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Do Your Job
Jan. 19th, 2017 07:57 pmYou know, I don't really care if you're orange or have tiny hands or ridiculous hair or can only make stupid facial expressions. I can forgive you for having a grating voice. I don't even care if you have a big ego or a tiny ego.
And I don't want to punish people or ruin people's days by, say, donating in their name to a charity they oppose or talking people out of showing up for their events. I am opposed to revenge of all kinds. (Except in fantasies. I admit that I love fantasizing about revenge.)
But I am really tired of people not doing their jobs. Not just politicians, but all over our economy. There are so many people out there who need jobs and who are willing to do them that we should not have to settle for slacking, entitlement, or willful refusal, let alone gleeful, self-righteous refusal.
You know those co-workers who are only sick on Fridays. I once had a co-worker who called in sick during the entire week of registration. Uh huh. When she left during a hiring freeze (and I got to do both our jobs for the next nine months), I found that she had never dealt with key slips. She didn't like that job duty, so she just never did it and never found another way to get it done. She just let the stack get ever larger.
I know that some of my friends have the guts to apply for jobs that they don't know how to do. And they sometimes get those jobs. But these are job duties for which they are suited, and they immediately learn how to do them.
If your job is to decide whether to approve someone else's appointee, then you shouldn't ignore it and you shouldn't rubber stamp it. Do some work. Evaluate. Decide.
If you are in charge of regulating something, you need to understand both sides of that regulation. You want to minimize damages to the general public without causing too many problems for business. Not without causing any problems at all for business. People disagree about the best way to compromise between different interests, but it is your job to pick one of those ways to compromise. If you are choosing just one side over the other at all costs, you are not doing your job.
If you are unwilling to do a job duty, you should not apply for that job. If a job duty that you are unwilling to do gets added to your job after you are hired, I understand not quitting right away. But do start looking right away once you realize that you won't be able to negotiate your way out of doing that duty.
This is part of why I never applied to be a graduate coordinator. There are time-sensitive forms that must be signed by the chair. Sometimes the chair is absent during the entire window of time during which the form can be signed. So compassionate graduate coordinators learn to forge signatures. I understand that and even approve, given the conditions. However, I am not willing to forge signatures myself. So I never applied for those jobs. I admit that I didn't lobby for another signature to be accepted, but I wasn't involved in that area myself; I was just kind of next to people who did that, and it didn't occur to me.
Some jobs are really hard and no one could be expected to do all the job duties. You should do at least the most important ones.
If something is against your religion, get a job that doesn't make you do it. If the job makes you let other people do something against your religion, I don't see how that's your problem. If you think it is your problem, look for a different kind of job. There are so many kinds of jobs.
People who do not do their jobs, or do them badly, should be given a chance/warning/training to improve. If that doesn't work, they should be fired or transferred to different jobs that they will do. At the very least, they should have their salaries drastically reduced if those salaries were based on the assumption that they would actually be doing their jobs.
People who break the law should be prosecuted. Breaking the law is more than just not doing your job. So law breakers should not just be fired and they certainly should not be given huge compensation packages for leaving. I keep getting these petitions that say someone has done something horrific and therefore should be fired. No, they should be prosecuted and given a fair trial.
I just found out that one sector of my city's government is doing a great job. I know, shocking! The guy in charge of sidewalks gave a talk at our neighborhood association meeting. They decide where to put new sidewalks based on things that actually make sense like whether the area is high density, low income, doesn't have too many trees in the way, and there's something people might actually want to walk to nearby. They warn you in time to move your plants, they pay for terracing, and they help you move your irrigation system.
Can you imagine a world where everyone competently did their jobs?
To all my readers who competently do your jobs or otherwise make sure that all your important job duties get done, I thank you. And I'm pretty sure that's every single one of you.
And I don't want to punish people or ruin people's days by, say, donating in their name to a charity they oppose or talking people out of showing up for their events. I am opposed to revenge of all kinds. (Except in fantasies. I admit that I love fantasizing about revenge.)
But I am really tired of people not doing their jobs. Not just politicians, but all over our economy. There are so many people out there who need jobs and who are willing to do them that we should not have to settle for slacking, entitlement, or willful refusal, let alone gleeful, self-righteous refusal.
You know those co-workers who are only sick on Fridays. I once had a co-worker who called in sick during the entire week of registration. Uh huh. When she left during a hiring freeze (and I got to do both our jobs for the next nine months), I found that she had never dealt with key slips. She didn't like that job duty, so she just never did it and never found another way to get it done. She just let the stack get ever larger.
I know that some of my friends have the guts to apply for jobs that they don't know how to do. And they sometimes get those jobs. But these are job duties for which they are suited, and they immediately learn how to do them.
If your job is to decide whether to approve someone else's appointee, then you shouldn't ignore it and you shouldn't rubber stamp it. Do some work. Evaluate. Decide.
If you are in charge of regulating something, you need to understand both sides of that regulation. You want to minimize damages to the general public without causing too many problems for business. Not without causing any problems at all for business. People disagree about the best way to compromise between different interests, but it is your job to pick one of those ways to compromise. If you are choosing just one side over the other at all costs, you are not doing your job.
If you are unwilling to do a job duty, you should not apply for that job. If a job duty that you are unwilling to do gets added to your job after you are hired, I understand not quitting right away. But do start looking right away once you realize that you won't be able to negotiate your way out of doing that duty.
This is part of why I never applied to be a graduate coordinator. There are time-sensitive forms that must be signed by the chair. Sometimes the chair is absent during the entire window of time during which the form can be signed. So compassionate graduate coordinators learn to forge signatures. I understand that and even approve, given the conditions. However, I am not willing to forge signatures myself. So I never applied for those jobs. I admit that I didn't lobby for another signature to be accepted, but I wasn't involved in that area myself; I was just kind of next to people who did that, and it didn't occur to me.
Some jobs are really hard and no one could be expected to do all the job duties. You should do at least the most important ones.
If something is against your religion, get a job that doesn't make you do it. If the job makes you let other people do something against your religion, I don't see how that's your problem. If you think it is your problem, look for a different kind of job. There are so many kinds of jobs.
People who do not do their jobs, or do them badly, should be given a chance/warning/training to improve. If that doesn't work, they should be fired or transferred to different jobs that they will do. At the very least, they should have their salaries drastically reduced if those salaries were based on the assumption that they would actually be doing their jobs.
People who break the law should be prosecuted. Breaking the law is more than just not doing your job. So law breakers should not just be fired and they certainly should not be given huge compensation packages for leaving. I keep getting these petitions that say someone has done something horrific and therefore should be fired. No, they should be prosecuted and given a fair trial.
I just found out that one sector of my city's government is doing a great job. I know, shocking! The guy in charge of sidewalks gave a talk at our neighborhood association meeting. They decide where to put new sidewalks based on things that actually make sense like whether the area is high density, low income, doesn't have too many trees in the way, and there's something people might actually want to walk to nearby. They warn you in time to move your plants, they pay for terracing, and they help you move your irrigation system.
Can you imagine a world where everyone competently did their jobs?
To all my readers who competently do your jobs or otherwise make sure that all your important job duties get done, I thank you. And I'm pretty sure that's every single one of you.
