I remember when I was a branch chief at HQ AMC in the 2010-2012 timeframe. We were severely short staffed. Everyone was working overtime, but the 2Digit front office was screaming about overtime for civilians, most of whom were retired military. The ones that ate their lunch at their desk, because they cared about the mission. Our Div Chief had the nerve to tell them that if they “didn’t want to” they didn’t have to log overtime hours. Nod nod, wink wink. I told them over my dead body would I allow that to happen. If they didn’t log the hours, the front office had no idea how overworked we were. The front office finally got a clue. Workload didn’t decrease, but they did bring in some active duty to fill empty positions so the workload was spread out.
I see stuff like that as just a soft-edged form of fraud. It's stealing time from people, or attempting to, which is no different than taking money out of their earnings. I saw a lot of this in the USAF but it was multiples worse at Amazon. Everyone was working way beyond their contract and no one really even wanted to look at the problem, because fixing it would have been damned expensive. The answer to this chronic under-staffing was to reduce staffing even more. Absolutely maddening.
Your description of burnout at the beginning was 100% on target. I've suffered it twice in my work career and as a result have been a staunch Worker B. I'm not going past my limits again. I got lucky to have sudden changes of environment save my desire to work in both instances. Where's the guarantee I'll get that a third time before it costs me so much more?
I remember when I was a branch chief at HQ AMC in the 2010-2012 timeframe. We were severely short staffed. Everyone was working overtime, but the 2Digit front office was screaming about overtime for civilians, most of whom were retired military. The ones that ate their lunch at their desk, because they cared about the mission. Our Div Chief had the nerve to tell them that if they “didn’t want to” they didn’t have to log overtime hours. Nod nod, wink wink. I told them over my dead body would I allow that to happen. If they didn’t log the hours, the front office had no idea how overworked we were. The front office finally got a clue. Workload didn’t decrease, but they did bring in some active duty to fill empty positions so the workload was spread out.
Still pisses me off when I think about it.
I see stuff like that as just a soft-edged form of fraud. It's stealing time from people, or attempting to, which is no different than taking money out of their earnings. I saw a lot of this in the USAF but it was multiples worse at Amazon. Everyone was working way beyond their contract and no one really even wanted to look at the problem, because fixing it would have been damned expensive. The answer to this chronic under-staffing was to reduce staffing even more. Absolutely maddening.
Your description of burnout at the beginning was 100% on target. I've suffered it twice in my work career and as a result have been a staunch Worker B. I'm not going past my limits again. I got lucky to have sudden changes of environment save my desire to work in both instances. Where's the guarantee I'll get that a third time before it costs me so much more?