The struggle is real

Xequecal said:

My job is hourly, I'm not on salary. They still don't care if you're a few minutes late a few times a year. I can't even imagine how an employer can be that anal about it unless it's something like where it's mandated that a certain number of people are on duty at all times and you being late means someone else has to stay.

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I'll be fair for once in this thread: Construction is a team effort, and often works under extreme deadlines; someone not being there throws that shit off, even if it is 15-20 minutes tops.

I'm pretty lax in when I come and go at all of my jobs, but I'm never late for the first day of work. I totally understand not wanting to be early every day, but c'mon the first day?

I'm assuming you had no spare tire or an air pump? Probably worth investing in one / both. Just get a shitter rim and tire from a junk yard that will fit and hold air. I've also pumped up tires with a bicycle pump before - it doesn't take all that long to get it in driveable shape so you can hit a gas station. One of my first cars as a teenager was a major pile and I had to stop and pump it like every half hour. I still got around.

Cutlery said:

That's exactly what it means, dude.

Not every business shuts down at 6pm. Some places are 24 hour operations where machines are running or the company is losing money.

And yes, it turns out they actually want people running said machines on time.

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I work in a hospital laboratory, the absolute definition of a 24-hour operation. Having to shut a process down because someone is 5-10 minutes late is just incompetent management.

ZyyzYzzy said:

You comparing lab equipment and instrumentation to heavy industrial equipment?

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What is the difference in this case? If you have a piece of equipment that's critical to your business that it's always operating, why the hell would you schedule the only people who can run it to leave and arrive at the same time with no overlap? It's just dumb.

ZyyzYzzy said:

Very few pieces of instrumentation (not counting say infrastructure such as hvac to maintain pressure in a BSL3 for example) requires to be shut down when an operator isn't present or require long restart times. These events are usually minor and inexpenssive.

Some industrial equipment requires constant use, or it has.to be shutdown which can take hours plus retarted which also takes hours and can cost 10s of thousands of dollars.

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And yet you did your scheduling so someone being 5-10 minutes late costs your business six figures.

You know, the people who say China is going to supplant us are utterly nuts. In East Asia they make you work your ass off but they also expect the company to be loyal to you and employ you for life. Only in the US do you have this shit where people literally say, "If you are even 5 minutes late even once you are a shit worker and deserve to be fired and a real moral person budgets an extra hour every day just to avoid inconveniencing their company" yet also is just fine with companies terminating 20% of their workforce on a whim without a care about what it does to their lives. Why would a company go anywhere else?

Cutlery said:

You're retarded, dude, and you have absolutely no idea how the manufacturing and distribution segment of this economy works.

Stop now.

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No, I fucking don't, but I don't care what segment of the economy your business is fucking in, if an employee being 5-10 minutes late costs you six figures you are utterly incompetent. There is no arguing around this.

I'm on time to meetings and on-site situations but even when I worked in these "omg never be late!" industries you guys are talking about it wasn't a big deal to be 10-20 min late. This was when I worked in construction.

Yeah there's definitely some weird psychological thing with being to work late and being looked at as not-dependable. This seems to be magnified 1000x in the construction fields. I'm sure part of it is due to the fact that a lot of construction workers are complete derelicts. I did some framing, sheetrocking and plumbing when I was younger, and most of my co-workers who were actually dependable were mexicans that spoke very little english. The American dudes were all drunk assholes trying not to shake too much from their DTs to actually get some work done. The foreman had his shit together, but I guess because of the amount of time he'd been screwed by drunks and drug addicts, he tolerated very little tardiness, slacking or fuck-ups.

Put it back in again.

Slowly this time though. Don't just ram it in there like a teenager.

kegkilla said:

there is something about being early that impresses people in life. they generally don't give a fuck how late you stay at work, but if you arrive before everyone else that is generally looked upon very favorably even if you're just sitting there bullshitting on the internet.

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I'm normally the first to walk in the school every day. All I do is make any copies I need and then fuck off till the first bell. My boss thinks I'm the hardest working cracker in this place, all because I show up early.

How old are you Zog? Too old to enlist? Wanna bootstrap yourself in this country; military. GI bill is your free ticket to the middle class.

pharmakos said:

even if he got himself into the situation, we could be a bit nicer to the guy, fuck.

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This, imo, is what's wrong with the whole younger generation. This sense of political correctness, that you can't say anything offensive, and that you can't be direct to someone.

I don't know the guy. I gave my honest opinion. It wasn't the nicest because he hasn't taken any sort of accountability for his situation, and continually blames other factors for his misfortunes. Until he does that, he won't be able to correct his current trajectory. We all get in tough spots, he's not unique in that. What's different is he can't see where he is the problem. Again, a flat tire is not an excuse not to show up to work. Most of us would have found a way to work-around that. Barring that, most of us would have communicated with our boss to let them know the situation, and that being late was excusable, but not a common occurence.

What does being nicer give him? Coddling him? It gets him to where he is now. A false sense of self. "Hey buddy, that sucks, I feel for you bro, things will get better". "Dude, you're smarter than this, you'll find a solution". That might make me sound like a nicer guy, but that won't help him get any closer to getting a job. What he needs is solid advice. Whether he takes it or not is up to him.

Solid advice: Next time something obstructive happens, like getting a flat tire, try to find a solution around it. Again, you could have called a taxi, Uber, or had someone bring you to work. It was your first day of work, first impressions are important. Second piece of solid advice: For your first day of work especially, plan ahead, wake up early, show interest in your job. Make a good impression.

If you guys get butthurt over that, I don't know what to say. I'm not trying to be friends or make nice with the guy. I'm genuinely trying to help him. His OP is so full of mistakes that he can't even see. Being nice to him isn't going to help him see them. Come on......not showing up to work because you don't want to pay a parking permit? If you don't call him out on that, he's just bound to repeat his mistakes. If he doesn't see that as a mistake, then that's on him. He fucked up, and he can get indignant, but if he doesn't realize how he fucked up, he's just going to keep spinning his wheels.