Lunch is what's wrong with America

[patooyee]

How is America productive at all? I run a business and as such I am there when I need to be, do what I need to do when it needs to be done. I am lucky to get a lunch break at all and if I do its never before 3pm. I have to deal with companies that have employees that have no sense of ownership at all though and have found the weekly work cycle at these companies to be absolutely pitiful.

In general many companies open around 9am. But important people don't get there until 9:15 or 9:30 and much of the time the underlings can't do anything without the important ones there. So REAL WORK doesn't truly start at these companies until about 9:30. But then comes LUNCH at noon. Lunch is supposed to be an hour but people start leaving early around 11:30 and often don't get back until 1:00 or 1:30. So right off the bat during any given work day many companies see a max of 2 productive hours before work stops completely. I question how productive those two hours really are since many employees are just counting down the minutes until lunch.

So around 1:30 people are back from lunch and work can begin again. But they get off around 5:00, so you're now down to only about 3.5 hours of possible productivity. So on your BEST day, you've got about 5.5 hours of possible productive time at many companies.

BUT, consider the effect of weekends. Mon. everyone comes back dragging ass from the weekend. No one wants to do **** Mon. so productivity is at an all-time low. Tues. and Wed. are probably fairly productive but by Thurs. people are starting to worry less about work and more about their weekend plans. By Fri. all the important people have taken off for the 3-day weekends and none of the underlings can do **** without the important people. Even if they could, they're leaving early since the bosses aren't around to say they can't. Fri. is basically a complete waste.

So out of the week you really only get 2 days of productive work! That's 11 hours of the week where things are getting done and 29 where basically NOTHING gets done.

People in China work in sweatshops for half a penny an hour, Mexicans risk death, break laws to work for less than min wage in America. Most work without breaks for as many hours/day that they can get paid.

 

[wizzo]

your talk'n about white collar workers, banks, mortgage co's & such. i've got college buddies who talk about having this sort of schedule. one of the guys i know was tell'n me about on fridays they pretty much get drunk on the job the whole afternoon. must be nice, guess i should have stuck with that business management bull ****.

 

[85toyo]

I was guilty of this at my last job. Shift work straight up sucks. My current job allows me to make my own hours/schedule. I go in and don't leave until the work is done for the day. I feel that I am much more productive that way because I'm not sitting around looking at a clock all day.

 

[Lil ugly]

I work in a management position in civil construction and we dont get the kind of hours you are talking about. In general we work 7 to 5:30 at a minimum 5 days a week. I used to work 6:30 to 6:30 on salary, but with the downturn in the economy, companies have made such cutbacks in pay that it is not worth it to work any harder than I need to. I exchange my time for money, not looking go give then half my life for free.

 

[Worros]

I completely see where ya'll are coming from. I'm a service advisor at a chrysler jeep ram dealer in Roswell GA.
I work monday through saturday 730 til 6 and sometimes later if my techs can't get their jobs done. Why? because all the young guys my age (23) wanna work for import companies so all the techs with CDJ are an average age of 44.

If I ever get a lunch break during the day, its usually 1-2pm and alot of the time I dont get one.
So I work a minimum of 63 hours a week, and I get every other monday off.. WHEW!!
Then while Im here I watch all the "management" take nice 1hr-1.5hr lunches with people while I work for the same salary on a 6day work week to a 5 day work week.. then I get a commission check once a month..

 

[Dwalk]

Sounds like you should move the company to China and hire some Amigo's! Just kidding, Firing a couple of the less productive people and having a talk to the others about a strick schedule should open some eyes.

 

[patooyee]

I'm not complaining about my job nor my employees. I'm complaining about other companies that I have to work with and how I am forced to be LESS productive because the services that they offer, and that I utilize to make MY COMPANY productive, are only available 11 hours/wk. The larger picture is how much America must suffer from a competitive standpoint if so much of our workforce feels that 11 hours/wk of productivity is truly acceptable and that their salaries / pay is justified by that 11 hours.

 

[twiztedzuki]

local 18 operating engineer, company i work for we work 6-10s no breaks, no lunch! and they have over 1400 employees, we get $hit done

 

[mrdrinksalil]

If you can work those kinds of hours and still get paid the same or more, who looks like the idiot at the end of the day... just sayin

 

[patooyee]

If you can work those kinds of hours and still get paid the same or more, who looks like the idiot at the end of the day... just sayin

I would say to look further than just a day ahead ...

 

[Worros]

If you can work those kinds of hours and still get paid the same or more, who looks like the idiot at the end of the day... just sayin

I agree.. However only thing I can do in my situation is find another job writing service.. naa
Im trying to get the hell out of this industry. Spent 30k on a crappy auto tech degree from uti that did me no good.

The reason they can do it to the 5 of us. is the commission at the end of the month

 

[mikepotts]

weve got noone but ourselveds to blame, every generation wants their kids to "have it better than they had", this has trickled down to our current time when people have gotten a sense of entitlement... they fell like the world owes them a living, and everything should be handed to them... then along comes the politicians and the entitlements pile up!

 

[muddinmetal]

weve got noone but ourselveds to blame, every generation wants their kids to "have it better than they had", this has trickled down to our current time when people have gotten a sense of entitlement... they fell like the world owes them a living, and everything should be handed to them... then along comes the politicians and the entitlements pile up!

^^^^^^^^^^^ Should be carved in stone in front of every school and government institution in America.

 

[bearslayer2829]

^^^^^^^^^^^ Should be carved in stone in front of every school and government institution in America.

x2

 

[wont work]

weve got noone but ourselveds to blame, every generation wants their kids to "have it better than they had", this has trickled down to our current time when people have gotten a sense of entitlement... they fell like the world owes them a living, and everything should be handed to them... then along comes the politicians and the entitlements pile up!

My parents wanted better for me but they also showed me how to work and that you had to work for what you get. I talk to parents weekly on their children and make several mad when I tell them their child is not gona make it in the real world. The children that usually weld the worst almost always have the parents that think their child is the greatest.

 

[patooyee]

My parents wanted better for me but they also showed me how to work and that you had to work for what you get. I talk to parents weekly on their children and make several mad when I tell them their child is not gona make it in the real world. The children that usually weld the worst almost always have the parents that think their child is the greatest.

I know you're a hard worker, but that is funny coming from someone with the screen name "wont work."

 

[TBItoy]

When I worked at CUMMINS it was exactly as you described.

"meetings" all morning for the "important" people, bs time for the 'tweeners, 2 hr lunch breaks, no work on Mon or Fri, the hourly workers always "looked" busy.

 

[twiztedzuki]

I know you're a hard worker, but that is funny coming from someone with the screen name "wont work."
[/quote

lmao ;D

 

[grcthird]

Been there and seen alot of this crap, left my last job because I felt like I was pulling half of the damn shop's weight. Hell there were several days I turned 20+ hours as a tech doing warranty work BS! Now I have the ability to put foot to ass in the shop where I am now. The guys are learning (slowly) how much easier it is to get their **** done instead of finding ways to **** around all day. I've never worked for a large company that I considered to be efficient, the damn beancounters always find the stupidiest things to cut out and make folks lives harder. Any body ever see a bean counter out of work? NO, they can manipulate the "numbers" to make themselves look good on paper for the big wigs.

I dunno, sometimes I look at other people and just wonder "How the **** do you go through life like that? Did your mom have any other kids that lived?"

 

[InDaShop]

I dont do **** at work, but when I do, its fixing other peoples **** ups. LOL.

What my job description must say: sober driver that keeps this looney bin of lazy, drunk bums out of the ditch on a realtime basis.