Ok this guy is driving me nuts

[AndyG]

Great worker.

Has questions. Lots. Won’t shut up long enough to receive instructions.

“Andy, does this cabinet go””?”

Me - “No John”

Him - “So it stays? “


I mean really? Like what choice do we have do we wanna send it to a parallel universe?


The time he wastes on this crap is enormous and misses things that need to be done.

 

[JEEPCJTJ]

Similar on the surface but not quite the same:

Years ago, back in a union machine shop, I had an employee that I knew could do anything that needed done. I never doubted him. He could have worked his way so far up the ladder that he would have been my boss, if not my boss's boss.

I never understood why but he asked the same questions (thousands of times over the years) which had the same answers (even when I forced him to come up with the answer). Example: Should I use a caliper or a micrometer to measure this part I'm making?

I think maybe he needed his wife to give him permission to make a decision. He ended up spending 20+ years in that union.

 

[sab]

Years ago, back in a union machine shop...

I never understood why...

Answered, and asked. I know I'll get some pro-union fellers' grief, but I was a member of a paper-mill workers union, and when I was at Harley-Davidson, the race mechanics were union members for a while. Unions do not promote efficiency. They promote the opposite. It's socialism, after all.

 

[WestCoastDan]

Is the guy capable of following a written scope of work?
I'm just wondering if instead of expecting a young, inexperienced employee to understand and follow traditional instructions, maybe it's time for you to accept that the way to communicate with these employees has to change to meet their capabilities.

I once had to spray red paint on the items that needed to be removed, then the instructions were 100% clear, regardless of the language barrier we were battling.
I don't think it's a language barrier on your end, but it is a communication issue.

Also, is it possible that your experience takes things for granted that his lack of experience simply cannot?

Think of it like this. Telling a 6 year old to 'clean their room' vs telling a 15 yo the same thing will yield different results, even though they were given the exact same instruction.

 

[Chris]

Him - “So it stays? “

In fairness, I might respond back with that as a rhetorical question. Maybe it was rhetorical?

 

[AndyG]

Answered, and asked. I know I'll get some pro-union fellers' grief, but I was a member of a paper-mill workers union, and when I was at Harley-Davidson, the race mechanics were union members for a while. Unions do not promote efficiency. They promote the opposite. It's socialism, after all.

Unions have outlived their purpose.

 

[AndyG]

In fairness, I might respond back with that as a rhetorical question. Maybe it was rhetorical?

Beats me- he would give a headache to an aspirin.

Here is an odd one- he does not take social queues.

I have a picture of him at the local diner going through the tip jar looking for bicentennial coins to trade out.

I had to tell him 6 -8 times at church “I don’t want to talk work at church”. Even once in front of someone to embarrass him enough to see himself. Still does it.

 

[AndyG]

Is the guy capable of following a written scope of work?
I'm just wondering if instead of expecting a young, inexperienced employee to understand and follow traditional instructions, maybe it's time for you to accept that the way to communicate with these employees has to change to meet their capabilities.

I once had to spray red paint on the items that needed to be removed, then the instructions were 100% clear, regardless of the language barrier we were battling.
I don't think it's a language barrier on your end, but it is a communication issue.

Also, is it possible that your experience takes things for granted that his lack of experience simply cannot?

Think of it like this. Telling a 6 year old to 'clean their room' vs telling a 15 yo the same thing will yield different results, even though they were given the exact same instruction.

I put it all in writing monday- then spent 20 minutes answering questions at the job starts with “see the work list” over and over.

Truth is his processing ability is just different. No question.

 

[Chris]

Beats me- he would give a headache to an aspirin.

Here is an odd one- he does not take social queues.

I have a picture of him at the local diner going through the tip jar looking for bicentennial coins to trade out.

I had to tell him 6 -8 times at church “I don’t want to talk work at church”. Even once in front of someone to embarrass him enough to see himself. Still does it.

Maybe he's on the spectrum.

 

[AndyG]

Maybe he's on the spectrum.

He does have a learning disability- no joke.

You know years back, lots of that stuff went completely undiagnosed. He is in his 60’s.

I have an uncle who was dyslexic and he ultimately dropped out of school and luckily he was able to make it pretty good in life but they didn’t understand why he didn’t understand, so to speak.

 

[DavidBT]

As a retired Union member pulling a pension from the Laborers Union and Operators Union, I have a comfortable retirement. Are all Unions the same, I don't think so. I made a good wage and had good health benefits, and still do.

 

[Zorba]

Here is an odd one- he does not take social queues.

Ah! He's (most likely) an "Aspie" - Asperger's Syndrome, a mild-to-moderate form of Autism. "On the spectrum" as the saying goes - I myself am such, although on the mild end. We don't know about social cues, we have to learn them and consider many such to be illogical and silly.

 

[sab]

"On the spectrum" as the saying goes - I myself am such, although on the mild end.

Mild? Really?

 

[Zorba]

Mild? Really?

Really. Trust me. I can learn some of this social shit, but many can't learn ANY of it. One thing virtually all "Aspies" agree on: Neurotypicals don't make a lot of sense much of the time!

 

[rob@fain]

I worked at a couple of union shops (Tree machine). we made good vertical mills and some high speed chucker, but the Union Finally shut us down.
It was a sad day

 

[BlueC]

Great worker.

Has questions. Lots. Won’t shut up long enough to receive instructions.

“Andy, does this cabinet go””?”

Me - “No John”

Him - “So it stays? “


I mean really? Like what choice do we have do we wanna send it to a parallel universe?


The time he wastes on this crap is enormous and misses things that need to be done.

I had no idea my mother got another job. I also didn't know she was going by "John", must be for tax reasons. I'd just like to thank you for giving her something to do during the day.

 

[ColoJeep]

I put it all in writing monday- then spent 20 minutes answering questions at the job starts with “see the work list” over and over.

Truth is his processing ability is just different. No question.

I faced the same challenge with one of my guys , As a county facilities supervisor I was responsible to "make things happen".
I constantly had to redirect him to the task at hand , he would continually drift from what he was assigned . He was the King of Scope Creep.
If he had a work order to repair a door latch in the courthouse built in 1900 , he would start on the latch and then convince the people in the office that he could refinish all the extensive casework around the doors and windows.
His favorite ploy was to go rogue and convince folks they need to have the jobs done that he wanted to do. However , I had to intervene with the office folks and explain why we couldn't restore everything ! Constant stress.

I needed him to repair the latch , nothing more . I had a small crew , and I had to define the scope of work and the time available for that work.

I totally have lived your present challenge AndyG. I took the same approach you are trying , with mixed results. He would do well for weeks then go off the rails.
Last year I was real sick with type A flu and was off work for 3 days , our manager and him got into an argument, the manager suspended him for a week .
The County Manager heard about the argument and fired him. All while I was away. Hang in there , hopefully your guy catches on to what you need from him and it ends better than my experience.

 

[sab]

I worked at a couple of union shops (Tree machine). we made good vertical mills and some high speed chucker, but the Union Finally shut us down.
It was a sad day

That's sad. I've used a Tree vertical mill a few times over the years - every bit as good as the ubiquitous Bridgeports!

 

[Claytone]

He is in his 60’s.

I doubt you're gonna change this guy. Maybe if he was 20.

 

[ColoJeep]

I doubt you're gonna change this guy. Maybe if he was 20.

The guy I was speaking of was also 61. Mixed results at best.