Take the following three:
A. A job where you are so bored you can barely stand being at work.B. A job where your manager is a complete prick and constantly angry despite it being his ineptitude.
C. Jobs that are overly complex and just out right would benefit from throwing the rules away and staring from scratch.
Now mix it with these:
- Jobs that I've taken that pay well ultimately want me to work 100 hour weeks.
- Jobs are screwed up beyond repair and won't pay for the resources needed to actually fix the issue.
- Managers that cannot communicate the job or do it themselves and don't understand what is going on coupled with vague job descriptions. I have seen job descriptions that clearly don't explain what the job is. “You will be working with XYZ components.” Then you never touch them etc.My last job takes the cake. My manger was more focused on telling me about conspiracy theories than he was doing actual work. The moment the department would get in any trouble he would find someone (me, in this instance) and throw them under the bus. I can't count the number of 4-5 hour conversations I had about “either you hate the jews or the whites.” And the company wouldn't fire him. Every job:
Me: “what do you need me to do?”
Manager: “Work”
Me: “got it. Done with that job. What next?”
Manager: “Wait thats not what I needed you to do.”
Me: “What do you need me to do then?”
Manager: “Work…”
Me: “Yes but WHAT work?”
Manager: “Just do your job.”
Me: “Ok you show me what you want done then I'll start doing it.”
Manager: “Man you don't know how to do your job do you?”
Story time: I once worked a job where I moved boxes off of a truck. One person. One truck. The boxes had to be separated onto pallets based upon “type” They were all about 10 pounds, looked exactly the same, and you had to scan them to know which pallet they went on. Day one I showed up. I went way slower than anyone else in my “newbie” group. Got bitched at constantly all day about how slow I was going. Day two I was going even slower management was threatening to fire me. Day three was the same. Why was I going so slow? Because I understand the word “efficiency” is a false religion. It just out right doesn't exist. The “Fastest” and most “efficient” workers kept getting commended up to day 5.
So what happened on the first three days? Day one I payed close attention to what boxes were coming off the truck literally writing down which of our like 20 pallets they went on. Day two I double checked my work from day one, and ensured that the signs over my pallets were in the best possible order. Day three I double checked my work again.
Day four? I understood something NO ONE ELSE had even noticed that is that the truck despite its apparent disarray was actually loaded in an organized manner. Driving the truck caused the boxes to look like they weren't loaded properly but in effect with the roughly 20 pallets we had to sort on you could almost guarantee that pallets 1-3 were in the front. 4-6 were just behind those. 7-10 were just behind that. etc. Was this perfect? Nope. Far from it. Actually it was only about 30% true. Meaning you could use one of two sorting algorithms on the boxes if you looked at the truck in 'chunks.' So that just unloading the truck = 30% completion. Then you could sort them at lightning speed. It gets a bit more complicated but basically the job could be done in 1/4th the time if you understood the underlying principal of what was going on.
So what does my manager do? Fires 2 other people and gives me their job. Is under the impression that “screaming at me” is what made the system work. Actually it just made me hate him and the place of work. Then went to upper management and explained to them that he found a new system for sorting and it would go 'so much faster that he could fire 3 people.'
I asked “If I'm doing the work of 3 people shouldn't I be getting 3 times the pay?” “THATS NOT HOW THIS WORKS!!!”
So management “randomly” shows up and asks “ok so how does his new sorting algorithm work for you?” I was like “What the fuck?” “Yeah the one your manager invented.” I then told them “Well he hasn't shown me yet.” As it turns out he was trying to figure out what I was doing but my actions seemed random: In a sense they were random.
He comes in with management there. Begins screaming in my face. I reply “Hey what the fuck? I quit. I'm sick of you treating me this way.” He then, after firing his best workers, had to not only explain his actions but explain this new system he didn't understand yet because he was too dense to figure it out.
Competition is bullshit. Cooperation is king. Feasibly you could have a capitalistic system that was cooperative. But capitalism destroyed it. You don't see the rich building public libraries or bath houses anymore do you?