lonecity.com

A few posts back in my blog, I mentioned that I’m looking for a new job.  Well, looking is kind of a strange word.  Really I’ve been thinking about what I should write in my resume, evaluating the places where my friends and family work, and deciding just how far out on the limb I want to walk. 

I don’t hate my job.  (well maybe thats a lie, I’m not really sure)  Recently though I feel like I don’t have any choice in looking for a new employer.  You see I can no longer go to work each day secure in knowing that I’ll be able to pay the rent next month.  Costs always seem to go up, but pay doesn’t.  I would feel bad asking my boss for a raise because I am probably the most highly paid employee he has.  I also feel bad leaving because I do know it would hurt the company to lose me. 

The underlying problem is that I commute to work.  The easiest choice for me to make would be to take on a few extra hours per week.  An extra 10 hours a week would put me in a comfortable position financially.  Provided I could work the extra hours at the right times, (say an extra 2 hours a shift)  I wouldn’t even notice the extra work.  The problem is that some bean counter convinced the corporate stiffs that paying overtime costs the company big money. 

I can see a pretty good mental image of how the presentation went.  Flow charts showing huge numbers that could be saved if they never payed anyone time and a half would be strewn about as mr. bean happily demonstrates how smart he thinks he is.  All the while the shareholders have dreams of gold filling their pockets.  The sad fact is that this same misconception has been fed to most all major corporations. 

The idea that paying overtime costs a company is a falsehood.  Anyone who has had the priveledge to manage a group of a few dozen people can tell you there are good apples and there are bad ones.  Some people show up with no intention to work and simply stay milking the payroll budget until someone eventually gives them the boot.  Others show up and work hard all day regardless of outside factors.  The latter group always makes an investment of their own selves to do more.  They learn the things they need to make the job more efficient.  They strive for knowledge, and they feel good about increasing their productivity.

Right now I have four people who work at our receiving dock.  If I could fire three of them and clone the fourth one to fill the other three spots my productivity would change.  Depending on who I cloned productivity would either be three times as good or half as good.  Every person has their own individual talents, but the truth be told most of them don’t have any talent for work at all.  Here’s where the fallacy comes into play.  By forcing your associates to a maximum amount of hours there is no way I can ever get more than 40 hours out of my best team member.  No matter how you break it down at some point I have to give up on using someone truly valuable and trade that in for someone average or worse. 

If lazy dude only works half as hard as uber dude, I actually lose money by giving hours to lazy dude.  If uber dude makes $10 an hour and lazy dude only makes $7.50  I can pay uber dude time and a half and still get as much done as if I had two lazy dudes.  The simple truth is that even though it looks like I’m spending more per hour for uber dude, the cost per unit of labor is roughly the same.  Here’s where the balance is tipped:  Lazy dude doesn’t have any pride in his work.  Uber dude goes home with a sense of pride at a job well done.  When you take away the ability to complete a job and go home with that sense of pride all of a sudden Uber dude becomes just another Lazy dude.  Why should I work hard this company doesn’t care about me or the quality of my work?

The numbers can’t really be quantized so there is little chance that companies will catch on and realize that they are hurting themselves by sticking to lousy statistics.  Its this same underlying feeling that keeps me looking for a new job.  I would much rather spend the extra few hours a week at my company.  It would be rewarding for me, both monetarily and emotionally.  It simply isn’t an option. 

I’m left with only two options.  One is to get another job full time that lets me work some overtime or pays better.  The other is to take on a second job part time.  The latter is out of the question though.  I commute to work for almost two hours a day.  There is no time left for that second job.  Its just more economically viable to simply find a new job.  Don’t forget the savings in gasoline, and I can probably spend the two hours I spend driving, working instead.

The bogus statistics that the bean counters have come up with sound real good and they are supported by real numbers.  They just arent accurate because they don’t guage outside factors that truly affect the reality.  My company is going to lose me, along with my conciderable talent and experience because they have more faith in statistics than they do in the honest hard working employees who are the backbone of their organisation. 

There’s really no point in my ever having written this.  I wouldn’t bother trying to make this point to my boss or his boss.  I wouldn’t even ask them for the overtime, knowing full well I couldn’t  get it anyways.  The company has already lost me.  Its been a done deal ever since I came to the realization that I am only a number.  Well I’ve always known that, but now I have a much better idea of just how small that number really is.  This post will never find its way to help me, but I hope someday it influences some bean counter to realize the statistical error and maybe it changes the way some company treats their employees.

Your employees make all the money your company earns.  Your managers produce NONE of it.  They are both an integral part of the system, but the bottom line is that too many companys don’t see the true imbalance and how they are hurting themselves.  The next time you hear of a CEO making $500 Million a year ask yourself is he really worth that much.  Or perhaps is he just getting too big a cut of the other employees wages?  Realistically is there anything they do that someone else couldn’t do and wouldn’t be willing to do for $50 thousand a year?