P and P

When it comes to perspective and perception, I have an opinion.  I put my hundred percent into my work.  I expect the same from my co-worker who make the same amount of money I make.   Until recently that I realized I was so off. 

One, my co-worker who did not like to work hard took advantage of the fact that we have a lay back supervisor who let us sort things out ourselves.  Becaues we all cool with one another, we sort of let things slide.  I think I mention this young man once in my earlier post.  You know the one that almost die from a projectile shot at him.  What I learn from this young man before he was fired was, if you bring home the money, you are not lazy.  What happen was, my Indian friend was picking on him because he was really laying back.  One day the young man got really mad and wanted to fight.  My Indian friend shouted at him by telling him that he was lazy.  One reply was all it took to let us know he is not a lazy person.  The reply was, “How can you can me lazy when I take home 40 hours worth of pay every week?”

I was amazing with his mote of thinking.  After that we all take a step back and re-examine how we work.  The boss want the work done and done on time…and he want us to work as a team.  Being we don’t snitch on each other and the work is getting done, everything was fine.  It was us who got upset with the young man on our own.   His family don’t ask him if he was being lazy at work or not.  All they care was the direct deposit pay day.  How can we call a man lazy when he provide for his family?   He was let go on other charges, not for being lazy.

Two, we recently hired a few more employees from the temp agency.  A lot of them, I know, will not be offer a permanent position.  It has been two month since this older Hindi gentleman came on board.  So he is 59 but act as if he is 69.  He was one cocky old guy.  So they put him with me to be trained.  We have to show them how to do the work so they can help us effectively.  Normally, we would get a guy who has some to a lot of experience but this man.  I don’t know he got into the company.   He claimed he had work in this kind of field before.  He can’t even handle a simple tool.  He walked into the place expect special treatment.  It’s two months now.  What takes me 1 hour to do will take him 3.  Everyone on the department know he definitely came from a totally different field.  He seems to have a hard time whenever he has to focus on a task but when he is on break he is on a cell phone laughing and joking with someone all fine and good.  He seems to be using his age on me.   I help him as much as I can so he can be of help to us. 

It has two months, this man shows no sign of improvement.  I think because of the economy, the company decided to help out by give people job and let them stay on.  But for us who has to work for these people who don’t seem to appreciate at all what we had to put up with.   1 out of 4 is good now.   One guy got mad at me because I recomment him being move out of our department.  This guy move like pond water.   He took fours to do what we can do in 30 minutes plus he seemed to think he got all days.  We tried to tell him we do have time limit to get each job done.

Anyway my friend here are the same way, he shows interest in the job but he just has no skill or talents with tools and designs.  After we realized that our leadman, supervisor, and manager are ignoring the matter, we decided to do the same, just let them do what they can.  So what happen was, my Indian friend came and ask me what we can do about this.  I simply has to put him in his place and make him realize, “it is” is what it is.   I had to take him to a point beyond perception.  I told him to think about it.  I told him the older gentleman charge the company more money than we do to do a job.  He makes $40 while we make only $20 doing the same job meaning the longer it takes him to do something the more money he would make.   Why does he has to hurry when the job still getting done and done on time?  After thinking about what I said, my Indian friend got it.  He said to me in return, “So if I take longer to do the same task, my money will go up.”  I said, “That’s right.  You were complaining about the new hire works slower and do less but make the same amount of money or more.”  I agreed that he too can make more money by charging more for his time.  It just that he has to slow time on completing each task.  That way, he can feel he makes more or the same amount of money as the new people who just got hired.

You see, we got to go beyond the point of perception.  All the time, it was our mind that worked us.  The young man who screamed he is not lazy saw as long as he make money and bring home the bacon, no one at home will question.  Next, by looking deeper into the situation, we were able to realize that the old man did not work slow, he simply charge more for his time.  Since he is paid by time he work less.  

Both men work ethic is not important here.  They know that.   The young man actually thinks that his being at work helped out already.  The older man who probably had been there done that walked into the company with a determination to go through each day getting paid well.  Even paid well is the same as work less than his co-worker.  What works for him is he is charging more for him time being at work.

So I conclude that in order to be at peace we must look beyond our own point of perception and examine perspective of others.