how lenient have you become

W

wmthompson90

Member
Location
ky
Occupation
electrician
It is my experience that the days of a guy arriving on time daily, exact amount of time on break and actually quitting time are in the past. some of the best guys on my job are always a 2-15 min late, heading out to the parking lot for lunch a few min early and cleaned up and ready leave to 10 minuets early. I refrain from saying much due to the fact i think the good outweighs the bad. I am not the owner but curious as to how some of you owners may feel about this.
 
For us the foreman set the start, lunch (if we took lunch), and pack up times. Everyone was expected to follow the designated times. As a foreman I was always anal about being on time. If you can be 10 minutes late every day you can be on time. For those habitually tardy guys it meant getting out of bed earlier and getting on an earlier bus or train.

I didn't care to hear your excuses because I would be on the job between 6:00-6:15 for a 7 AM start. That would ensure that I was never late even if there was a transit delay. Guys who couldn't follow the rules I got rid of.
 
I was on one job that I drove two hours to get to every day. I was always there 30 minutes early. Another guy lived 3 miles away, and was always 5-10 minutes late. His excuse was getting behind school buses. We told him to leave the house earlier. Still was late. He was the first to be let go when the job was winding down. I was on another job, where if the employee was late even by a minute, the foreman would tell him go sit down, his time didn’t start for another hour.
 
My first job I was the only guy in our maintenance shop under 40 ( was 18 ) and glad the old timers would get on me if I was not dressed with tool pouch out at staring time & breaks. Would be frustrating if I had a job like replacing a 150 HP VFD in one day and have it up & running one of my fellow sparkies would take a long coffee break and lunch. Would end up working thru lunch to get job done. Told them several times some days you earn your money by putting in extra effort and other days especially Friday afternoon most guys would take it easy. Had a strict engineer that if he caught you coming in for Saturday overtime work with a bad hangover he would have you work in a freezer or hot boiler room or worst yet clean out smelly pits with long shovels.
 
hillbilly1 said:
I was on another job, where if the employee was late even by a minute, the foreman would tell him go sit down, his time didn’t start for another hour.
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Back when I was an apprentice we would start at 7:30 AM. The foreman had a 1½-2 hour bus commute and he was on the job an hour before starting time. His motto was "minute late start at 8". Guys who came in late sat down and lost a ½ hour of pay.
 
Apparently one of nature's rules..... I've had guys who were perpetually late with "legitimate" excuses (had to drop kids off, etc)... adjusted their start time to accommodate and they would still be late.
As inn hillbilly's case..when work got slow he was the 1st to let go.
(I was always at least 1/2 hr early...still do that in retirement when family sets time for dinners etc.)
 
The way I looked at it was, take a job with 10 (most times more) employees starting 10 minutes after start time, taking an extra 10 minutes at lunch, picking up 10 minutes early equals 300 minutes or 5hrs a day. 5 x 5 days =25 hrs per week. 25 x 4 = 100 hrs of paid time per month not worked.

We taught foremen and supervisors some of the most important times of the day they needed to be seen on the job site or at the gang boxes was starting time, break time, lunch time, and quitting times.

It sounds extreme but the math is 8 hour days equate to 480 minutes of production expected. Of course we know that is not real but dead time can be reduced.
 
hillbilly1 said:
I was on one job that I drove two hours to get to every day. I was always there 30 minutes early. Another guy lived 3 miles away, and was always 5-10 minutes late. His excuse was getting behind school buses. We told him to leave the house earlier. Still was late. He was the first to be let go when the job was winding down. I was on another job, where if the employee was late even by a minute, the foreman would tell him go sit down, his time didn’t start for another hour.
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Had same situation. One guy drove an hour to the site. Always there 30 minutes early. Other guy within 10 minutes of the site. Constantly 5-10 minutes late. Started docking pay for every 15 minutes late. He wasn't happy. Didn't straighten up and I eventually fired him.

Another showed up on time but sipped his coffee for 15 minutes. Told him I would dock his pay. He straightened up.
 
roger said:
The way I looked at it was, take a job with 10 (most times more) employees starting 10 minutes after start time, taking an extra 10 minutes at lunch, picking up 10 minutes early equals 300 minutes or 5hrs a day. 5 x 5 days =25 hrs per week. 25 x 4 = 100 hrs of paid time per month not worked.

We taught foremen and supervisors some of the most important times of the day they needed to be seen on the job site or at the gang boxes was starting time, break time, lunch time, and quitting times.

It sounds extreme but the math is 8 hour days equate to 480 minutes of production expected. Of course we know that is not real but dead time can be reduced.
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Yes the losses add up quickly especially on large projects with 100 electricians. For big jobs we would have a brass board. Basically a board with 100+ brass medallions each with a number. Each worker had a number and would take their brass off the board when they arrived on the job in the morning. Those brass pieces still there at starting time were either late or absent. At the end of the day everyone returned to hand in their brass to a foreman at the designated time. Not a foolproof system but it was effective.
 
We did a lot of breakdowns - any time of the day or the night. You couldn't just decide at the time of the day.
 
ptonsparky said:
I did get frustrated when being late held up the rest of the crew.
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That is what can be a problem. Especially when the place you show up is not the same place where the actual working is to take place. Worse yet if you have a rather definite appointment time to be somewhere at a certain time.

But this attitude is showing up at all sorts of places not just construction related work. Manufacturing client I have has gone through this with employees. They show up if or when they feel like it. It is only tolerated for so long but if you need help and it happens to be there, kind of hard to tell them to leave, especially when you know many potential replacements have similar attitude.
 
ptonsparky said:
I think, if something broke down, you went.
We had a couple good customers that operated 24/7 for 9 months of the year. When they called we went. Time started at the phone call & ended when we got home.
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And in many instances production losses during unscheduled down time cost them more than you are costing them to get things running again. Particularly in plants that operate 24/7, the production schedule very possibly moves back by however long the downtime was. Can create other problems in shipping/receiving as well.

In agriculture like you or I have dealt with - livestock needs feed, water, ventilation, or medical treatment at the right times or herd health and bottom line is impacted.
 
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