Re: I survived!!

[Guest guest]

Glad to hear things went well . No break for 6 days? How old are the

girls? Rest up good for the next round .

Gail :-)

<< Hey all,

I survived living at my neighbor's. I was there for 6 days 24 hrs with 3

girls plus a puppy. . It was long but I enjoyed it. .

I'm just recoperating b4 I go back there from sun-Tuesday. . hope y'all are

doing great, and hope y'all have a good last day in April 2003.

>>

[Guest guest]

Gail,

The girls aged were 1 1/2, 3 and a 6 yr old. The only time that I was on a

break for just me was Thursday morning, and Sunday evening for an hour.

Glad to hear things went well .  No break for 6 days?  How old are the

girls?  Rest up good for the next round .

Gail  :-)

<< Hey all,

  I survived living at my neighbor's.  I was there for 6 days 24 hrs with 3

girls plus a puppy. . It was long but I enjoyed it. .

  I'm just recoperating b4 I go back there from sun-Tuesday. . hope y'all are

doing great, and hope y'all have a good last day in April 2003.

  >>

--

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[Guest guest]

Hi Karel,

Congratulations on your new position BUT when you say:

>>>> " She had been giving me extremely

poor references to everyone, but other managers hadn't been willing to tell

me what she said; said it was " private and priviledged " information. "

that is not exactly correct!

When I was in management we were told that the ONLY things we could say about an

employee either still in our employ, having quit or dismissed was; date of

hire, length of employment and would we hire them again.You have a legal right

to know who said what about your references. It was a matter of covering the

company's hind-end for legal ramifications because you HAVE to be able to prove

every little thing you say in your reference when the employee asks to see who

said what!

We could not say " we suspected them of stealing, they were lazy, they were

sloppy in their work or appearance or even they did not live up to the standards

of the company. If and since she said anything against you she has to have

documentation to prove it or her hinny can be in trouble, probably not only at

the DMV either!

It is YOUR privileged information not theirs! It might be interesting to see

what the old soldier actually said about you! Or maybe you don't give a rip

anymore and are just happy to be out of " Sally Soldier's " infantry division!

Again congratulations!

I survived!!

Several months ago, I e-mailed everyone asking for ideas about what to do

with my extremely " difficult " manager at the Oregon DMV. She had been an

Army Sargeant for 20 years (desk job only, from my understanding) and firmly

believes that she is still there and that we are all new recruits fresh off

the bus, ready for boot camp.

Well, for some reason, she's still there--BUT I'M NOT!!!

After 3 1/2 years of (excuse me) Hell and about 300 interviews later (I kept

track of each and every one), I now have a job at the Oregon Department of

Transportation in a different building. YIPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Believe me, I've been jumping up and down for joy for the last 2 weeks!

It's not really a promotion, but at least I'm out of Hell.

My now ex-manager is not happy because she's losing an excellent worker who

processed twice the documents of everyone else with less than a 2% error

rate. The funny part of this is that she just happened to " need " the

Thursday and Friday off (again) that they were calling for references, and

they desperately need someone at the new place, so they hired me without her

reference--she ain't a happy camper. She had been giving me extremely

poor references to everyone, but other managers hadn't been willing to tell

me what she said; said it was " private and priviledged " information. :s

I had e-mailed my manager with my two weeks notice because she was in a

meeting, and got back to her desk after I left. One of my co-workers who

sits on the other side of the wall from the manager said that she heard the

assistant manager ask, " Have you read your e-mail yet? " and after a pause my

manager apparently said, " How are we going to keep our stats up now? "

That's the real reason she wouldn't let me go--the stats.

So, to all bosses out there--treat your employees with respect and praise

them every so often when they do well. We really will work harder and

better for you if you just treat us like people and not like slave labor.

The last two weeks have been so long (it felt like it took another 3 1/2

years) and I SURVIVED!!!

Anyway, I just wanted to share my good fortune with the world.

Karel

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===

[Guest guest]

Karolyn;

I understand that managers are only supposed to say general things, and

supposidly she was supposed to, but--let me explain.

A couple times I interviewed with other managers in the DMV and was turned

down, I asked for meetings to talk about the interview.

Both times, the managers had papers in front of them with their reference

questions on, and areas marked " Excellent " , " Average " , and " Poor " , where

they put checkmarks under the given answer. I wasn't allowed to look at

these reference sheets, wasn't allowed to even touch them, but both times

(as the managers looked at them or held them up close enough for me to see

the checks but not close enough for me to see the wording), all but two

items were marked " Poor " . Those other two were " Average " .

Both times, the papers were filled with questions on both front and back.

I processed an average of twice what the others did with extremely few

mistakes, I was ALWAYS on time (I printed out a database screen with the

date and time on every morning as soon as I arrived in case I was accused of

being late--again), I never took work time to get coffee or food from the

cafeteria and I had a good working relationship with all of my co-workers,

even the " difficult " ones. I have had over 300 vacation hours saved and

over 100 sick leave hours saved for a while (they roll over from year to

year). I was always there, never late and did more work than anyone. So

why did it take me over 3 1/2 years to get out? I asked her for meetings to

talk about it, and she usually set one up, then went to another meeting or

just didn't come in that day. After a while I gave up.

I have heard managers in DMV talking about their workers in ways they

shouldn't be. They stick together and won't defend the workers, even if

they know the other manager is wrong.

The biggest problem is, my DMV manager intimidated HER manager, so nothing

was ever done to correct the moral problem within the unit. My manager

passed others in the unit over for promotion for " favorites " in other units

(even though our people knew the work and did it well), she openly

criticized people to others, and nothing has ever been done. She has hired

others from other units, even though they were gone a lot (not sick) and

have a lot of " Leave Without Pay " (took more time off than they earned), and

when confronted with that fact, she told one of my co-workers that had been

denied the promotion that " Leave Without Pay doesn't matter " . The last

manager was fired for doing far less than this was has ever done. We have

even gone all the way to the top of DMV with complaints and nothing is done.

I understand where you're coming from, and I know there are wonderful

managers out there; I've worked with some of them; the problem was I wasn't

in their units permanently--just borrowed for a while. I don't know if you

saw my first e-mail where I asked for ideas, but I explained more there.

What I've said here is just a tiny bit of what I've had to live through.

Karel

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