Ever notice how some employees just can't get fired?

[Philosoraptor]

There are some places of employment where one or more of the employees is a major fuck up and needs to be fired, but for some reason, some policy or personal reason the boss just won't, or can't fire them. I've seen this many times in the work place and it always amazes me.

There are actually millions of people who should be fired but aren't, and the collective damage these people do can be measured in billions wasted I'm sure. Some companies have policies that make getting fired almost impossible, with employees who know and take advantage of the situation.

Small businesses are less inclined to keep a worker who is a major fuck up, but some of these mega corporations are so complicated and convoluted that these jerks are allowed to stay on for decades. Small businesses can't afford to lose money on a lousy worker, but giant ones often don't care. Government work is an example, once you're in the system, you're there forever.

That's the situation we're in, we have a whole slew of shitty employees who are too overpaid for their worth, lingering on forever in some bureaucratic limbo in which they can't be fired no matter what they do.

Most people don't even realize that THEY WORK FOR US in D.C., they even think that we work for them. Our D.C. employees make way too fucking much money for the shitty jobs they do, and they just hang around for centuries like vampires on the clock, showing up occasionally to turn in half assed work and give themselves pay raises and bonuses.

In a work situation you'd complain to the employer about a lousy employee, but WE ARE THE EMPLOYERS. So as long as WE THE EMPLOYERS allow this sort of shit, we'll always get the same shitty results, our money will be wasted and embezzled, and our overall profits will plummet and we'll be screwed. In other words, all this is OUR OWN DAMNED FAULT.


Rant #2897

[lligrd]

1. Yeah, But If Government Didn't Employ These People

what would they do? I work for a local government and although there are a few of those people you described around, there are plenty of us who work very hard and many hours for free. I have reconciled myself to deciding that they are better off employed (and having somewhere to go each day) than left at home with no one to watch over them.

[Philosoraptor]

2. Good point, we don't want them left unattended.

[lligrd]

3. Don't You Think Maybe We Should Get Paid Extra

for watching over them and doing their work? lol

[Possumpoint]

4. I Think

you missed the point. I believe the OP was referring to the elected representatives in Congress. Fire the SOB's.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. What I think is really funny, is that his arguments are what the right-wing

in my family say about minorities in the workforce, word for word.

[MissWaverly]

7. I think he's talking more about Bush, Cheney

and those in the Congress make sweetheart trade deals that are anti-labor and anti-wage, we are being paid at 1974 levels adjusted
for inflation, although our productivity has doubled. Less pay for more work, that sums up the Bush administration.

[Philosoraptor]

8. All of them, but particularly the dynamic duo, penguin & the joker.

[MissWaverly]

13. I quite agree with you, I wish the Dems would wake up

People are saying that I am so radical, what is so radical about holding this president and vice-president accountable. They
only use the letter of the law to circumvent it and to break the law. Even John Dean is calling for Cheney's impeachment
and I would not consider him "a liberal."

[elocs]

5. Americans do not like Congress, but they like their own representative or senator.

Why? Because that person brings the bacon back to their own home district or state. That's why so many incumbents get reelected because if they didn't bring home the bacon and get things done for their constituents, then they would be thrown out. People tend to not like members of Congress other than their own, but then they cannot vote for or against them. So collectively, most members of Congress look out for the people who elect them and also they look out for themselves. It would be nice to believe that they are all noble and righteous patriots who look out for the best interests of the country, but that is not true for most.

[B Calm]

6. You ever think they might have something on the employer, like

the boss having an affair?

[Jed Dilligan]

10. One of my first long-term jobs

I was temping at a big corporation. The person I was filling in for was not only a do-nothing employee; the job itself had long ago been made redundant by a thing called computers. The dept. was way understaffed, so they used the opportunity of her illness to bring on new staff (me). I quickly became an important team member.

I ended up working there a whole year while they still paid the person I replaced--it turns out she was clinically depressed. Not to make light of mental illness, but I think if you commute three hours a day to a job where you do nothing, you end up getting depressed. She actually came back for a couple of days at one point (without them laying me off) because her lawyers needed her to for some reason related to her astonishingly extensive medical leave.

I have nothing but compassion for that person, really, but as someone who has only temped in his life--never had a paid vacation or a sick day in my entire life--I wonder, why did she get so much rope and I so little?

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

11. It's kinda like hiring an accountant. He steals you blind and then sends you a bill.

And, threatens to sue you for non-payment. But, we are told that if we don't keep him employed, he'll be replaced with another accountant who'll steal you blind and have you imprisoned for fraud.

[Nikia]

12. I think that some small companies are less likely to fire employees

Because they are less likely to have the resources to defend themselves if the employee decides to sue.
They are more likely to be sympathetic to the problem employees situation because they owners know the employee.
They are also more likely to worry about their repuatation should the former employee bad mouth them to everyone they know.
That has been my experience at least. I have been working for a small business for 1 year. During that time, they fired one employee. Three problem employees left on their own. There are probably 5 more who should be fired on clearly defined policies in the hand book like attendance but have not been.

[formercia]

14. 10% of the people do 90% of the work

is a phrase I heard often in Washington. This is nothing new. I was reading a translation of writings of Japanese Samurai from the 16th Century the other day that make the same basic complaint.

Now it's the contractors that screw things up because where do you think the screw-ups go when the Government gets rid of them? Having a Top Secret security clearance opens all kinds of doors in the civilian world, no matter how incompetent one is.

[AngryOldDem]

15. Sometimes employers feel that it just isn't worth the hassle

I work for one such employer that is only now waking up to the fact that having fuck-ups on staff is not only detrimental to morale, but also to the organization as well. I was caught up in a rather nasty lawsuit involving one such employee who should have been canned years ago. The reason why she wasn't was because the organization did not want to deal with the inevitable "unlawful, discriminatory dismissal" lawsuit that was sure to follow. (Despite the fact that my state is an "at-will" state -- companies can fire for whatever reason.) It was only when she became both verbally and physically threatening that they did something. She sued; the case went to deposition, and she settled for a pittance of what she was asking before SHE was deposed. Had she been deposed, the case would have been thrown out because her well-documented list of previous fuck-ups would have tanked her.

Bottom line: Sometimes companies just take the path of least resistance to the detriment of everybody else.

[Jade Fox]

16. Letting screw-ups hang around only makes it worse.....

It allows them to develop a sense of entitlement, leading to firing fiasco's like the one you describe.