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the "things you wish you could say" thread

Started by archaeo42, May 30, 2019, 01:30:59 PM

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Vkw10

Of course staff productivity is down and morale is abysmal with remote working. Your daily log and daily check-in with supervisor and weekly achivements report are taking 2-4 hours per person each week. Good staff are feeling distrusted and micromanaged, in addition to having at least 5% of their weekly hours consumed with your productivity reporting and supervisory oversight requirements.

Enthusiasm is not a skill set. (MH)

science.expat

Quote from: Vkw10 on April 15, 2020, 09:10:38 PM
Of course staff productivity is down and morale is abysmal with remote working. Your daily log and daily check-in with supervisor and weekly achivements report are taking 2-4 hours per person each week. Good staff are feeling distrusted and micromanaged, in addition to having at least 5% of their weekly hours consumed with your productivity reporting and supervisory oversight requirements.

Can you elaborate without outing yourself? This sounds insane!

apl68

No, you don't really want me to lay you off, even though the federally-enhanced unemployment payments would be more than you take home each week.  You're not considering how much you receive in insurance benefits and employer contributions to our retirement system.  It's not a good idea in the long term to interrupt those unnecessarily. 

Plus, you're one of the few staff members who can actually work from home, and we need you working.  You'll also be better off in the long run if you impress us with how well you want to do your job, not with how you'd rather draw a check for doing nothing.
All we like sheep have gone astray
We have each turned to his own way
And the Lord has laid upon him the guilt of us all

Vkw10

Quote from: science.expat on April 16, 2020, 06:47:25 PM
Quote from: Vkw10 on April 15, 2020, 09:10:38 PM
Of course staff productivity is down and morale is abysmal with remote working. Your daily log and daily check-in with supervisor and weekly achivements report are taking 2-4 hours per person each week. Good staff are feeling distrusted and micromanaged, in addition to having at least 5% of their weekly hours consumed with your productivity reporting and supervisory oversight requirements.

Can you elaborate without outing yourself? This sounds insane!

It is insane. My university has long required presidential approval for any staff member or administrator to work remotely. A proposed staff remote work policy was stalled until March, then passed the day before university announced extended spring break and remote teaching. The policy requires "frequent, documented, communication between supervisor and employee" and "measurable work product" for staff working remotely. The guidelines keep changing, but every version is time consuming.
Enthusiasm is not a skill set. (MH)

Vkw10

So, if our university  starts furloughing or laying off faculty and staff, you're going on the job market? Really? Good luck!
Enthusiasm is not a skill set. (MH)

dr_codex

Quote from: Vkw10 on April 18, 2020, 08:13:07 PM
Quote from: science.expat on April 16, 2020, 06:47:25 PM
Quote from: Vkw10 on April 15, 2020, 09:10:38 PM
Of course staff productivity is down and morale is abysmal with remote working. Your daily log and daily check-in with supervisor and weekly achivements report are taking 2-4 hours per person each week. Good staff are feeling distrusted and micromanaged, in addition to having at least 5% of their weekly hours consumed with your productivity reporting and supervisory oversight requirements.

Can you elaborate without outing yourself? This sounds insane!

It is insane. My university has long required presidential approval for any staff member or administrator to work remotely. A proposed staff remote work policy was stalled until March, then passed the day before university announced extended spring break and remote teaching. The policy requires "frequent, documented, communication between supervisor and employee" and "measurable work product" for staff working remotely. The guidelines keep changing, but every version is time consuming.

Us, too. Us too. And then there are the people who have to compile the reports about the reports.

Your tax dollars at work, folks.
back to the books.

science.expat

Quote from: dr_codex on April 21, 2020, 05:22:00 PM
Quote from: Vkw10 on April 18, 2020, 08:13:07 PM
Quote from: science.expat on April 16, 2020, 06:47:25 PM
Quote from: Vkw10 on April 15, 2020, 09:10:38 PM
Of course staff productivity is down and morale is abysmal with remote working. Your daily log and daily check-in with supervisor and weekly achivements report are taking 2-4 hours per person each week. Good staff are feeling distrusted and micromanaged, in addition to having at least 5% of their weekly hours consumed with your productivity reporting and supervisory oversight requirements.

Can you elaborate without outing yourself? This sounds insane!

It is insane. My university has long required presidential approval for any staff member or administrator to work remotely. A proposed staff remote work policy was stalled until March, then passed the day before university announced extended spring break and remote teaching. The policy requires "frequent, documented, communication between supervisor and employee" and "measurable work product" for staff working remotely. The guidelines keep changing, but every version is time consuming.

Us, too. Us too. And then there are the people who have to compile the reports about the reports.

Your tax dollars at work, folks.

Classic lack of trust. The easy way to do this is for each supervisor, or delegate, to have a quick email exchange with their direct reports once a week. For example:

Supervisor: 'Hi, colleague. Hope you're doing well. Can you please send me a few bullet points on what you've accomplished this week?'.

Colleague: <sends bullet pointed list>

Supervisor follows up by Zoom if necessary.

Any issues are amalgamated at School level and sent up the chain at month's end, with the default being that everything is fine.

I have 80+ direct reports and reckon this would take me at most 2 hours/week, my delegates 1 hour/week, and individuals without issues 10 minutes/week.

polly_mer

Quote from: science.expat on April 21, 2020, 06:52:51 PM
Quote from: dr_codex on April 21, 2020, 05:22:00 PM
Quote from: Vkw10 on April 18, 2020, 08:13:07 PM
Quote from: science.expat on April 16, 2020, 06:47:25 PM
Quote from: Vkw10 on April 15, 2020, 09:10:38 PM
Of course staff productivity is down and morale is abysmal with remote working. Your daily log and daily check-in with supervisor and weekly achivements report are taking 2-4 hours per person each week. Good staff are feeling distrusted and micromanaged, in addition to having at least 5% of their weekly hours consumed with your productivity reporting and supervisory oversight requirements.

Can you elaborate without outing yourself? This sounds insane!

It is insane. My university has long required presidential approval for any staff member or administrator to work remotely. A proposed staff remote work policy was stalled until March, then passed the day before university announced extended spring break and remote teaching. The policy requires "frequent, documented, communication between supervisor and employee" and "measurable work product" for staff working remotely. The guidelines keep changing, but every version is time consuming.

Us, too. Us too. And then there are the people who have to compile the reports about the reports.

Your tax dollars at work, folks.

Classic lack of trust. The easy way to do this is for each supervisor, or delegate, to have a quick email exchange with their direct reports once a week. For example:

Supervisor: 'Hi, colleague. Hope you're doing well. Can you please send me a few bullet points on what you've accomplished this week?'.

Colleague: <sends bullet pointed list>

Supervisor follows up by Zoom if necessary.

Any issues are amalgamated at School level and sent up the chain at month's end, with the default being that everything is fine.

I have 80+ direct reports and reckon this would take me at most 2 hours/week, my delegates 1 hour/week, and individuals without issues 10 minutes/week.

My non-academic employer had huge restrictions on work-from-home until it became about 10k of us doing it all at once.  Now, what constitutes adequate documentation includes showing up for the weekly virtual meeting and saying, "I'm here and it's going fine", when your name is called or a three-to-five-minute phone call with the supervisor saying the same thing when one had to miss the meeting.

We still have deliverables due, but it wasn't our administrative supervisor who ever got the deliverables nor was it our administrative supervisor who had frequent meetings regarding progress on those deliverables.  I'm actually spending more time with my administrative supervisor with the weekly check-ins than previously when it was required twice per year and I saw her a little more frequently because our offices are about 20 feet apart.
Quote from: hmaria1609 on June 27, 2019, 07:07:43 PM
Do whatever you want--I'm just the background dancer in your show!

FishProf

Hey Student!  It is STILL not all about you.  Professors have lives and kids and health issues and bills just like everyone else.  You want them to cut you some slack, you need to do the same.
I'd rather have questions I can't answer, than answers I can't question.

ergative

In what world does a paragraph or two explaining why we didn't use method X count as too onerous for 'minor revisions'? Just give me the damn figure showing method X so I can refer to it when explaining why method X doesn't work. In the amount of time you spent arguing that the figure and changes were an unreasonable expectation, I could have made them.

archaeo42

Your need to try and please everyone is going to really end up screwing us over if we don't get something out soon. It is okay to say, "We're working on it," for some of the questions we know we're going to get that haven't been fully decided. Waiting until we have all the information isn't really possible right now.
"The Guide is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate."

fishbrains

Well, I guess the nice thing about chaos is that the paperwork doesn't really matter quite so much.
I wish I could find a way to show people how much I love them, despite all my words and actions. ~ Maria Bamford

fishbrains

Okay, no . . . I can't identify with the severe "trauma" high school seniors seem to be experiencing by missing out on their post-Spring Break school activities.

I hated high school, especially my senior year. To me, high school was nothing but a prison. I don't think back fondly on having to ask to go pee or waking up early for mind-numbing classes or the shredded carrots in green jello for lunch or dealing with the a$$hole students in the hallways. When the girl I would have taken to prom told me we were boycotting the dance because our early 80's Mid-South podunk high school officials wouldn't let a white guy take a black girl to the prom, my only real response was relief. I didn't buy a yearbook. I didn't show up for the senior group photo. They wisely omitted the senior quote I submitted. My mother had to physically threaten me to attend my own graduation.

No one was overly mean to me or anything: I just didn't want to be there. If they had told me I didn't have to come back after Spring Break, I would have done the Snoopy happy dance for a full week.

The punishment is over, high school seniors: FFS, fly away and be free!

Okay, I feel better now.
I wish I could find a way to show people how much I love them, despite all my words and actions. ~ Maria Bamford

marshwiggle

Quote from: fishbrains on April 27, 2020, 09:56:50 AM
Okay, no . . . I can't identify with the severe "trauma" high school seniors seem to be experiencing by missing out on their post-Spring Break school activities.

I hated high school, especially my senior year. To me, high school was nothing but a prison. I don't think back fondly on having to ask to go pee or waking up early for mind-numbing classes or the shredded carrots in green jello for lunch or dealing with the a$$hole students in the hallways. When the girl I would have taken to prom told me we were boycotting the dance because our early 80's Mid-South podunk high school officials wouldn't let a white guy take a black girl to the prom, my only real response was relief. I didn't buy a yearbook. I didn't show up for the senior group photo. They wisely omitted the senior quote I submitted. My mother had to physically threaten me to attend my own graduation.

No one was overly mean to me or anything: I just didn't want to be there. If they had told me I didn't have to come back after Spring Break, I would have done the Snoopy happy dance for a full week.

The punishment is over, high school seniors: FFS, fly away and be free!

Okay, I feel better now.

Nerds everywhere (including me) applaud your insightful synopsis of high school, at least how it is expereinced by many.
It takes so little to be above average.

ciao_yall

Quote from: marshwiggle on April 27, 2020, 01:34:32 PM
Quote from: fishbrains on April 27, 2020, 09:56:50 AM
Okay, no . . . I can't identify with the severe "trauma" high school seniors seem to be experiencing by missing out on their post-Spring Break school activities.

I hated high school, especially my senior year. To me, high school was nothing but a prison. I don't think back fondly on having to ask to go pee or waking up early for mind-numbing classes or the shredded carrots in green jello for lunch or dealing with the a$$hole students in the hallways. When the girl I would have taken to prom told me we were boycotting the dance because our early 80's Mid-South podunk high school officials wouldn't let a white guy take a black girl to the prom, my only real response was relief. I didn't buy a yearbook. I didn't show up for the senior group photo. They wisely omitted the senior quote I submitted. My mother had to physically threaten me to attend my own graduation.

No one was overly mean to me or anything: I just didn't want to be there. If they had told me I didn't have to come back after Spring Break, I would have done the Snoopy happy dance for a full week.

The punishment is over, high school seniors: FFS, fly away and be free!

Okay, I feel better now.

Nerds everywhere (including me) applaud your insightful synopsis of high school, at least how it is expereinced by many.

I wasn't a nerd, but by my senior year I was over high school. I was taking the few classes needed to graduate and go on to college. I was working and many of my friends were older. I did have a bunch of activities and friends who went to other high schools. I wasn't that interested in prom and didn't go. I missed graduation to start college summer school to get ahead.