Have you ever worked in a place where people couldn't get fired?

steddyeddy

And do you think permanent contracts are always a good thing?

This might be more of a rant here but it really annoys me when people do feck all and get paid a lot for it. I think permanent contracts aren't always a good thing.

I used to work in a hospital lab in the HSE and as far as I could tell one man's job oscillated between undefined and making tea. No matter what cutbacks hit the hospital or lab in particular this chap did feck all and didn't hid it. He wasn't alone either. There was a lot of people there who couldn't get fired and moved because of incompetence. Before people go mad at me I'm not talking about the doctors and nurses who nearly killed themselves working long hours and looking after patients.

I've also worked at a uni or two and in my view permanent contracts create a safe space for lazy bast%rds to do what they do best. Nothing.

Any opinions? I know I'm ranting by the way.

questionmark?

Private sector will have goals and objectives, action plans if you don't meet them, warnings before your fired. The public sector you'd have to commit mass murder to have any chance of been fired.

Red Kev

I was a human cannonball in the circus until the Health & Safety crowd stopped all that.

No way I could be fired after that.

uck51js9zml2yt

questionmark? wrote: »

Private sector will have goals and objectives, action plans if you don't meet them, warnings before your fired. The public sector you'd have to commit mass murder to have any chance of been fired.

I'm working with a mass murderer. His job is safe )

steddyeddy

questionmark? wrote: »

Private sector will have goals and objectives, action plans if you don't meet them, warnings before your fired. The public sector you'd have to commit mass murder to have any chance of been fired.[/QUOTE]

That guy I worked with had seven complaints against him. Seven complaints based on bullying and from what I could see zero contribution to the place.

Captain Chaos

Yep, worked in the HSE and there were people there who did nothing, came in late/drunk, left early. Countless warnings and they couldn't be sacked. It was crazy, I got out of there as fast as I could because I was fed up carrying the slack and dead weight in the place. The more work you did and the better you did it the more you got. All the while the wasters got away with doing sweet f all and getting the paid the same if not more.

Went straight back to the private sector. Public sector is a joke, almost impossible to be fired.

Ted111

In any job there should be performance targets and established metrics for job performance.
Incentives for meeting or exceeding these.
Penalties for not doing so. Penalty doesn't necessarily have to be the sack and getting your house burnt down. You could have some kind of reasonable scale there.
Be allowed self expression/creativity where there's scope for it.

steddyeddy

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Yep, worked in the HSE and there were people there who did nothing, came in late/drunk, left early. Countless warnings and they couldn't be sacked. It was crazy, I got out of there as fast as I could because I was fed up carrying the slack and dead weight in the place. The more work you did and the better you did it the more you got. All the while the wasters got away with doing sweet f all and getting the paid the same if not more.

Went straight back to the private sector. Public sector is a joke, almost impossible to be fired.

I'm employed by an American government agency but it operates more like the private sector. If you don't pull your weight on a project you'll be out.

I talked to one guy in the states about a lab tech who I seen on the Monday but was replaced by Friday because he did nothing all day.

steddyeddy

Captain Chaos wrote: »

Yep, worked in the HSE and there were people there who did nothing, came in late/drunk, left early. Countless warnings and they couldn't be sacked. It was crazy, I got out of there as fast as I could because I was fed up carrying the slack and dead weight in the place. The more work you did and the better you did it the more you got. All the while the wasters got away with doing sweet f all and getting the paid the same if not more.

Went straight back to the private sector. Public sector is a joke, almost impossible to be fired.

Yep the exact same. I worked my ass off for more work. Incompetence and laziness were rewarded. Before I left the country a position in the lab was filled by a guy whose aunt got him the job. He hadn't even got the desirable qualifications. It's being run for some staff.

Guy:Incognito

Ted111 wrote: »

In any job there should be performance targets and established metrics for job performance.
Incentives for meeting or exceeding these.
Penalties for not doing so. Penalty doesn't necessarily have to be the sack and getting your house burnt down. You could have some kind of reasonable scale there.
Be allowed self expression/creativity where there's scope for it.

Did the civil service not give themselves a 99.9% performance rating or something like it in a review in the last year or two?

Radiosonde

This isn't simply a public/private thing. There are private companies - including ones which use relatively short term contracts - where getting fired is quite difficult, especially for performance-related reasons (usually disciplinary reasons, such as going AWOL, are more straightforward cases.)

SEPT 23 1989

No thankfully

I was born with ambition and a drive to succeed

Sometimes it works out sometimes it didn't

I'm sure the security of being a clock watching drone only looking forward to their pension unable to make decisions has its appeal

But not for me

YellowLead

steddyeddy wrote: »

Yep the exact same. I worked my ass off for more work. Incompetence and laziness were rewarded. Before I left the country a position in the lab was filled by a guy whose aunt got him the job. He hadn't even got the desirable qualifications. It's been run for some staff.

I was in the same boat. Worked public sector for 18 months, while there were a few hard workers the vast majority where i was either did the bare minimum badly or did nothing at all. That's why it takes so long for anything to improve. Pay rises and promotions often linked to length of service as opposed to quality and generally no performance reviews/targets etc. Very demotivating place to be if you want to work hard and make a difference. It can be difficult also to fire people within the private sector but it is 1000 times more difficult in public, and usually nobody cares as the state (public taxes) are funding it all. It's like social welfare except you show up for a few hours and pretend to do a job. Rant over! Ps I know there are some good workers there so I apologise to them in advance.

steddyeddy

Radiosonde wrote: »

This isn't simply a public/private thing. There are private companies - including ones which use relatively short term contracts - where getting fired is quite difficult, especially for performance-related reasons (usually disciplinary reasons, such as going AWOL, are more straightforward cases.)

Yes of course. Some people do feck al and get away with it for a multitude of reasons.

steddyeddy

YellowLead wrote: »

I was in the same boat. Worked public sector for 18 months, while there were a few hard workers the vast majority where i was either did the bare minimum badly or did nothing at all. That's why it takes so long for anything to improve. Pay rises and promotions often linked to length of service as opposed to quality and generally no performance reviews/targets etc. Very demotivating place to be if you want to work hard and make a difference. It can be difficult also to fire people within the private sector but it is 1000 times more difficult in public, and usually nobody cares as the state (public taxes) are funding it all. It's like social welfare except you show up for a few hours and pretend to do a job. Rant over! Ps I know there are some good workers there so I apologise to them in advance.

Yes there are some great workers in the PS too. I only worked there for 11 months thankfully. I seen some self entitled gits in my time though.

Ted111

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Did the civil service not give themselves a 99.9% performance rating or something like it in a review in the last year or two?

Who did they give that rating to?

steddyeddy

Guy:Incognito wrote: »

Did the civil service not give themselves a 99.9% performance rating or something like it in a review in the last year or two?

The most infuriating thing for me was the nepotism. Some people used it as a dumping ground for their relatives.

Miaireland

Yes, I worked in the Council, two of us doing the same job but since she was there longer she was kind of my supervisor. She told me after two days not to be working so hard as I did the same amount of work in my first two days(being totally unfamiliar with the system as she did in a five days). She honestly spent most of the day chatting with friends, going to the vending machine and loos, or texting.

Winterlong

I reckon i would go postal if I had to work in a place like that with people like that.

steddyeddy

Mr.S wrote: »

Permanent contracts (in a big company) are a godsend.

Although you get some people who just tag along at the same low level job for 30 years and no one really knows what they do.

I remember in one place, a women had been there 20ish years at a basic admin job, she earned more then some senior managers

A godsend for the company or the employee?

steddyeddy

Winterlong wrote: »

I reckon i would go postal if I had to work in a place like that with people like that.

I felt like a waster because of that environment.

steddyeddy

Mr.S wrote: »

Employee! Think of that job security and if you've the right company, training as needed and the ability to switch departments, teams etc.

Although, you can still be fired if your permanent...

I'm after confusing myself. In academia it's very hard to get fired if permanent also the HSE isn't great in that aspect either. Permanent in my job means permanent if you're not going to be crap.

StringerBell

I work in a place where you can't get fired, bar possibly stealing a large amount of money.... I don't know, not sure if anybody has tried that one yet.

Its not a public job, it is in the private sector. It is also ridiculous.

doolox

In any job there is a need for a certain level of security of employment to safeguard loan commitments and combat potential homelessness in the general society.

If there were no permanent jobs or contracts then there would be no loans granted to people regardless of their earnings and there would be a tendency for people to move towards companies that do offer permanent contracts.

More and more there is a move towards contingency labour pools and temporary contracts and increasingly enforced renting of housing to the benefit of landlords and property speculators and little else in society.

Companies find that the good and talented will be plucked from their ranks by competing companies prepared to offer permanent contracts to the employees.

Often there exists a residue of people in the workforce who are forced to accept temporary roles and long periods of unemployment between roles many times because they are in a heavily oversubscribed sector of employment, have little or no skills or have other limits to their usefulness to an employer.

It is an unfortunate trait in human nature that people need a certain level of respect and fear to perform well and give of their best to a company. Too little respect and fear and they will do nothing, too much and they will begin planning their exit pretty sharpish.

steddyeddy

Mr.S wrote: »

The same for me. I'm on a permanent contract, but if I do nothing i'd be eventually let go. But i mean, you'd have to be really stupid to be fired or have a big **** up.



Of course you can fired, why couldn't you?

I'm on a four year one but I'm happy enough to move after it. I'd like permanent at some point though.

StringerBell

Mr.S wrote: »

Of course you can fired, why couldn't you?

I have no idea, I have never seen it happen. Of course I am sure legally he can fire whoever he wants when given cause, he just simply chooses not to and it is ridiculous.

A brief example that has happened in the last couple of weeks.

The employee in question is regularly late for shift, and is prone to ringing in to say he can't make it in, car trouble is a favorite, sickness, the usual. In work he is regularly high as a kite, belligerent to management and clearly does not care about his work.

Finally he received a written warning, well, he had one typed up but never handed to him for his behaviour and that he needed to shape up or he would be shipped out.

Said employee then didn't show up for work at the weekend, no phone call, no excuse, he just wanted to go to Electric Picnic instead. He was scheduled to be back in work Monday, he didn't come in either.

When questioned on what exactly was going to happen to the employee (who has many, many similar stories going back his 5 years of employment) the boss replied, we just won't rely on him anymore. Dafuq does that even mean?

The employee is back to work today, no meeting, no bollocking, no consequence. He has his full hours the rest of this week, and no reason to think he will not next week.

To me if you do not get fired for behaviour such as this, you simply are not going to get fired. It is a running joke in the job anyway, not just with him, the question is what exactly would you have to do here to be fired. I assume taking the contents of the safe would do it, but at this point I am starting to question that.

MadDog76

I worked in a place like that .......... and still do!

Red Kev

StringerBell wrote: »

I have no idea, I have never seen it happen. Of course I am sure legally he can fire whoever he wants when given cause, he just simply chooses not to and it is ridiculous.

A brief example that has happened in the last couple of weeks.

The employee in question is regularly late for shift, and is prone to ringing in to say he can't make it in, car trouble is a favorite, sickness, the usual. In work he is regularly high as a kite, belligerent to management and clearly does not care about his work.

Finally he received a written warning, well, he had one typed up but never handed to him for his behaviour and that he needed to shape up or he would be shipped out.

Said employee then didn't show up for work at the weekend, no phone call, no excuse, he just wanted to go to Electric Picnic instead. He was scheduled to be back in work Monday, he didn't come in either.

When questioned on what exactly was going to happen to the employee (who has many, many similar stories going back his 5 years of employment) the boss replied, we just won't rely on him anymore. Dafuq does that even mean?

The employee is back to work today, no meeting, no bollocking, no consequence. He has his full hours the rest of this week, and no reason to think he will not next week.

To me if you do not get fired for behaviour such as this, you simply are not going to get fired. It is a running joke in the job anyway, not just with him, the question is what exactly would you have to do here to be fired. I assume taking the contents of the safe would do it, but at this point I am starting to question that.

Sounds like terrible management, or at least your direct manager sounds desperate. If they're all like that I'd be worried for the rest of the company.

doolox

This behaviour boils down to fear on the part of management to make decisions and indifference on the part of shareholders and owners because the impact of the non performing or underperforming employees is not big enough to be visible or appear on the companies balance sheet.

A junior supervisor or manager could be potentially disciplined and lose money or promotion if an errant employee brings a case for unfair dismissal against the company, many choose to "pass the buck" by taking minimal action against only the more egregious and absolutely lazy employees....most underperformers and "slackers" are cute enough to stay just acceptable to their immediate supervisors and "hold down" their jobs.

I suffered my last few years in formal employment in a job I hated precisely because a series of managers and supervisors were not long enough in my area to take effective action either to improve my performance through personal training and development or get rid of me.

Eventually I took a voluntary severance and jumped before I was pushed.

While I hated my job and workplace and some of my colleagues at the time I now realise that the size and structure and nature of the business had conspired to allow this to happen not only to me but to a lot of other employees as well. Such allowing of underperfoming and slacking is common in large, impersonal multinational corporations where there is a big divide between top management, investors and employees and long and difficult and vague lines of communications. Such things do not happen in small companies.

Corruptedmorals

It looks pretty difficult to be fired where I work now, short of gross misconduct. I work in the HSE and the sick leave is unbelieviable. The worst offender is hopefully on her last legs with them (not genuine illness). Whenever she decides to come back that is.

YFlyer

A technician here at the university got promoted away from an instrument so that the researchers could get better access to it.

368100

I'm in private sector, only way to get fired is to be caught with your hands in the till .....leads to shocking amounts of incompetency where others need to make up the shortfall....grrrr

Wigglepuppy

Council. Unbelievable the incompetent dossers who would not only stay in their jobs but be promoted.

Still hate the bitter, blanket anti public sector stuff though - plenty of us work(ed) hard and not all are to blame for the wasters/the system that accommodates them.

It's not like the critics wouldn't also work in the public sector if they got the opportunity.

SemenInMyEyes

I work for a large multinational and it's impossible to get fired. The levels of incompetence can be dizzying at times. This is in continental Europe where laws make it tough for companies to fire people.

StringerBell

Red Kev wrote: »

Sounds like terrible management, or at least your direct manager sounds desperate. If they're all like that I'd be worried for the rest of the company.

Frankly I am amazed the business is still open, and trading well tbh. All the staff are not as bad as him, it is not a large workplace, there are currently 11/12 of us. 2 are "bad apples" at the moment, others have come before them, the boss (owner) is incredibly weak, likes to imagine himself as some sort of maverick entrepreneur but is very much bi-polar in his interaction with staff and customers.

It is often interesting working there, but not sure it is healthy!

The lack of permenancy in many jobs is a very bad thing imo. People need stability, they need to buy their house and be guaranteed many many years if not until retirement in their jobs so they can properly settle down.

Something needs to be done particularly in research areas where it's very difficult to get made permenant and its bad for the workers and the groups they work in as expertise is being lost left right and centre.

Ghetofarmulous

Bad management, Lack of insentive for management to act. No accountability.

My best advice is to move on and keep your own head above water

Grayson

doolox wrote: »

This behaviour boils down to fear on the part of management to make decisions and indifference on the part of shareholders and owners because the impact of the non performing or underperforming employees is not big enough to be visible or appear on the companies balance sheet.

A junior supervisor or manager could be potentially disciplined and lose money or promotion if an errant employee brings a case for unfair dismissal against the company, many choose to "pass the buck" by taking minimal action against only the more egregious and absolutely lazy employees....most underperformers and "slackers" are cute enough to stay just acceptable to their immediate supervisors and "hold down" their jobs.

I suffered my last few years in formal employment in a job I hated precisely because a series of managers and supervisors were not long enough in my area to take effective action either to improve my performance through personal training and development or get rid of me.

Eventually I took a voluntary severance and jumped before I was pushed.

While I hated my job and workplace and some of my colleagues at the time I now realise that the size and structure and nature of the business had conspired to allow this to happen not only to me but to a lot of other employees as well. Such allowing of underperfoming and slacking is common in large, impersonal multinational corporations where there is a big divide between top management, investors and employees and long and difficult and vague lines of communications. Such things do not happen in small companies.

It's just a manager that doesn't know what their doing. If you turn up late it should be documentation. If they're given a warning it should be documentation. That way when you do go to fire them, they know exactly why they're getting fired and there's no liability for the company.

There's also one thing a good manager told me once. If someone under you is going to be fired they should know why long before it happens. It takes multiple lates etc to get fired. They should know the consequence of each one. So they should know beforehand that if they're late again they are going to be let go.

Grayson

SemenInMyEyes wrote: »

I work for a large multinational and it's impossible to get fired. The levels of incompetence can be dizzying at times. This is in continental Europe where laws make it tough for companies to fire people.

I used to and we had a running joke that it was harder to get hired than fired. I did see people get fired though. Usually for lates or for doing something really wrong like taking from the company.

retro:electro

questionmark? wrote: »

Private sector will have goals and objectives, action plans if you don't meet them, warnings before your fired. The public sector you'd have to commit mass murder to have any chance of been fired.

And you'd have to be seen committing the murder by at least 3 people. And even then you'd probably have a tribunal and get your job back.

dresden8

questionmark? wrote: »

Private sector will have goals and objectives, action plans if you don't meet them, warnings before your fired. The public sector you'd have to commit mass murder to have any chance of been fired.

How did that work in the banks or the insurance companies??????

dresden8

steddyeddy wrote: »

The most infuriating thing for me was the nepotism. Some people used it as a dumping ground for their relatives.

You've obviously never heard of PAS.

Shenshen

I work in the private sector, for a mid-sized multi-national. I've never seen anyone being fired in the nearly 10 years I've been there, and I've come across some seriously bad workers.
The prime example would come in in the morning, lay down in his chair (one of those ergonomic ones that you can set to tilt all the way to horizontal almost) and spent his days on facebook. Not only was it immediately apparent to anyone walking past that he wasn't doing anything, you could see it in the team stats every single day. Where people were completing between 50 and 80 tasks a day, he completed 2 or 3.
But he was friends with the manager's husband, and in the same GAA club as the finance director. So instead of getting fired, he got promoted to another team. And then another one. Currently, he's f*cking up payroll, thankfully not for Ireland.

However, many managers of other teams and departments took note and will now make sure that any new position in their own teams will be contract for the first year. After that, they may turn it into permanent, or keep it temporary, depending on performance.
To me, that's actually the worst part. I can handle feeling like a numpty for working my butt off while my colleague next to me tries discussing last night's game with anyone who will stop for long enough, but to know that because of people like him others are being put through much harder stages before they can get a permanent contract is pretty galling.

somesoldiers

Our private sector company does a cull every so often- a la Night of the Long Knives, anyone who is deemed surplus to requirements is called into HR, handed a cheque and told their belongings will be sent to them.

Keeps everyone on their toes, if it was up to me I'd add a few more names to the list

lawlolawl

Why didn't anyone in this thread who was in the public sector not just join in on the doing **** all thing?

I'd do that if I could get away with it. Working is about doing the least amount of work possible for the most money possible.

Winterlong

lawlolawl wrote: »

Why did anyone in this thread who was in the public sector not just join in on the doing **** all thing?

I'd do that if I could get away with it. Working is about doing the least amount of work possible for the most money possible.

Some people actually get satisfaction and pride out of doing a good job! And it helps with the future prospects and thus future salary.

Shenshen

lawlolawl wrote: »

Why didn't anyone in this thread who was in the public sector not just join in on the doing **** all thing?

I'd do that if I could get away with it. Working is about doing the least amount of work possible for the most money possible.

Because I would feel like a thief taking money for a job I didn't do, or didn't do as best I could.

Creol1

steddyeddy wrote: »

Yes there are some great workers in the PS too. I only worked there for 11 months thankfully. I seen some self entitled gits in my time though.

Seeing as both public sector and private sector have the abbreviation "PS", it is not the most helpful abbreviation.

lawlolawl

Winterlong wrote: »

Some people actually get satisfaction and pride out of doing a good job! And it helps with the future prospects and thus future salary.

Not by the sounds of it, seems to just a matter of seniority.

**** pride and satisfaction, I'll take a bunch of money. Can't retire early on pride and satisfaction.

lawlolawl

Shenshen wrote: »

Because I would feel like a thief taking money for a job I didn't do, or didn't do as best I could.

What difference does it make?

Your payslip won't be divided up into "honest" money and "dishonest" money earned. The other guy working at the same job as you doing half the work is still walking away with the same money, his day is just more enjoyable for him.

Shenshen

lawlolawl wrote: »

What difference does it make?

Your payslip won't be divided up into "honest" money and "dishonest" money earned. The other guy working at the same job as you doing half the work is still walking away with the same money, his day is just more enjoyable for him.

The same way that my clothes don't have tags saying "stolen" and "purchased". And the person shoplifting would have the same clothes as me (or possibly nicer) - that doesn't mean I'd start shoplifting just because others do it.

If you don't enjoy your work, then go find work you do enjoy, there's more than enough options out there. Don't block a position that otherwise could be taken by someone who would enjoy it.