Mar. 02, 2007 - 22:51 MST

SORTED OUT ?

Finding one's way through the maze of mirrors obscured by all that smoke is often difficult to say the least. An article from The Associated Press in today's The Rocky Mountain News does make something plain that I suspected all along. And something I resisted in my working life. Under a heading of AT THE WATER COOLER the article is quoted in full:

NOT UNDERPAID, JUST OVER-TITLED

"Nearly hjalf of employees feel that they're underpaid, a new survey shows, but less than 22 per cent actually are."

"The real culprit behind paycheck dissatisfaction: impressive job titles."

"We found that 30 percent of respondents were likely over-titled, leading many to feel underpaid when in reality an inflated job title was the real issue," said Bill Coleman, senior vice president of compensation at Salary.comInc. which provides on-demand compensation information."

"Coleman also pointed out that 15 percent of respondents were actually overpaid for their jobs, based on a comparison of their responses to the company's database."

"Still, three out of five employees plan to look for a new job in the next three months, the survey said, which may surprise HR professionals who believe only 36 percent are job hunting."

"Nearly three-fourths of employees said they've updated their resumes, compared with only 32 percent estimated by HB professionals."

"Eight out of ten employees reported surfing online job postings, while HR estimates that only 40 percent have done so."

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The ins and outs of the business world, which includes factories and such and strange to say the least and are slanted toward the employer's benifit of course, I think.

I remember working piece work in factories and developing a short cut on a job which saved me time per piece, thus allowing me to make a bit more per hour. The same pay for the piece produced, but the company never saw things that way. Then came the time-study man with his clipboard and stop watch. End result ? Having to jump through my tail to survive on the job as the quota would be pushed up. Found out that was the norm for that type of thing, many old hands had horror tales to tell about that.

Another place I worked had an efficiency expert firm come in. We were given forms to fill out every day, where we had to list what we were doing each and every minute of our eight hour day. That sort of died an unnatural death when the uptown desk jockeys finally decided that we were spending too much time filling out those damnable sheets.

Several places I worked came up with a reorganization plan, a sort of gather the deck of "crew", shuffle it and deal it out. Offering each of us a "promotion" which in the end amounted to a fancy title and less money per hour worked.

I didn't think then and don't think now that things like that are fair to the employees and feel that in the end the employer will suffer because of the poor morale of the employees -- which surely downgrades out put.

But, along the line, the biggies keep trying the same old things, expecting different results each time. A line of thinking my AA sponsor termed "alcoholic thinking" and indicates a lack of intelligence to me.

Sometimes, noting the folks who want a job and a paycheck without doing a damn thing to earn it and, as well, noting the employers whose ideal would be a bunch of people who would work for nothing -- I wonder, will they all eventually get it SORTED OUT ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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