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passionatebach
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14 Dec 2009, 1:13 am

Is anyone ever told that they have to pick up the speed at work?

I work in the call center of a well known retailer, and the company keeps stats on our efficency. I often treat the customers very well and try to solve their problems for them tp the best of my abilities. My problem comes in where I don't move along quick enough. My phone calls and chats either take to long, or I spend too much time off of the phone. Part of it has to do with the fact that I have problems with multitaksing, also I have problems focusing on the work if I do it for long periods of time, my mind needs to wander.

Does anyone else run into problems with effeciency at work and have to be told to move along? How do you deal with this?



14 Dec 2009, 1:43 am

Yes and then I'd get told I was going too fast. :roll:



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14 Dec 2009, 6:09 am

I clean offices and when I started I got a lot of pressure about being too slow. Then they started noticing my clients were happy and loyal. Everyone else was getting cancellations right and left; so they shut up. I don't know if the same would apply in what you do, but if you can show you get better results your way, maybe they'll back off.


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luvsterriers
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14 Dec 2009, 8:15 am

I believe when a co worker is telling someone that they are going too slow, then that's a disability discrimination. We all learn differently. Some at work have asked me when I could have it done by. When a co worker forces me to go faster, then I make mistakes. I have to go at my own pace otherwise I will get confused and do it all wrong.


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zer0netgain
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14 Dec 2009, 9:03 am

Most businesses make money based on volume. So, they push even the NTs to go faster and faster.

Unless you work unusually slow, such employers are pushing just for the sake of pushing. How slow is too slow? Well, that's something an employer needs to qualify based on some standard. If the average person working at a steady pace can produce 100 units per hour, then if you're doing 70 an hour it's clear you're going too slow. However, most employers don't have such a standard, and absent a circumstance such as working on an assembly line, it'd be hard to set such a figure.



emc2
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15 Dec 2009, 8:19 am

I worked in two call centres, about a decade ago, for about four years in total.

At the second one, I got this supervisor, but obviously the focus on stats was coming from management - the supervisor, picked up that I was logging on to my phone a minute late; and my talk time on average was 10 seconds too high.

I think you may find the same situation in any call centre, so use your time there, or on the way home to think about what other jobs might be better for you.

But don't feel you are doing anything wrong either, call centres have an awfully high turnover rate.



metalrockpwnmusic
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20 Apr 2010, 11:54 am

At my job, i'm pretty good at what I do, I work at a document destruction management company in the west end of Toronto. There are days where I go out on the road which I find is fun, but sometimes it can be a bit slow, sometimes i've been told by my boss to hurry it up, well HOW THE f**k AM I SUPPOSED TO HURRY UP IF HE'S PUT TOO MANY IRONS IN THE FIRE (MEANING TOO MANY CALLS ON THE DAILY ROUTE SUMMARY). There's also the other job where I have to unload the trucks filled with paper and bins and s**t into the trailer and that just bores the s**t out of me and I find i'm slower at that job if the truck is dangerously full. The other day he sent me home 'cuz I was slow at unloading the trailer all because I WAS SICK FOR CHRIST SAKE :evil: :evil: :evil: . Like why the f**k can't he accept me just working at my own pace I mean i've only been there for over 4 months, it's not like i've been there a year.



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21 Apr 2010, 12:22 pm

I've never been fast enough for most jobs.


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Worldtraveler
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21 Apr 2010, 2:39 pm

That is just part of their "pressure" game to make the monkeys work faster for the same pay.

Taylorism it is called. Look it up.

When I was young I fell for that BS.

Now I work at a pace so I will last 20 years in a job or nothing gets done.
And if they want to have some "efficiency" I ask them how much more I will get paid for it.
Then magicly, they dont want "efficiency X" any more LOL!



passionatebach
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22 Apr 2010, 12:24 am

Worldtraveler wrote:
That is just part of their "pressure" game to make the monkeys work faster for the same pay.

Taylorism it is called. Look it up.


I had never heard of this up to this point. I had attributed this to Henry Ford all of these years!



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24 Apr 2010, 2:24 pm

Actually I have this exact problem.

I once worked in an office...I was hired for a particular position but it turns out they needed a secretary also and so pegged a lot of that crap on me.

Well one day I was asked to print out something for one of the other workers, who was not my boss but had been with the company for a long time and was close friends with the boss, and they were both expecting these papers, while the boss had asked me to complete another task which required a lot of concentration.

Well the papers had to be organized and stapled, which only took a moment, but it took between 15 and 45 seconds to print each section. So what can you really do as far as other continuous tasks in 15 to 45 seconds? Nothing right? Unless you work as fast as a squirrel and you mind has ultra fast task twitching abilities.

I do not see how it was humanly possible to work on these two projects simultaneously so while I was sitting there waiting for one of the sections to finish printing (30 seconds), one of them, I forgot which, came over and gave me lip about just sitting there.

You have to understand, the most of us are not wired for multitasking. We are wired for highly specialized subjects, which we can excel at far better than others.

It is like some people are average computers that run MS Windows. They can do a lot of things at once but these are average every day things. And many of us with AS/autism are like specially designed supercomputers. We can do one very complex thing at a time, like mapping the human genome.

I mean that figuratively of course.



AardvarkGoodSwimmer
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25 Apr 2010, 4:38 pm

metalrockpwnmusic wrote:
. . . and I find i'm slower at that job if the truck is dangerously full. The other day he sent me home 'cuz I was slow at unloading the trailer all because I WAS SICK FOR CHRIST SAKE :evil: :evil: :evil: . . .

And of course, a person has to go slower in this case. With the truck overloaded, and with items probably shifted in transport, you have to be very deliberative about it. You have to take it very much in a step-by-step fashion. And any boss worth his or her salt should understand this. I mean, it's a heck of a lot better for an employee to take their time than it is to pay out workers' comp claims! I mean, it's not even close. And this is just for an average boss.

A really good boss might ask you to go do another task, or ask you to step away for a few minutes while he talks to the senior driver, in order to reduce the guy's embarrassment. 'I know we sometimes get a route that turns out heavier than expected . . . '

'We just can't risk workers' comp claims.'

And that way kind of depersonalizes it. He takes it sideways and a little bit takes the onus off the guy, although still making his point. It's not him, it's this external standard of 'workers' comp.' Again, that's a good boss.

And this guy, just doesn't seem that engaged in what's going on, and blames outcome in an inaccurate way (yeah, if the truck is filled to its gills, yeah, it's going to take longer to unload it, yeah, no sh**, Sherlock!)

And with the guy being that way, that puts you in a difficult situation. Start looking for another job earlier. That's my number one advice. I wish it was different, but what you've told us so far, it seems clear enough, this is just not a reality-oriented guy. So, look for another job---on your own terms. And just think how good it will be to have a boss who's a reasonable individual!

In the meantime, maybe, maybe make some compromises on some small issues of technical 'safety,' maybe, that has to be your personal decision. Please do not make any big compromises on issues of substantive safety. And an overloaded truck, that is a genuine, real safety issue. (I only bring this up, because I've sometimes decided not to make any compromises, and it's a burden to carry this out on the small issues, then I might give up and compromise on a substantive issue. Don't do that.)

---------------------------------

The part about being sick, this has happened to me, too. I get criticized for being sick and slower. Gee, I'm sorry I came in in the first place! Again, a good boss, well, an employee coming in, esp at the beginning of someone having a cold or flu when I understand a person is most infectious, is not exactly doing other employees a favor! However, this one, the social 'norm,' and I don't understand why, is for a person to come in anyway.

And I guess the solution, just be firm and matter-of-fact. 'Too sick to come in.' The person's not a doctor, don't really need to give more information than that. Or, if the person pushes, be ready to give one and only one bit of information, for example 'fever of 101.5' (bump it up if necessary, yes, that is, lie if necessary), but no more information than that. And it's a shame this is necessary. It's a shame they just can't treat you as an adult.

And again, it sounds like this guy is pretty nonobservant and pretty nonengaged. Often, when a person is sick, their voice sounds different, or their color is different, or they're hotter and sweating more or shivering when it's not really cold, etc.

Roughly, 20% of bosses I would classify as good bosses. 60% are in the sloppy medium, and that's fine, you can work in that situation (most of the time, sometimes luck comes into play), fine to be middle of the road. 20% are bad bosses. Some of these you can actually work with, but some of them you can't. And it sounds like this character is in this lower 20%!



Electricbassguy
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25 Apr 2010, 9:12 pm

I have gotten this a lot and to be honest I choose to ignore it. Some people prefer to rush and lower the quality of their work and call it "faster" but when you have to correct all your mistakes you waste a lot of time.



cleo
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10 May 2010, 2:40 pm

Yes. At the first job I tried out of high school. The job required one to produce a certain amount of work per day. It was a small business and the owner needed everyone to produce. I could not. I was asked to leave.

Amusingly, this was an art-related job, which I thought was what I wanted to do. Tried something else and found out I was really FAST when it came to accounting and numbers. The job in an accounting office lasted for 4 years, no problems. My math is indisputable.

Went from that to a science degree, and found my real niche in research where we get years to produce results. Plus there is a lot of numbers. Love putting data in columns and adding up all the results that match. SO much better than designing business cards.

:)



mra1200
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11 May 2010, 4:05 am

finally a topic on this site that doesn't make me shake my head and go WTF???

yes, I've had this problem at most if not all my jobs, and was specifically let go from my last job (last April) because I don't have the organizational skills to keep up with the pace that's required at this business. It's been at the back of my mind for quite some time that I do have this problem, but I always thought that with hard work and determination I'd be able to overcome it. almost 20 years in the working world, and I've never been able to figure out how...



Basperger
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11 May 2010, 2:05 pm

I also worked in a call center, but it was based on quality and not quantity, I've almost made it to operational manager, but then there was a merger and they swapped quality and quantity, I got stuck and searched for another job, because I couldn't reach the "required" quantities.
Next job was in an electronics company, very very interesting and fun, but again...too slow. They tried to fire me after 3 months, after 6 months the judge made a settlement, been unemployed 9 months now.

I don't understand why quantity comes before quality. If you deliver quality, you have happy customers, who buy more products.