Distracted living

[GWguy]

Lucky you. How am I in violation of my contract?

Not looking to argue with you. People do what they feel they need to do.

Contract violation comes in when auditors discover people working beyond the allotted 40 hours per week as per contract and not being paid for it. Contractors especially. We got yelled at a number of times.

 

[BernieP]

Not looking to argue with you. People do what they feel they need to do.

Contract violation comes in when auditors discover people working beyond the allotted 40 hours per week as per contract and not being paid for it. Contractors especially. We got yelled at a number of times.

Believe it or not it's just bad business practice to allow employees to work undocumented overtime. The "whatever it takes to get the job done" mentality leads to chronic underbidding on jobs. The enterprise has no idea of the cost to complete work if people are not recording hours against a job - whether you are paid for those hours or not.

 

[kwillia]

Believe it or not it's just bad business practice to allow employees to work undocumented overtime. The "whatever it takes to get the job done" mentality leads to chronic underbidding on jobs. The enterprise has no idea of the cost to complete work if people are not recording hours against a job - whether you are paid for those hours or not.

Those who regularly provide support for their job while off hours make it impossible for management to truly recognize and ,therefore, properly manage the level of effort truly required for for the project. This most certainly leaves the door wide open for budget cuts.

 

[BernieP]

Make a list.

I hate to be trite... Okay, that's a lie because I love being trite. I love saying the word "trite". "Trite" is who I am and my stated purpose in life.

Wait...where was I?

Oh yeah...

Carry around a notebook or pad of paper and write down your tasks and other chit that needs to be done. That way you have it on paper and it doesn't take up your brain space to remember. Plus it feels good to cross something off your list. "Accomplished!" Everyone makes fun of me and my multiple ongoing lists but it does keep me straight without a whole lot of stress, and it frees up my gray matter for the here and now.

I have a "TO DO" list on the wall and a notebook. Problem is this little thing called "INTERRUPTIONS". Or what we like to call, "Priority Interrupts"
Phone, email, foot traffic, interrupts come in all the time. The day starts with the best intentions of being organized and burning down that 'to do list".
It quickly decends into pissing on fires as fast as you can.

 

[BernieP]

Those who regularly provide support for their job while off hours make it impossible for management to truly recognize and ,therefore, properly manage the level of effort truly required for for the project. This most certainly leaves the door wide open for budget cuts.

this applies to private industry as well. A lot of companies rely on undocumented overtime to keep costs low. Problem is that catches up to them as their bids get tighter and tighter until they default on a contract because the schedule was beyond "aggressive".

 

[GWguy]

Believe it or not it's just bad business practice to allow employees to work undocumented overtime. The "whatever it takes to get the job done" mentality leads to chronic underbidding on jobs. The enterprise has no idea of the cost to complete work if people are not recording hours against a job - whether you are paid for those hours or not.

Those who regularly provide support for their job while off hours make it impossible for management to truly recognize and ,therefore, properly manage the level of effort truly required for for the project. This most certainly leaves the door wide open for budget cuts.

Absolutely. Besides being expected to work above and beyond and not getting paid for it. You want my expertise? Pay me my worth. It ain't free.

Glad I no longer need to deal with that. I now get my money for nothing and my chicks for free.

 

[BernieP]

Absolutely. Besides being expected to work above and beyond and not getting paid for it. You want my expertise? Pay me my worth. It ain't free.

well as it turns out we can get your expertise at a 30% discount, so there :razz

 

[RoseRed]

I now get my money for nothing and my chicks for free.

Did you have to pay for them before retirement?

 

[GWguy]

Did you have to pay for them before retirement?

It was a write-off...

 

[Christy]

Absolutely. Besides being expected to work above and beyond and not getting paid for it. You want my expertise? Pay me my worth. It ain't free.

Glad I no longer need to deal with that. I now get my money for nothing and my chicks for free.

Oh good grief. Are we really going to turn this thread into a contract thread and what you should and shouldn't do? The point that I was trying to make is that there are any number of reasons that people are living "distracted".

However, I feel the need to point out now that I do not work above and beyond what my government contract allows. I am not working for free, off the books. I charge the hours that I work. But I also have hours that are required that are not charged to the government, they are charged to one of the many charge numbers my company allocates for whatever it is we are doing for the firm. I even have a charge number for volunteer work.

So now that we've cleared that up, I have much more on my plate between my client work, my company work, and my kids activities than I have time to do in any given day. Thus, I live a distracted life. I'm not whining about it, it's just how it is. It is a fact. I also know that it won't always be like this, or at least I sure hope not.

 

[BadGirl]

I am, or WAS, a Distracted Driver.

I have learned a very valuable lesson from an incident almost a year ago, one that still haunts me to a certain degree.

I was in an accident that was totally my fault. I caused an impact with an on-coming car, and both of the vehicles were totalled.....all at a speed of no more than 35 miles per hour for both vehicles.

Here is why it happened:
I was taking my son to a sports practice when I was focusing, not on driving, but on........
getting to practice on time;
when would I have time to go over homework with my boy;
what would I make for dinner in the 45 minutes after practice and before boy's bedtime;
would I have enough time to go to the hospital to visit with my hospitalized step-daughter;
what was my workload going to be tomorrow? would I get that project done before I left work tomorrow?
when is the next PTA meeting?
did I sign my timesheet that day?
did I put the load of clothes in the dryer yet?
I fed the animals, but did they have enough water?
did I do enough volunteer time recently?

And a brazillion other things that I had going on in my mind that day. In that small instance where I looked in my rear view mirror to see my boy eating his snack, I crossed the road's center line.

The bottom line is this: I caused an accident. I caused injury (a small injury . but nonetheless, I caused the other driver pain). I caused inconvenience to both of us. BUT, thankfully, we were both able to walk out ok.

I accept full repsonsibility for what I did, and learned from that horrible experience. I now try really hard to totally focus on the road, and of my driving habits, to ensure that I NEVER EVER do that again.

 

[Christy]

I am, or WAS, a Distracted Driver.

I have learned a very valuable lesson from an incident almost a year ago, one that still haunts me to a certain degree.

I was in an accident that was totally my fault. I caused an impact with an on-coming car, and both of the vehicles were totalled.....all at a speed of no more than 35 miles per hour for both vehicles.

Here is why it happened:
I was taking my son to a sports practice when I was focusing, not on driving, but on........
getting to practice on time;
when would I have time to go over homework with my boy;
what would I make for dinner in the 45 minutes after practice and before boy's bedtime;
would I have enough time to go to the hospital to visit with my hospitalized step-daughter;
what was my workload going to be tomorrow? would I get that project done before I left work tomorrow?
when is the next PTA meeting?
did I sign my timesheet that day?
did I put the load of clothes in the dryer yet?
I fed the animals, but did they have enough water?
did I do enough volunteer time recently?

And a brazillion other things that I had going on in my mind that day. In that small instance where I looked in my rear view mirror to see my boy eating his snack, I crossed the road's center line.

The bottom line is this: I caused an accident. I caused injury (a small injury . but nonetheless, I caused the other driver pain). I caused inconvenience to both of us. BUT, thankfully, we were both able to walk out ok.

I accept full repsonsibility for what I did, and learned from that horrible experience. I now try really hard to totally focus on the road, and of my driving habits, to ensure that I NEVER EVER do that again.

Thank you Badgirl, you very eloquently captured the point I was trying to make.

 

[vraiblonde]

I accept full repsonsibility for what I did, and learned from that horrible experience. I now try really hard to totally focus on the road, and of my driving habits, to ensure that I NEVER EVER do that again.

Good for you and I'm glad no one was hurt beyond what it was.

But I think you're being too hard on yourself. You said you were thinking about this that and the other thing, but what caused you to swerve into the other lane was when you looked in the rear view at Bubba. I do that, steer where I look, which is why I focus so intently on what's ahead of me and can do all sorts of things in my car without taking my eyes off the road. I think many people do that and, sure, it can cause accidents or near misses, but I wouldn't say you were "distracted" because it doesn't sound like you spaced out and forgot you were driving.

Or did I misunderstand?

 

[kwillia]

Thank you Badgirl, you very eloquently captured the point I was trying to make.

She did nail it... it most certainly described any given day in the better part of 18 years of my life.

 

[kwillia]

Good for you and I'm glad no one was hurt beyond what it was.

But I think you're being too hard on yourself. You said you were thinking about this that and the other thing, but what caused you to swerve into the other lane was when you looked in the rear view at Bubba. I do that, steer where I look, which is why I focus so intently on what's ahead of me and can do all sorts of things in my car without taking my eyes off the road. I think many people do that and, sure, it can cause accidents or near misses, but I wouldn't say you were "distracted" because it doesn't sound like you spaced out and forgot you were driving.

Or did I misunderstand?

I read it that she was in "auto-pilot" mode which is where you get from point A to B without any clear recognition on how you got there.... that's what happens to us when we use the mundane day to day trips as times when we think about everything but what we are doing... driving.

 

[vraiblonde]

She did nail it... it most certainly described any given day in the better part of 18 years of my life.

See, and I never bothered thinking about anything because my mind is like a sieve. I wrote everything down and worried about it during its allotted time period.

One of the nice things about being the adult child of an alcoholic is it makes you obsessively and neurotically organized.

 

[Vince]

Make a list.I hate to be trite... Okay, that's a lie because I love being trite. I love saying the word "trite". "Trite" is who I am and my stated purpose in life.

Wait...where was I?

Oh yeah...

Carry around a notebook or pad of paper and write down your tasks and other chit that needs to be done. That way you have it on paper and it doesn't take up your brain space to remember. Plus it feels good to cross something off your list. "Accomplished!" Everyone makes fun of me and my multiple ongoing lists but it does keep me straight without a whole lot of stress, and it frees up my gray matter for the here and now.

With my memory, I don't have a choice. From the grocery list to "things around the house" and appointments on my calendars, I've got lists coming out my..........

 

[ICit]

With my memory, I don't have a choice. From the grocery list to "things around the house" and appointments on my calendars, I've got lists coming out my..........

.... same here...

I have lists for my lists...

 

[acommondisaster]

Believe it or not it's just bad business practice to allow employees to work undocumented overtime. The "whatever it takes to get the job done" mentality leads to chronic underbidding on jobs. The enterprise has no idea of the cost to complete work if people are not recording hours against a job - whether you are paid for those hours or not.

Amen.
I hate the coworker who tries to make me feel bad because I work my contracted hours and no more. She comes in an hour early every day "to get ready to work"....but when I get there, she's all into making me feel inferior because she's already read all the emails, set up all her tools, reviewed everything everyone has done on the prior shift, etc. I tell her what she's doing is contractually illegal, bad for our company (because we're subs on another contract and chances are, our company will bid on this contract against the prime), but she still tries to make me feel like I don't pull my weight the way she does. And there are times when she can turn it into "I'm way ahead of the curve and more on top of things" - but she's got an hour's jump on me. Pisses me off, because I'm the one adhering to the contract, and during an audit, we'd take a hit because of her.
It's unfortunate that it has to be "work my hours and no more", but BernieP has nailed it - chronic underbidding. I see people do things way out of the scope of the contract, where there should be business development going on, but instead it gets done under the "whatever it takes" principle. I'll be glad to hang up my contracting hat in a few years. (sorry for derailing)

 

[mAlice]

I am, or WAS, a Distracted Driver.

You're very brave to share that here. It was great to see you this weekend! I texted you a pic last nigh Did you get it?