How Stupid Is Your Employer

[Ghaleon]

I've been laid off for about seven months now, but this little story is not so much about how stupid my last employer was, but how stupid our plant was laid out and how saving a few dollars cost a lot more.

Our plant put on addition about three years prior to this and as part of that they installed a set of restrooms. However, instead of taking the time to have the waste line run underground to the main sewer, they installed a pump and piping to connect it to main waste pipe at the opposite end of the facility.

Now, where these pipes collect is our maintenence shop which has a garage-like door, that until our new safety guru came on board, remained in an open and locked position. Since we do welding in said shop, he said it was required to shut it during such operations. He also removed the stop lock which prevented the door from riding all the way up and hitting the pipes. One of which was the waste line from the restroooms in the new addition.

Well, on what we hoped to be a quiet Sunday, our shift started work and about two hours in, we were told to evacuate the building. One of our techs, who had just finished a welding project opened the garage-like door and it hit that waste line, cracking it on one of the connections. Gallons of waste started pouring out in a cascade all over the floor and the stench was horrid.

The "senior" staff (i.e. plant manager) had to call in one of those professional cleaning companies to spend the rest of the day to take care of the mess. Our shift was sent home and the night shift was also told not to come in.

The outcome was that neither the person who designed the piping system or the safety guru who removed the lock stop were ever repremanded. It was the poor soul who opened the door who was blamed for the accident. They were talking about rerouting the pipes about the time I was let go, so I don't know if it was ever done.

[thecossack]

I'm my own employer, so it's dangerous to say something derogatory. I might have to reprimand myself.

[beemerider500]

Several years ago I worked at a family owned manufacturing company and both second-generation sons took an active part in management. They had five small plants in all, doing similar manufacturing operations. For years they had a policy of dumping the spent grinding coolant (later proven to be a carcinogen) into an earthen pit, outside the back door of the plant. During the late 80's, the EPA inspected the one of the sites and made them exhume the contaminated dirt and have it hauled to an appropriate disposal site. As you can assume, this is a very expensive proposition.
The junior brother (who managed another plant) was a gassed at the prospect of being cited by the EPA and having to pay the disposal costs also, so he decided to take action. He asked the shop foreman to rent a portable cement mixer for a few days and when the foreman asked the purpose, the owner told him it was for washing the dirt. His idea was to load the cement mixer drum with a load of the contaminated soil and then wash it clean with water. I can still remember how the foreman was trying to get the owner to understand “if I take dirt and add water… I get mud”.

[Ace1965]

I work in the parts department of an automobile dealership. This time of year it's starting to get a little warm. In the early morning to early afternoon hours we would like to keep the back garage door open to allow air to flow through and give us a little breeze. When the sun gets too low on that side of the building it would have to be closed because it would get a little too warm back there.

It's easier to do this than to turn the a/c on and waste money. Well our boss doesn't see it that way. He's afraid that someone will come in that huge back door and steal something even though it's in full view of us. So he will come back there and close it himself. When he does this we go right to the a/c switch and turn it on. If he wants to exchange security for wasting money on air conditioning, we can play that game.

[Estreeter]

Originally Posted by Ace1965

than to turn the a/c on .

At least you have one

The knuckleheads I work for are worse. Bear in mind I work in a brick factory, there is a kiln in there about 300 meters long and operates at up too 1400 degrees, when it's 40 degrees outside (100 degrees F +) it's not exactly paradise in the plant. Now this is how idiotic management is, they will not allow the big roller doors open because the dust from the quarry will blow inside and make the plant dirty. Seems that housekeeping too them is far more important than the well being of employees.

Not so bad for us though, being on night shift, after management have gone home we open them anyway

[alspug]

well i have two bad stories so i'll post the worst one . I am a chef and a few years ago i worked at a pub . the management wanted to attract family groups in but at the same time not change anything else . now this pub is a bikie hangout with tity girls selling raffletickets. as it was now a family eating area they decided to tell the topless girls to put a shirt on and then go sell tickets to the family's . well !!!!! you can imagine how many husbands got smacked for looking at the g-string and wondering . lol . as if that was not the worst at some point in time it was found that the exhaust fan was insufficent to pull the hot air out of the kitchen . rather then add a second fan able to do the jobn they added another fan of the same strength. anyway on the hotest day of summer it was found that the fan's had failed . was i allowed to go home no .... i had to cook . the tempreture inside the kitchen climbed to such a point that my waitresses could barely stand and were doing 10 mins on 15 off . i however was not thought off. i ended up nearly passing out staggering out through the back door and throwing up . then i get back inside and due to the heat in the kitchen the girls were sent home leaving me to clean up . i lost 8 or 9 kg that week .

[st4bilo]

Originally Posted by Estreeter

At least you have one

Oh yes, pretty cool if you have one....

The company I worked for, before I began to study,
had build themselfs a large new 3-floor office building
with a complete glass facade. Since the all-glass building
was so expensive, they cheaped out on the a/c.

Ok, so let's open the windows and let the air flow through....
Sorry ? Oh, a facade, no windows, you can't open them!

Well, it was a nice building, at least from the outside,
in the midsummer you were well done at about 2 p.m..

[Night Haunter]

I work nights (I won't say for who, I might incriminate myself) and I have two main Managers - there like politicians, compulsive liars and what I hate most is the fact neither have ever worked nights themselves, yet they seem to know whats best for the nightshift - basically they have'nt got a Scooby Doo whats going on. I would'nt even say there like Laurel and Hardy because that would be insulting. I'd rather have a box of assorted fungi in charge

[otokonomidori]

Not so stupid - they gave me my jotters in 1976.

[Dumbassgo]

Not quite my employer but a fuckwit nonetheless.

I was visiting a supplier - I had to do a detailed assessment of them as we'd had a few problems with the quality of their merchandise (the technicalities of which are too dull to go into). This meant me standing around observing, asking a few questions and making notes.

Some middle management bod from this firm notices me a few times but never speaks or asks what I'm doing. On my 3rd visit this arsehole walks up to me and says something like:

"I've been watching you for a bit now and you do nothing apart from stick your nose in other peoples business - what the fuck do we pay you for?"

Cue me calmly explaining that he did not in fact pay me, quite the opposite, and can I see your superior.

He didn't really understand until I told him that I don't work here and was writing a report on whether their biggest customer would continue using them or not. Never seen a guy go so pale so quickly.

He wasn't there when I went back next month.

Cheers,
Dumbassgo.