It's all coming back to me now

This is a story I heard awhile ago at a motivational speech and it is such a good analogy.

There once was a man who got a puppy. The man didn't want the puppy to wander from the yard so he purchased an invisible fence with the shock collar. The man slipped the collar onto his puppy and put the dog outside. Being the puppy that he was he bounded down off the steps and toward the trees. As he reached the treeline he passed a small white flag and he felt a terrible jolt in his neck. He yelped and ran back to the porch. This happened many more times over the course of a few days. The puppy realized he was doing something wrong but he didn't know what it was and soon learned that he had to stay on the porch to avoid that terrible shock. The owner thought he had a well behaved puppy who stayed on the porch. They were both wrong. The puppy was never shown the boundary lines. He didn't know he had the whole yard. He just knew that when he went off the porch he got zapped. The owner didn't know that HE had to TEACH the puppy the boundary and that the fence was simply for re-enforcing that learning. If the dog got zapped then the owner figured it was the dog's fault for crossing the boundary. A boundary that was never clear to the pup.

That's what happens in industry these days. Employees are not given clear and reasonable boundaries to work within and the boss will zap them when they cross them.


I escaped the world of warehouses and production work almost 6 years ago.
I have not missed it for a moment.
The micro-managing of time.
Job codes.
Clock swipes.
"you were two min late from break 3 times last year"
"you were on the wrong job code for 5 min yesterday"
"why did it take you 11 min to do a 3 min job?"

The nit picking is ridiculous. Who ever came up with the idea that a grown person needs to be watched more closely than a toddler must have had control issues. I know that some people can't be trusted to keep busy. I know that the company has to have some way of tracking their stats and workload but managing by the minute? If the employees know who the fuck offs are why doesn't management? Am I the only one who sees the crazness of this?

I lived this craziness for 9 years when I worked at the great L*LBe@n. When I say craziness that's exactly what it does to you. It makes you crazy. It makes you on edge and more focused on the clock and having the correct "punch" than on the job you are actually doing. It causes discourse and distrust between leadership and employees. It crushes any confidence a person may have in himself and stymies careers. I have seen people held back from promotions because their job punches were off by minutes more than once which automatically becomes a "pattern of behavior".

I have been on "action plans" to help me "mend my ways" and "become a better employee". Well guess what? It doesn't work. All I became was a dog afraid to go off the porch. I did what I was told when I was told to do it. And Prayed. Alot. That I could be the good girl that they wanted knowing all to well the other shoe would drop sooner or later.

It did drop and I was devastated. But it was the best thing that happened to me. I have gone much further in my current job in 5 years than I would have ever done at Be@ns.

I have a friend who is struggling. Seems he is getting zapped every time he even looks at the steps let alone goes off them. His self esteem is crap right now because he has been brainwashed into thinking his job is doing HIM a favor by letting him come there. He is much better than that. And I told him that. I've encouraged him to look elsewhere. He at least needs to find his value as a person again and realize that that job is not the last job on Earth.

Even hearing the stories makes me cringe. Makes me remember the days of walking up the walkway and feeling that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. Dreading going to work. Dreading Mon-Fri in my life.

I hope my friend finds tranquility soon and I really hope he gets a new job and tells the old to "Take this job and SHOVE IT"