Eisboch wrote:
"Vic Smith" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 14 Dec 2008 08:17:37 -0800 (PST),
wrote:
There is no way in the world the American worker of present day works
harder than the guy in my dad's day. I have been victim to being told
to slow down by a union. In all fairness (which we won't expect from
the other side) I was also told to slow down while on piece work at
Standadyne, a non union shop...
Piece work is sort of a special deal. When I pushed pieces I was
aware that I was in my 20's and strong as a horse.
The guy on the next shift might be 50 and not so healthy or strong.
If I was being timed I had to go slower. Still worked hard, but
shortened my break times. Didn't want to screw up the older guys.
They did plenty of work.
--Vic
Many of us have never had the type of work experience where you had to be
conscious of how productive you are compared to your fellow worker. The
closest I ever came to that I guess is 9 years in the military, but nobody
pressured you to hold back in doing a good job, or even a better job than
others. The benefit of doing a good job was learning your job code,
advancing in rank and earning more money. Everyone had the same
opportunity. Some did, some didn't. In the military if someone was noticed
to be purposely holding back, he/she would be in a world of hurt.
In my civilian experiences of almost 30 years now, the companies I've worked
for were too small to have a cast of thousands all doing the same kind of
work. The motivation to do a good job was the fact that your performance
contributed to the overall efforts and if you slacked off, it would be very
noticeable. Often, I was the only one doing a particular function, so
screwing up, performing well or being lazy had an immediate impact on the
company and was usually noticed by the management.
So, you people with other experiences have to realize that the concept of
"backing off" in performance is totally foreign to some of us.
Eisboch
Doing a "good job," and doing a job quickly are not always compatible,
as I am sure you know. When I worked cleaning and rebuilding the innards
of boilers, I was told to work at a slow, careful pace to make sure I
took enough time to do the job properly. All of the guys I worked with,
guys with many years of experience, worked faster than I did, but they
all worked a different speeds. Slacking off was not a problem. Bad work
that caused the boilers to fail when they were tested was. Rushed work
usually resulted in bad work.