Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Mika on January 05, 2013, 06:37:38 am
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Original (http://www.merkur-online.de/nachrichten/bayern/postbote-arbeitet-schnell-angezeigt-meta-2685212.html) auf Deutsch. Well not necessarily sued, but complained at least.
Compact translation:
Due to his speed in delivering, the postman's colleagues made a complaint as according to them, he could not do that by going through the standardized route. Instead, the postman figured out himself which is the fastest way to do his work and did that for many years. His boss confessed that he was aware of his actions and met his silent approval. This seems to have ended up in the court, with a judge questioning the postman in question.
Germans can do the translation better, but that's the gist of it.
As for the commentary, a deep sigh would be enough. But apparently, it is now forbidden to make things more efficient yourself. God help us all!
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Acutally, this is more a funny story about the german tendency to put "proper procedure" so far ahead of results that results no longer matter...
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Acutally, this is more a funny story about the german tendency to put "proper procedure" so far ahead of results that results no longer matter...
Yes, but we didn't want to say that out loud ;)
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That's why I refrained from using a certain quote (attributed to Lenin) I usally put out there when confronted with such scenarios...
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What mika didn't say or missed was that this was the result of intra-office politics more than anything. A coworker of the postman in question was unable to believe that the dude was able to finish his routes as quickly as he did, and thus suspected him of dumping the mail into the nearest trash. This is, of course, a criminal offense, one that he was proven not to have comitted.
The fact that he violated some unspecified standard procedure to accomplish his time savings is pretty much secondary to the whole thing.
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Yes I didn't mention it because I considered that insignificant and actually even more detrimental to the case, i.e. not making things more understandable, but more insidious. Why? Because in order to proceed as far as court in this part of the world, you need to have tangible proof of a postman actually dropping stuff to trash. Instead, what you got here was much better time of delivery. Elsewhere this would not be a cause of concern unless missing mail were also reported, but this certainly didn't happen. Moreover, none of the superiors saw it necessary to defend the guy in question before the case got out of hand by slamming this where it needed to be slammed.
Do you think that this postman in question has any incentives of improving the quality of service in the future, given the **** he just got through? In this respect the point still stands: he just got punished for thinking and working against the proper procedure.
If anything, the guy deserves a raise and a commendation! Irony lies in the fact that I suppose there are a ton of management level dudes that just wish this was never published, instead of case never ending up in the court.
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Why? Because in order to proceed as far as court in this part of the world, you need to have tangible proof of a postman actually dropping stuff to trash.
Actually, no, you don't. Or rather, knowledge that he deviated from standard procedure AND was much faster than expected constitutes enough circumstantial evidence for a case like this to go into formal prosecution. Messing with the mail is a serious enough offence that there's no pussyfooting around when someone raises an alert.
Moreover, none of the superiors saw it necessary to defend the guy in question before the case got out of hand by slamming this where it needed to be slammed.
This is the part where I have to tell you that we do not know enough about this case to make statements like that with any kind of certainty.
In this respect the point still stands: he just got punished for thinking and working against the proper procedure.
Except, he wasn't. The court proceedings ended in an acquittal. We do not know what happened internally, but it's somewhat unlikely that the company in question took any measures against this. In fact, it would not surprise me if they would quietly change their SOPs.
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Did anyone think of driving down and asking the people he delivered to if they were getting their mail? Would have thought that would clear that question up in under a day....
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Strange one. Especially when the Germans are supposed to be the masters of efficiency.
You'd think if his boss was aware of the route, he would have simply come out as soon as he was aware of it and said "Listen up people. Mr. Whateverhisnameis has found a more optimal way to complete the Whateverrouteitis run. So we're scrapping the old route and implementing this new one."
And everyone is happy that he made everyone's lives just a little bit easier.
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This makes me think of when I once read that a bus route had an impossible time target put on it.
The drivers met the target.
By not stopping to collect passengers.
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As for the commentary, a deep sigh would be enough. But apparently, it is now forbidden to make things more efficient yourself. God help us all!
Although it not applicable to this case I've seen enough episodes of Air Crash Investigations or Seconds From Disaster to have seen the implications of people deciding to make something more efficient by yourself.
It's always worth asking why before changing things to make them more efficient. Sometimes the rules are there for a reason.
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As for the commentary, a deep sigh would be enough. But apparently, it is now forbidden to make things more efficient yourself. God help us all!
Although it not applicable to this case I've seen enough episodes of Air Crash Investigations or Seconds From Disaster to have seen the implications of people deciding to make something more efficient by yourself.
It's always worth asking why before changing things to make them more efficient. Sometimes the rules are there for a reason.
One of the many merits of those episodes lie in the fact that they show both cases where circumventing something that was placed there for a reason causes accidents, and the cases where not circumventing something that was placed there for a reason causes accidents. Given the amount of stuff in the episodes, I can't say which represents the majority. Swissair mid-air fire being one of the examples where doing everything by the book caused the plane to crash since the pilot failed to act in time - but was doing everything by the book. The iconic episode of Hawaiian flight were 10 metres of the airplane roof ripped off in mid-flight could have been prevented had the crew reacted on a passenger's comment on the fatigue cracks on the fuselage.
But as you said, sometimes the rules are there for a reason, and my addendum to that is no matter how good or bad the reason itself is.
Did anyone think of driving down and asking the people he delivered to if they were getting their mail? Would have thought that would clear that question up in under a day....
NEIN NEIN NEIN NEIN!!! Das would be going outside ze company guidelines, and it would be bad PR for ze company to go around asking the people whether they noticed their shipments are missing! It's a lot besser to go through die Polizei channel - and let ze person who has actually done service feel guilty for it!
All kidding aside, even with these explanations, what happened is still wrong, and to me, incomprehensible and indefensible from the side of the company leadership. The strange thing is that the superiors here really haven't had any reason to suspect anything (no missing mails) during the years of service, and lacking post is something that is very quickly noticed and complained about. Common sense says that the new comer is most likely wrong in his assertion, and show him how this can be done faster - assign him to go with the faster guy for a day for example. However, to proceed to court indicates lack of trust towards the employees from the side of the employer. Actually, reversing the situation and doing a claim of groundless denunciation of this case here would actually stand a chance of getting through the court.
Of course, the bigger question is, as somebody pointed out, why hasn't the company replaced the official route by the optimal route a long time ago? This again points out towards the non-reacting leadership, though that problem is quite the same anywhere in the world.
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All kidding aside, even with these explanations, what happened is still wrong, and to me, incomprehensible and indefensible from the side of the company leadership. The strange thing is that the superiors here really haven't had any reason to suspect anything (no missing mails) during the years of service, and lacking post is something that is very quickly noticed and complained about. Common sense says that the new comer is most likely wrong in his assertion, and show him how this can be done faster - assign him to go with the faster guy for a day for example. However, to proceed to court indicates lack of trust towards the employees from the side of the employer. Actually, reversing the situation and doing a claim of groundless denunciation of this case here would actually stand a chance of getting through the court.
You haven't had to deal with large corporations, I take it.
If one of your workers raises an alert that someone else may be doing something damaging to the company, you sue first and ask questions later. Going into damage control mode is the only possible way to deal with this sort of situation for a large business. Would it have made sense to clear this internally? Sure. It might even be the decent thing to do, but: When your entire business model is built upon trust, and there is even the slightest hint that that trust may be compromised, you do not **** around. You go into damage control mode and pull out all the stops. You talk about trust between employers and employees, but the harsh reality is that the bigger the company is, the lower the risk is these people can take when trusting employees.
A case like this would not be handled at the level where this guy's manager would have any input. It would go straight to their internal revision, and those guys do not, as a rule, go lenient. And given that the thing under investigation is a possible breach of the Post- and Telecommunications Laws, this has to be formally investigated by the state.
And again, mika, you are wildly overstepping the bounds of your confidence here. We do not know nearly enough about the gory details to be condemming anyone's behaviour here.
The person who filed the complaint did her job correctly. She saw a potential risk and reported it up the proper channels. That's how things are done.
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The person who filed the complaint did her job correctly. She saw a potential risk and reported it up the proper channels. That's how things are done.
Wouldn't it have been better for her to just ask him first? I certainly wouldn't see it that way if I was on the receiving end and someone automatically assumed I was scum, without even bothering to check the facts first when I was just getting my head down and doing my job. It would be so easy, just be like "Wow, how do you do your job so fast?" No need to accuse the man.
Although I don't know what this guy was like. I try to be friendly and approachable. If this dude was just a dick or something it would be much more understandable.
I also wonder who she went to. If this guy's boss knew already what he was doing, surely if she went to his boss, it would have stopped there.
How would you see it Mr. E? Would you just shrug it off, or be pissed off that you were being punished for deciding not to be a sheep and use your brain to do a better job for your company and someone rather than give you the benefit of the doubt or at least ask you what was what, just ploughed in with this accusation?
It all seems so stupidly, ridiculously overblown. Court case. All he has to do is hop in his van with the internal investigator, and prove his story. That is, if his boss simply telling that person what was happening wasn't enough. I'd be extremely pissed off with the whole thing if it was me. If I was the boss of that company, I'd be praising him and having him run the rule over the other routes to see if he could enhance efficiency elsewhere, not treating him like criminal scum.
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here is one, by not following the prescribed route would the organisation's various Liability and other insurances be valid for any incidents involving the employee?
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One of the many merits of those episodes lie in the fact that they show both cases where circumventing something that was placed there for a reason causes accidents, and the cases where not circumventing something that was placed there for a reason causes accidents. Given the amount of stuff in the episodes, I can't say which represents the majority.
My memory could be playing tricks on my but in general I'd say that there were more cases of accidents caused by someone going against the rules. Especially in cases where the cause of the disaster was mechanical. That said, there were cases where ignoring the rules did help.
Swissair mid-air fire being one of the examples where doing everything by the book caused the plane to crash since the pilot failed to act in time - but was doing everything by the book. The iconic episode of Hawaiian flight were 10 metres of the airplane roof ripped off in mid-flight could have been prevented had the crew reacted on a passenger's comment on the fatigue cracks on the fuselage.
Your memory fails you unfortunately. In the case of that flight she failed to notify anyone and only revealed having seen the crack in a witness statement after the disaster (at least based on the show). I do agree with you about Swissair though.
But as you said, sometimes the rules are there for a reason, and my addendum to that is no matter how good or bad the reason itself is.
Oh I'm definitely not saying that the rules are always correct and should always be followed. What I'm saying is that very often, discarding the rules in order to work more efficiently can sometimes lead to a disaster which you haven't foreseen but which the person making the rules had.
If the postman had a faster route, he should have told his boss about it and gotten permission to use it. For all we know he was using the faster route so he could sit down and rest for 10-20 minutes when his boss thinks he should have been given more work.
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If the postman had a faster route, he should have told his boss about it and gotten permission to use it. For all we know he was using the faster route so he could sit down and rest for 10-20 minutes when his boss thinks he should have been given more work.
That's another problem with corporations. Often, the only reward you get for being more efficient and finishing work early is more work.
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As it should be.
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If you take more than your fair share of objectives, you will given more than your fair share of objectives to take.
Since, y'know, you can.
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I get the feeling that there it should also come with some sort of bonus, but I haven't seen any evidence of that happening.
I guess that Wally really is as smart as he's said to be... :)
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You haven't had to deal with large corporations, I take it.
If one of your workers raises an alert that someone else may be doing something damaging to the company, you sue first and ask questions later. Going into damage control mode is the only possible way to deal with this sort of situation for a large business. Would it have made sense to clear this internally? Sure. It might even be the decent thing to do, but: When your entire business model is built upon trust, and there is even the slightest hint that that trust may be compromised, you do not **** around. You go into damage control mode and pull out all the stops. You talk about trust between employers and employees, but the harsh reality is that the bigger the company is, the lower the risk is these people can take when trusting employees.
A case like this would not be handled at the level where this guy's manager would have any input. It would go straight to their internal revision, and those guys do not, as a rule, go lenient. And given that the thing under investigation is a possible breach of the Post- and Telecommunications Laws, this has to be formally investigated by the state.
And again, mika, you are wildly overstepping the bounds of your confidence here. We do not know nearly enough about the gory details to be condemming anyone's behaviour here.
The person who filed the complaint did her job correctly. She saw a potential risk and reported it up the proper channels. That's how things are done.
Take a cup of coffee or whatever substance you like to drink, this is going to be long. You have been warned.
I'm well aware that it appears to you that I may be overstepping the confidence bounds. However, what happens when I'm still right? Could it be just a coincidence, or could it be wisdom? Your choice. Know that though, that I do assessments of people applying for a position in the company I work at.
The more interesting thing is your choice of wording, actually in a couple of places. If the last sentence, for example, said "That's how things are done [here]", I would agree. However, you are sorely mistaken to assume the same logic would follow elsewhere. Moreover, you assume all large corporation behave that way. This is a mistake.
What it comes to working in a large company, how large is large? I work at a company that has about 3000 employees, and our customers range from one man companies to companies employing tens of thousands of people. And yes, I work in R&D field where trust is of utmost importance - where it may mean the life and death of your customer. Sometimes I don't bother with NDAs with small companies that have only a couple of persons since the legal costs for them just to check up the wording of the agreement would be high. However, I still treat them like there would be an effective NDA in place - this is just based on personal integrity. I could easily be accused of not following proper company procedures on numerous instances - following company procedures would prohibit my work from being done. We could also take stuff from our small customers and get away with it, but we simply don't. From what I have seen from the Central European colleagues working in equal positions, they do wonder about the relative freedom I seem to have to decide about things. And abhor when I decide to override a decision coming from a superior if he is mistaken (even theirs).
Yes, my point of view is that the company procedure exists mainly for two reasons: first, it is a tool to help your memory. Second, when it takes away freedom, it absolves the person also out of guilt and then the procedure itself must be at fault (translation: it is nobody's fault since the error is now spread around the company). If a person has done everything according to the procedure, he is legally safe no matter how stupid the consequences. The problem with a procedure is that it also spreads something what we call procedure belief, where the procedure is assumed fault free and inspires sort of belief on the infallibility of the actions listed on a paper, never figuring out why they were placed there on the first place. Which is immediately challenged when something that is NOT listed on the procedure happens - on worst cases leading to people waiting for orders of their deceased superiors in the case of emergency.
Again, the circumstancial evidence in this case would most likely get laughed out of court here, and the person doing the denunciation could really face immediate charges on groundless denunciation that has a good chance of passing. Yes, you really have to have evidence to show that something illegal did happen, instead of flimsy may have happeneds. Moreover, nobody here would assume a crime of one worker would damage the company reputation - common people do understand also that occasionally there is a bad apple there, and it has nothing to do with the company. These things simply happen, but there is no need to start a witch hunt in a company for that. If that happens, the company works decently and tries not to cover it up. Most of the time the alarm is false, but if you end up in a court because of that, it will be visible on your records. This can be a negative thing in background checks later in life.
The amount of time I have spent travelling around the globe, I suspect this kind of legal system is probably seen by others as naive and destructive towards companies (like Nokia now), but on the other hand, the life on the grass roots levels is much more trouble free. Most of us here never see a lawyer during our normal lives.
The strange thing to me to see written here is that the guy who did better than others should be assigned more work. Like it is somehow wrong he is sitting on a coffee table while the rest go to finish up their rounds. No, if he did things more efficiently, either pay him more money and THEN give him more work, or let him have his coffee break. This is the only way to motivate people to improve things. Adding more work would trigger the under perform response. There's no point on trying to improve things if that doesn't lead to any sort of personal benefit. Most companies admittedly do act short-sightedly on this respect, leading to a brain flow to their competitors. The worker level response is simply unfaithfulness towards the company in a way you never tell them your best ideas, or document ALL the little details needed in your work.
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...okay I want to go work for Mika.
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...okay I want to go work for Mika.
Well, tell him how much that brain of yours costs to rent, and why he would want to rent it, and maybe you can do a deal! :lol:
As for Mika, what happens if you override a superior, and you are wrong? Or they just don't like it?
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The strange thing to me to see written here is that the guy who did better than others should be assigned more work. Like it is somehow wrong he is sitting on a coffee table while the rest go to finish up their rounds. No, if he did things more efficiently, either pay him more money and THEN give him more work, or let him have his coffee break. This is the only way to motivate people to improve things.
Letting him have his coffee break inspires resentment in the other workers who weren't lucky enough to get an inefficient route. I'm not saying the guy shouldn't be head of the line when it comes to promotions or pay rises. But to expect a company to allow a productive worker to sit down and do nothing on company time is pretty naive. It's not going to happen, they're just going to give you more work.
So when you hide the fact that you're done early from your boss, it make it look like you're actively trying to avoid working.
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...lots of words...
The thing is, you're talking about your own position in the company, which seems to be reasonably well-qualified (That is, you've had to do a nontrivial amount of training in order to get it).
The case under discussion here however involves someone at a rather low-end, low paying job. There aren't that many incentives for workers at that level to be loyal to more than their paychecks, and so other standards for employer/employee trust relationships apply.
That that is the reality is unfortunate, but also, unfortunately, realistic.
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...okay I want to go work for Mika.
:lol:
You don't work FOR me, you work WITH me
...lots of words...
The thing is, you're talking about your own position in the company, which seems to be reasonably well-qualified (That is, you've had to do a nontrivial amount of training in order to get it).
The case under discussion here however involves someone at a rather low-end, low paying job. There aren't that many incentives for workers at that level to be loyal to more than their paychecks, and so other standards for employer/employee trust relationships apply.
That that is the reality is unfortunate, but also, unfortunately, realistic.
Actually, I'm bit curious why do you think that low-end low paying job would mean more dishonesty? Of the low wage workers here, I haven't heard that they would be any worse. Of course, if you apply a statistical model, the company is bound to end up with the case leading to a paranoid relationship towards its workers. I'm questioning exactly that, there are several companies with more than 1000 people working here, and they really do not apply such measures, neither McDonald's or the post offices. What I'm saying is that if a company treats people paranoidically, the company ends up with a system where it needs to be paranoid.
If anything, I consider the lower wage employees relatively honest and from what I have seen they may have a much better moral integrity than higher paid employees. This however, does not hold everywhere, especially if the lower wage employees are driven at the brink of their own survival.
The strange thing to me to see written here is that the guy who did better than others should be assigned more work. Like it is somehow wrong he is sitting on a coffee table while the rest go to finish up their rounds. No, if he did things more efficiently, either pay him more money and THEN give him more work, or let him have his coffee break. This is the only way to motivate people to improve things.
Letting him have his coffee break inspires resentment in the other workers who weren't lucky enough to get an inefficient route. I'm not saying the guy shouldn't be head of the line when it comes to promotions or pay rises. But to expect a company to allow a productive worker to sit down and do nothing on company time is pretty naive. It's not going to happen, they're just going to give you more work.
So when you hide the fact that you're done early from your boss, it make it look like you're actively trying to avoid working.
One of the best advices I have ever been given by my superior was this: "I don't care whether you come late to work or if you don't always fill all your allotted hours, as long as you do the things we assign to you." Basically, this means that if I do stuff well, I can and will slack off occasionally. That makes the company overwork requests much more tolerable later. It actually goes so that typically I have to rack in minus hours to balance out the pluses that inevitably happen before Christmas or Summer vacation... :D The work orders are not distributed evenly, and I really don't see the point in staying in the office if I have already done my share. With all this freedom, you would think that I'm circling towards more slacking off? No, and this doesn't happen with my colleagues either. Most of them are actually motivated better towards the work provided by the company. From what I have seen, the same applies for companies that have lower wage employees here.
EDIT: What it comes to overriding superiors, I don't think I have ever been wrong in doing that - just make sure you are not mistaken when doing that. Sometimes it though, has happened, that my request for a design was overridden by someone - and they also tend to get it right. I don't feel bad about that at all, since typically those things improve things.