OMG, I think my job may end soon

[eilen]

My team was recently assigned a new manager. She is a young, earnest managerial admin type. At our last staff meeting, instead of focusing on some small changes we can make to be more effective, she instead is trying to draw us in a different direction, into implementing a plan of correction that really has nothing to do with our function. Then she started talking about us scheduling into weekends. Then she admitted she is a real "Who Moved My Cheese" fan. Ugh. Basically she wants to draw up some kind of program that will enable her to put some blurb on her CV by making our lives hell.

At the meeting, I did bring up the fact that the longer we are on the units, the more we will cost the different departments (they are charged by the minute of our time). That caused her to pedal back a bit and said she needed to get some more information on the direction the level of management above her wants her to take with us.

What is with the corporate brainwashing of these Cheese books? from what I understand the best course is to leave the maze with your middle finger pointing at the boss and the other rats (or mice).

[somone]

1. Cheese books' summary: "Obey, or get fired"

Same paradigm for same old shit.

When management starts talking about "accepting change", it's time to update your resume - before they change your employment status.

[ipaint]

2. Barbara Ehrenreich exposed the baloney behind those types of books

in Bright-Sided: How The Relentless Promotion Of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America

It's toxic nonsense.


"...Ehrenreich also writes persuasively that the popularity of positive thinking in corporate America — she cites the rise of "self-described management gurus" like Tony Robbins and the book Who Moved My Cheese? as examples — has served to blind workers to their ever-decreasing job security. "Outplacement" firms teach the newly unemployed to think of layoffs as a good thing, and Who Moved My Cheese? tells readers that the most successful people (or rather, mice) are those who don't "overanalyze or overcomplicate things" — with the result that workers are less likely to complain about their employers' increasingly capricious control over their lives. Ehrenreich writes,

By and large, America's white-collar corporate workforce drank the Kool-Aid, as the expression goes, and accepted positive thinking as a substitute for their former affluence and security. They did not take to the streets, shift their political allegiance in large numbers, or show up at work with automatic weapons in hand. As one laid-off executive told me with quiet pride, "I've gotten over my negative feelings, which were so dysfunctional." Positive thinking promised them a sense of control in a world where the "cheese" was always moving. They may have had less and less power to chart their own futures, but they had been given a worldview — a belief system, almost a religion — that claimed they were in fact infinitely powerful, if they could only master their own minds.



http://jezebel.com/5386775/bright+sided-the-negative-consequences-of-positive-thinking

[BanzaiBonnie]

4. And how long before everyone is required...

to abide by rules governing whom they're allowed to donate to politically. If you want to work, you must sign here. You cannot be politically active, it would undermine our company. And now we are your owners. So don't talk back.

[Odin2005]

8. They want to turn us into serfs, regulating our private lives.

Serfs in the middle ages had to have their lord's permission to marry or leave the manor, among other things.

[eilen]

23. They are very anti-union.

Can't even whisper about one.

[lib2DaBone]

17. Positive Thinking.. "Pain is good... pain is good.. pain is good...."

Like all ggod little corporate Cheese munchers.. do whatever your Corporate overloards tell you.... even if it means screwing your fellow workers or working against you own best interests.

You know.. they can get people in Viet Nam to do your job for 10 Cents an hour.

[Kookaburra]

3. Does your company provide severance packages

for employees who are "made redundant"? If so, stick it out until they let you go, then take your package and scoot. Maybe by then the jobs situation will be better, and you'll be able to quickly find something else. Just slap a smile on your face, and go in a do your job. You don't have to like it, but the more you "play nice" the more likely you'll get a little $$ when/if they let you go.

I hope it works out okay for you.

[CTyankee]

20. The problem with that is that if they really want to get rid of you, they won't accept your

little act of obedience. They'll plot against you, tear down your most productive areas, even distort conversations you might have had with others. Even if you are perfectly "clean" they'll find a way, thru distortions, outright lying and by giving you other areas and require you to excel in them (always ones where you may not be strongest). They'll make your life a living hell. Don't be surprised if they do. It's an old game...

[eilen]

24. I'm per diem

I have no benefits and make about $5 less than the regular employees. Which, in the job and conditions I have, is fine. If I have to work weekends that will have to change-- I'm all about "what's in it for me" in this situation. I know that sounds demanding and presumptive in this job climate but really, if they want more from me, they have to give more-- like part-time regular employee status so I can get healthcare.


I can get another job rather easily if I am willing to do shift work, work holidays, and be entirely maxed out/stressed out every day-- and never ever see my husband. I have no desire to work nightshifts anymore--been there, done that, paid my dues and despite the studies showing the health impact of rotating shifts, this facility still requires day/night positions (you work 50% on days and 50% on nights). I currently am in a position/team that is mostly per diem, we augment or extend what the nurses do -- help them out. They have responded 100% positive to this program and have verbalized this to the DON. Our position is an attempt to keep retention levels high. This only works on floors that don't continuously understaff or change the conditions too drastically. In nursing it is always "we can always improve-- big on the continuous improvement/QI stuff. Plus we get "this is a 24 hour operation" etc. etc. The healthcare reform has only increased their demands and decreased benefits. I pretty much figured we were secure until after next Fall 2011 when they are up for Magnet redesignation.

Honestly, I took this job to escape the last one which expected me to work for free. I took it for flexibility as my son is in his last year of high school and my husband has had to travel out of state for his work. Also, my mother is pretty fragile healthwise and lives out of state. So, we are looking at wrapping things up here an likely putting the house up for sale this summer. I need to be able to plan conjugal visits every couple of months, check in on mother and cart the offspring to higher education appointments, get him licensed and ultimately have him dormitory ready by the end of the school year. My dh has holidays off but is otherwise on a 60 hour week. So I pretty much have to take at least a week off at those times to drive there.

[ingac70]

5. Ford Motor Company showed me the cartoon "Who Moved My Cheese?"....

less than a year before they offered me a buyout because they were selling the plant I worked in.

You are correct about the best course. Start looking NOW.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

18. Texas Instruments did the same. I was gone within 9 months of the film's screening.

[eilen]

25. I am planning on checking out some temp agencies.

for now, until I can put my house up for sale.

[Odin2005]

6. YUCK! get outta there!

[Arctic Dave]

7. You sound like the book "Company". It is sickingly funny. Nt

[tularetom]

9. We used to play "Buzz Word Bingo" with our boss

He was a fond devotee of all these bullshit management theories and he used to have these friggin interminable staff meetings.

A few ass kissers would give him just enough encouragement to make think the crap was actually working but most of the rest of us spent the time trying to keep from dozing off.

Finally somebody made up these cards with (IIRC) 25 management cliches on them arrayed in a 5x 5 grid.

When the boss or one of his sycophants used a buzz word you would blacken in that spot on your card - the first person to complete a column, row or diagonal was the winner.

Made the endless staff meetings bearable.

I heard that one of the ass kissers ratted us out to him but he never said diddly to us.

Eventually he got fired by his bosses for wasted too much time fiddle farting around with stuff like that.

[truedelphi]

15. I love that idea. I mean, coping strategies are abut the only

Thing us emplyees can do, unless we win the lottery or start our own business.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

10. Like all self-help books, they're designed for people who can't do or think for themselves.

I'm sorry you're caught in this.

[SlimJimmy]

11. You must be kidding. Who moved the cheese has been around since God was a corporal.

[Rex]

12. I'm so happy I don't work for a Mc Corporation.

I'll never go back to that lifestyle. I just couldn't stand all the bullshit talk from blowhards and penny pinching asshats. Not a one of them worth half their salary, let alone the hefty stock options. This was for a good size telecommunications firm, unbelievable corporate-speak and WSJs all over the breakroom tables. :eyes:

[AnArmyVeteran]

13. Check out the book 'Work Abuse'. It describes your situation perfectly.

[End Of The Road]

14. Make sure you know your rights under FLSA

I gather your job is not currently a Monday-Friday 8-5 job? Whatever it is, make sure you know what your rights for overtime are. My asshole ex-boss thought he could make kids work a 7-day week for weeks on end, and then screamed at them when they asked for a half-day off to do their laundry. They had no idea what their rights were under Fair Labor Standards Act.

I've no patience with this corporate bullshit, which is probably why I'm unemployed.

Good luck to you!

[dixiegrrrrl]

16. When I was in your position and saw the handwriting on the wall,

I immediately planned for job loss, figured out how much un=employment I could live on.
Made sure I had debts paid off, cut out every single un-necessary expense, paid the rent 3 months ahead,
and started job hunting.
Got laid off 6 months later.
If I had been in a position of earning over-time, I would have done it, but I was salaried.
Fortunately, I found another job, since I had at the time a valuable skill set.

THAT was back in 2000. I started retirement planning 2 weeks into the new job, and retired early, in 05.

If I were still working in today's climate, I would live and work as if their were NO job security at all, and plan accordingly.

[CTyankee]

21. I did something similar, but I was only 9 months away from full Social Security and

Medicare. I switched to my husband's health care policy, got my car completely paid off, and set a new budget. I also started looking for a part time job which I readily found with a nonprofit where I was a volunteer! I sailed into partial retirement with 4 weeks vacation pay in cash. The only thing I partially regret is that I had many weeks of sick leave I never took because I was too honest to call in sick if I wasn't. I don't know how I feel about that, even now...

[northernlights]

19. Who cut the cheese?

the only effing cheese book I ever read. The only effing cheese book I ever will read. Gave it to my boss :rofl:

[angstlessk]

22. hell, even mice, given any weapon would kill the cheese mover..or commit suicide if they could never

attain the cheese..it is cruel and self defeating...