Sabotaging the Work

Management has only one responsibility, only one task: To make sure that the workers have what they need to do their job. It's no rocket science, except to those who actually hold the management positions. Then think of all the assistance that your typical manager has! There are reams of books, reviews of those books and, for every possible decision, there are country-wide surveys to show effectiveness. For example, there have been dozens of studies of 'flex-time' in it's various incarnations and every single one mentions increases in productivity and a decline in absenteeism. That would mean that every since company would want to jump on it? Wrong! The most prevalent response is "Well it won't work for this company (or business)". However, if management can frustrate the workforce, they jump on it immediately.

I worked at a major military manufacturer for roughly one year back in the '70's. It was a co-op job. The strangest thing I noticed there on the first day was that, although the company had provided vending machines all over all the buildings, each had the coin slot drilled out to fit a padlock. Unless you removed the padlock, you couldn't put coins in the slot! Once a day, during the lunch half-hour, a supervisor would come by and unlock the coin slot. By that time, there would usually be a line 4 or 5 deep in front of the machine.

Why did this happen? Nobody seemed to know. But where there is a will, there is a way and people will get their coffee. Catering trucks would pull up in front of each building and the people would stream out. Even the management would send their secretaries out to get coffee.

This would not last. A memo from someone on high (if I told you the name, you'd know the company) setting forth a new policy that nobody was allowed to go out of the building to get anything from the caterers. I was a young kid that knew very little at that time, so this struck me as absurd. So I responded to the 'someone' with my own memo. However I wasn't so stupid, I added a line that caused 5 levels of management to quiver with fear. I added a line to the effect that maybe they should be looking at those managers that have so little to do that they are watching people out the windows. Even then, I heard nothing for a long time. Since this was a co-op job, they waited until the last day before I went back to college. Then I found out that the guy I had memo'ed was 5 levels of management above me. I was interviewed by each manager on the way up, including Mr. Upper Management. The main question they all wanted to know was "Who was the manager with nothing do?". I would like to note that every manager I talked to, had a cup of coffee in their office.

But when I finally got to the top of the management ladder, I found out why they locked the slots on the vending machines. It seemed that the military branch they built stuff for, had done a survey on productivity at that location. They had seen a number of people drinking coffee. As soon as management saw that in the report, they acted with alacrity! Maintenance was out there drilling immediately.

If you've ever been in an engineering environment, a cup of coffee doesn't slow down productivity, but rather enhances it. But as you can see, as soon as they have even a whiff of a reason, they're overly willing to make things worse for the workforce.