update on the employee evaluation question..

[jbm]

from this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1942203#1943553


I went in tonight armed with some info that I'd pieced together that essentially just said that employee evaluations should be based on some sort of criteria and not just subjective whims that arbitrarily assigned different values to people based on personal opinions.

The whole thing was a combination of being anti-climatic, yet exhausting. When I arrived, the manager asked me if I was ready for my evaluation, I told her I was going to refuse. At first I thought I would wind up without a job, because her first reaction was to say, "what will the others do if you stir this up?" and "Do you realize what you're doing? You're going to start a war". But I held my ground and in a very short time she said, "I didn't see anywhere on that list of questions where it said you HAD to do it" so I said "good..I won't then". She said, "With evaluations comes a raise" and I said, "Keep your money". I thought for awhile she was going to cry, but she didn't, and soon she let it drop for awhile.

Amazingly enough, one of the owners came in tonight. As soon as he did, the manager told him to go talk to me. I told him right off that I wasn't taking the evaluation, and he laughed and said, "Well, I guess we're done with the evaluations then". and that was it.

After that it was kind of hard because the managers husband came in to eat, and he started insisting that I had no right to refuse the evaluation. He is a HUGE repub, and his arguments consisted of ,"corporations do intrusive evaluations, therefore it must be good". Eventually they were all just sitting at the bar having a good laugh about how I just wanted a good debate. By that time I was beginning to wish I'd just done the damned evaluation and gotten over it, but then I would remind myself that it was about how the manager was randomly giving bad evaluations, and that it wasn't ok to tolerate that type of situation.

There is still one more owner, and the cook who has been there the longest told me that I wasn't free and clear yet, because that owner will nail me. None of the people who got the bad evaluations worked tonight, and most of the people that did work thought I was nuts for not just doing the evaluation, but...I've come this far, so I guess I might as well travel this road until I get to the end.

Thanks again for all the great advice from everyone last night!

[Lars39]

1. What the feck does the managers husband have to do with this?!

Seriously...sounds like they were trolling for personal info they had no right know.
Why the heck would they risk losing one of their waitstaff over something like this?
Stand firm and start scouting out other places to work at.

[Gman]

2. Stand your ground

workers must have dignity. Too bad you don't have a union.

[sandnsea]

3. Well dayum

I hope this doesn't become a problem for you, but I have to say I wish we had a whole lot more people like you in this country. I get so tired of just pay the bill, just sign this or that, just give the thumb print, and on and on. I know we all can't fight every battle, but we sure ought to commit to fight a few more than we do. Good for you!!

:applause:

[jbm]

7. Thanks! ..n/t

:hi:

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

4. Hypothesis:

EE's were originally the idea of the manager's husband.

Betcha he works in low to mid-level management in a large company, right?

[jbm]

6. you got it!

He does some kind of tech thing for cisco.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

9. There is a technical term...

For a guy like this:

Asshole.

I am a tech weenie. I know these things. ;-)

If he keeps it up tell him: NMFP.

It means "Not My Fucking Problem". Another tech thingy.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

5. I'm Amazed They Didn't Tell You To Go Home Right Then And There.

I find it fortunate that wasn't the case. Hopefully you do have other jobs you can fall back on though.

[Liberal In Texas]

8. The evaluation thing is becoming more and more the thing that managers

like to do.

I always loved the stupid questions about what you did in the last year to make the company better, how you improved as an employee of XYZ corp., I could go on, I have a list from some old evals that are just really stupid.

And remember, it's very subjective. If a manager has an in for you, you're screwed. If you took 5 minutes too long on a lunch break or were 5 minutes late for work one day, said manager will have it written down and will use it against you. If you a "fair haired" wonderkind, with no questions asked, you'll get the raise that everybody else is getting and "just a little more" because you are such a team player.

The last few years at the place I worked at I put up with this BS as they were trying to get rid of me becasue I was a bit older than they liked. (It was a **X television director BTW.) I didn't fit into their demographic. Way too old. Making way more money (after 23 years) than a 25 year old would want.

The capper came when they called me into the conference room with a video tape in hand. The manager (with 2 back up dept heads) slid the tape into the machine and said, "Look, <my name> you stayed on the 2-shot way too long. We want you to be more quick in directing our shows etc. etc..."

The thing is, the TV station records not only the on air sound that you hear, but on another channel the "directors track" sound of the crew talking to each other on headsets as this busy show is on the air. (This was a policy instituted as a "gotcha" to see if someone screwed up, and to point fingers.)

Anyway, I got up and asked if I could turn up track 2 and they shrugged. The guy on the tape wasn't even me. It was another guy filling for me when I was on vacation. (And the other guy was a young fair-haired, so he was OK.)

My response was why are you bringing me into this "meeting" with fake evidence? The manager, without blinking said, "This is the kind of stuff you do..." WHAT?

No proof. Faked evidence. I hired a lawyer.

They backed off. And the odd thing is, the attorney never charged me a cent. He wrote a couple of letters and **X way backed off. I announced early retirement after that, and got the F out.

So, I'm out of there now. I have my own buisness and make tons of money (I just invoiced tonight my first 1K plus job for ONE DAY!) I practically never work 5 days a week and love what I do. There is life after bullshit. You just have to find it. <Hint- do something you really like.>

Good luck to you. I belive in unions and trial lawyers.