforts. That means if you finish your work, you will notify your manager who will give you something else to do.

We have many engineers who have sufficient experience and skills to be able to productively work from home at times. Nobody with 2 months experience is at that level, or is told they can come and go as they please without letting their manager know, or is told they can unilaterally decide they will be working from home without letting their manager know. or is told they can lie to their manager and lie on their timesheet.

The expectation for professionals is that you will give your best efforts, and there is no interpretation of that which supports citing a certain level of production as "I'm doing my job" and someone can put in less than a full week of work, week after week after week. The nature of engineering is that some things take longer than expected, some take less time than expected, sometimes new work pops up unexpectedly and the deadline doesn't change. Some days you can pop out early. Some days you stay late. Sometimes you work a weekend. But to suggest someone can justify working essentially a 32-hour week all the time because they must have completed all their work is inconsistent with a professional engineering position.

 

[sunzt]

Does not matter how long someone has worked. What matter is what is expected out of each employee.

If MGT is worth anything then they have guidlines on what work is expectd based on pay/exp. If XYZ is what they expect out of new employees; my question stands, was he doing his job?

If you're a fresh out of college you need to prove that you are

#1 competent (this includes being professional)
#2 reliable and available during specified work hours
#3 able to do what you're told

As a new employee, how can anyone trust you with doing your job and being AVAILABLE during work hours if you're never around and no one can reach you? It sounded like no one knew where he was when he left and he never gave anyone any notice on how to reach him while he was away. Once you are able to prove 1-3, then people can trust you with working at home or leaving a early.

Even if you are allowed to leave early you should only charge the amount of time you worked. If he didn't work 40 hrs then he shouldn't charge 40 hrs. If he finished his work in 4 hrs and decides to leave work then fine, but he should only charge 4 hours worth of work that day unless he stays in the office or continues working. Maybe the manager was waiting for him to finish his current work so he could allocate him some other tasks. Charging hours that you didn't work is a big offense.

Work flexibility is also part of an employee's benefits package. Here where I work, many people telecommute if they live far away and only come to work for certain meetings and when needed. However, they also are worth keeping, available during WORK HOURS, and reliable. Thus, the company values them and allows them to do it.

 

[vshah]

also if you live someplace where the COL is low 55k is very nice

such as swissvale, PA. i started at only 60k in NYC a few years back.

 

[gorcorps]

No if that were the case then you would not be able to post here, or are you saying you do not give 40hours of "work"?

I can do about a full days of work in 4-5hours if I push myself.

If you tell someone to be at the office 40hours a week they will be there 40hours. That does not mean you will get 40hours of work out of them. If you tell them this is what I want from you this week and after that you can go I bet they work just that much harder to get out a hour or more a day or that week. Same as you don't pay someone to put a roof on your house by the hour, you pay by the job and its quality. Its now in their best intrest to finish sooner with as good or better quality then you expect so they don't have to do it again.

Again, it comes down to how the job or company works. There's no such thing as a full days work for engineers here. There's always something to do. A lot of my stuff right now involves collecting data, which involves running queries on excel which take ~10 mins to refresh. During that excel is completely locked up so I jump on here in between data grabs. When I'm not doing that I'm tracking down problems on the floor, or talking to operators and floor workers to see what problems they may be having... then go find where they're coming from. Then go back to the computer to get data on that problem to see when it started. It's a constant cycle that's never done. I can't say "once I'm done with X that's my work for the day". Some jobs are organized that way, but not everything can be.

And that last sentence is BS with most people. If you tell them you can leave as soon as they're done, you can bet your ass most people will do bare minimum to be "done" and then leave... because that's what the boss said they could do. Quality would suffer if you don't also dictate the time and only dictate the fact that it's done. You're creating an environment of "good enough" mentalities, which isn't good in many cases. I work somewhere that produces material found in cars... if people were told they could go home as soon as they finished their project you can bet your ass corners would be cut in order to go home. Do you want those cut corners in your car? I'm very glad things are based on time around here, because if things were your way people would die. Not saying things are perfect here either as with anything time based you have some people who dick around to fill up that time. But it's still better here than a job completion mentality would be.

 

[mattpegher]

such as swissvale, PA. i started at only 60k in NYC a few years back.

I love Swissvale. And yes the cost of living in PGH is low, esp the housing market.

 

[Anubis]

Again, it comes down to how the job or company works. There's no such thing as a full days work for engineers here. There's always something to do. A lot of my stuff right now involves collecting data, which involves running queries on excel which take ~10 mins to refresh. During that excel is completely locked up so I jump on here in between data grabs. When I'm not doing that I'm tracking down problems on the floor, or talking to operators and floor workers to see what problems they may be having... then go find where they're coming from. Then go back to the computer to get data on that problem to see when it started. It's a constant cycle that's never done. I can't say "once I'm done with X that's my work for the day". Some jobs are organized that way, but not everything can be.

.

story of my life. however we have a few that can take hours. one of them that i run weekly i start at 11 and its finished when i get back from lunch at 1 ish

 

[xanis]

lol $55k? He was probably selling dope to get some extra income

$55K might be a joke to you, but for a recent college grad that can't find a full-time job, I'd take anything even close to that.

 

[Rumpltzer]

This is how I feel right now... Only 2 months in as an entry level Mechanical Engineer. My machine is all designed in SolidWorks, pretty much just waiting on everyone else to get the components/materials ordered. Platform won't be ready for another six weeks, going to be a long six weeks waiting for nothing to happen. I go out on the floor every hour or so to help sort something/see whats going on. All the while I am being complimented on how "fast" I get things done. It makes the day go by waaay too slow...

Give it some time man. If you show competence and willingness to work, you'll get pulled into more projects after a bit of time. Soon, you'll be in a position where things will need to be put onto the back burner.

I had seven engineering internships, and the lack of work as you're just starting out is normal. I've had two real engineering jobs; even coming in with a high-level degree, there's still a slow start until you get integrated into the system. My manager at my current job is not very proactive, so I spent a lot of my first months browsing the company Web site, directories, and reading stuff (journals and whatnot). At some point, I flat out asked for more work.

Now, I have more than I can handle. It's far better than too little.

 

[Need4Speed]

Management?

Mechanical Engineer/Project Manager for Naval Subcontractor ... my deadlines are typically measured in months or years and it's rare that I need to be in the office every day unless it's to answer customer phone calls. My email and phone calls are all forwarded to my phone so I am never out of touch. During the winters I can easily work from home if the weather sucks (Northeast winters can be a bitch here in Rochester). My work also often relies on input from coworkers and I tend to be ahead of them quite often, that gives me lots of free time. Summer months I am usually in the office around 7am and leave around 230p.

As long as my work gets done when it's supposed to be done and my customers can reach me, no one has a problem with my hours.

 

[Vette73]

Again, it comes down to how the job or company works. There's no such thing as a full days work for engineers here. There's always something to do. A lot of my stuff right now involves collecting data, which involves running queries on excel which take ~10 mins to refresh. During that excel is completely locked up so I jump on here in between data grabs. When I'm not doing that I'm tracking down problems on the floor, or talking to operators and floor workers to see what problems they may be having... then go find where they're coming from. Then go back to the computer to get data on that problem to see when it started. It's a constant cycle that's never done. I can't say "once I'm done with X that's my work for the day". Some jobs are organized that way, but not everything can be.

And that last sentence is BS with most people. If you tell them you can leave as soon as they're done, you can bet your ass most people will do bare minimum to be "done" and then leave... because that's what the boss said they could do. Quality would suffer if you don't also dictate the time and only dictate the fact that it's done. You're creating an environment of "good enough" mentalities, which isn't good in many cases. I work somewhere that produces material found in cars... if people were told they could go home as soon as they finished their project you can bet your ass corners would be cut in order to go home. Do you want those cut corners in your car? I'm very glad things are based on time around here, because if things were your way people would die. Not saying things are perfect here either as with anything time based you have some people who dick around to fill up that time. But it's still better here than a job completion mentality would be.

No its not, esp on a engineer position. My wife is a computer engineer. If she half assed it on a chip design and the chip errored out; it could be traced back to her. That happens enough they fire her. Just as if she does her part and the work is correct then move on. Only someone that thinks micromanaging work would think otherwise.

She went to a new group and people have tried to get her to join their design teams due to her work history, not how many hours she was in a cube.

Just as if the guy that did my roof quickly messed up he has to come out and fix it. Not only does that cost time but will also cost them money.
When I was an auto tech I got paid by the job. It was in my best interest to finish as quickly as I can but also not mess up. If I messed up it not only keep me from another paying job but I also probably had to buy something to fix my F-up.