If you've ever dreamed of having your boss fired because they sucked at their job you'll find the story below very amusing. It's a long read. but well worth it.
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
Mr S,
Thank you for allowing us to address our issues with you this afternoon. We sincerely believe that you were unaware that the problems we discussed existed and that had our overtime been submitted you would have paid it on time. We feel that the reason it hasn't been submitted is to cover up the fact that we've actually been working as many hours as we have. We don't know why it needs to be kept a secret from you. We simply felt it's important that you know the truth.
Payroll 3/15-3/21
Three weeks ago we were given a payroll sheet with all of our names on it which we were told to keep a record of our hours worked. We were told it was to be faxed directly to you. During the past two weeks we did just that and our paychecks reflected our hours worked perfectly.
This week on 3/24 we made an effort to submit this same sheet to have it faxed to you and were blocked. We were told, "That's not the sheet we use." And although we had used it for the past two weeks without issue and the sheet has a R C Railway heading at the top of the page we were told, "It's not official." Why we were told this is not clear to us. We feared that instead of being paid our correct hours in a timely fashion that things may return to the status quo.
Bill M worked 40 Hours during the week of 3/15-3/21.
Tom O worked 32 hours straight time and 7.5 hours overtime during the week of 3/15-3/21.
Nick G worked 24 hours of straight time during the week of 3/15-3/21.
Raul S worked 40 hours of straight time and 10 hours of overtime during the week of 3/15-3/21.
These amounts should have been submitted to you on Wednesday 3/24 for this past weeks normal payroll purposes. We do not know if that was the case or not.
We do not know how many hours Joe T worked during the week of 3/15-3/21. We requested that he put his hours on the same time sheet we intended to fax to you and he refused our request. We do not know the reason why. It is possible he is being pressured to do things beyond his control.
Owed overtime
As 3/25 Bill M and Tom O are completely caught up on all of their unpaid overtime. However at one point Bill was owed over 27 hours and Tom was owed 22.5. The methods used to get us caught up were questionable at best. Some of the overtime was submitted to you and paid on time. Some of the overtime was submitted and paid on a week when we didn't make overtime at all. And some of the overtime was paid in cash. We don't know where the cash came from. And since the over time was paid in various increments it's difficult to know for sure where or not we are completely caught up, but we do believe we are currently at a zero balance.
Nick G is currently owed 24 hours straight time for hours worked prior to 3/15.
Raul S is currently owed 5 hours of overtime for hours worked prior to 3/15. At one point he was owed 24.5. As of this email I don't have all the facts at this point how that was paid, but it can be assumed the methods were similar to how Bill and Tom were paid.
We look forward to the meeting we have scheduled to discuss our working conditions with you on April 6th. Combined, your employees have nearly 70+ years of railroading experience. And while we don't feel we can solve every issue overnight we do believe that we have a number of serious suggestions that can reduce overtime, lower fuel costs, improve safety, and significantly increase overall moral. For the most part we all enjoy our jobs and respect the privileged we have working at R C. Unfortunately the long hours and payroll issues have been taking a toll on our lives and negatively effecting our relationships with our families and friends.
We appreciate your prompt attention and willingness to hear us out completely regarding this matter. If you are unsure of any details contained within this email and need any clarification please do not hesitate to contact us by using the "reply all" function to this email or calling us individually.
sincerely,
Bill M
Tom O
Raul S
Mr S,
Thank you for allowing us to address our issues with you this afternoon. We sincerely believe that you were unaware that the problems we discussed existed and that had our overtime been submitted you would have paid it on time. We feel that the reason it hasn't been submitted is to cover up the fact that we've actually been working as many hours as we have. We don't know why it needs to be kept a secret from you. We simply felt it's important that you know the truth.
Payroll 3/15-3/21
Three weeks ago we were given a payroll sheet with all of our names on it which we were told to keep a record of our hours worked. We were told it was to be faxed directly to you. During the past two weeks we did just that and our paychecks reflected our hours worked perfectly.
This week on 3/24 we made an effort to submit this same sheet to have it faxed to you and were blocked. We were told, "That's not the sheet we use." And although we had used it for the past two weeks without issue and the sheet has a R C Railway heading at the top of the page we were told, "It's not official." Why we were told this is not clear to us. We feared that instead of being paid our correct hours in a timely fashion that things may return to the status quo.
Bill M worked 40 Hours during the week of 3/15-3/21.
Tom O worked 32 hours straight time and 7.5 hours overtime during the week of 3/15-3/21.
Nick G worked 24 hours of straight time during the week of 3/15-3/21.
Raul S worked 40 hours of straight time and 10 hours of overtime during the week of 3/15-3/21.
These amounts should have been submitted to you on Wednesday 3/24 for this past weeks normal payroll purposes. We do not know if that was the case or not.
We do not know how many hours Joe T worked during the week of 3/15-3/21. We requested that he put his hours on the same time sheet we intended to fax to you and he refused our request. We do not know the reason why. It is possible he is being pressured to do things beyond his control.
Owed overtime
As 3/25 Bill M and Tom O are completely caught up on all of their unpaid overtime. However at one point Bill was owed over 27 hours and Tom was owed 22.5. The methods used to get us caught up were questionable at best. Some of the overtime was submitted to you and paid on time. Some of the overtime was submitted and paid on a week when we didn't make overtime at all. And some of the overtime was paid in cash. We don't know where the cash came from. And since the over time was paid in various increments it's difficult to know for sure where or not we are completely caught up, but we do believe we are currently at a zero balance.
Nick G is currently owed 24 hours straight time for hours worked prior to 3/15.
Raul S is currently owed 5 hours of overtime for hours worked prior to 3/15. At one point he was owed 24.5. As of this email I don't have all the facts at this point how that was paid, but it can be assumed the methods were similar to how Bill and Tom were paid.
We look forward to the meeting we have scheduled to discuss our working conditions with you on April 6th. Combined, your employees have nearly 70+ years of railroading experience. And while we don't feel we can solve every issue overnight we do believe that we have a number of serious suggestions that can reduce overtime, lower fuel costs, improve safety, and significantly increase overall moral. For the most part we all enjoy our jobs and respect the privileged we have working at R C. Unfortunately the long hours and payroll issues have been taking a toll on our lives and negatively effecting our relationships with our families and friends.
We appreciate your prompt attention and willingness to hear us out completely regarding this matter. If you are unsure of any details contained within this email and need any clarification please do not hesitate to contact us by using the "reply all" function to this email or calling us individually.
sincerely,
Bill M
Tom O
Raul S
On Tuesday morning we had a meeting with our boss. The night before he received this email.
SPOILERS! (Click to view)
Dr Mr. S,
Contained within this email are the details of the issues we would like to discuss with you on Tuesday, April 6th.
Payroll issues remain even after we made every effort to resolve them.
In our previous email we discussed our payroll issues with you. Since then we have had another occurrence that has caused us concern.
On Monday, March 29th when Bill M submitted the payroll sheet for the week of 3/22 - 3/28 to Bob T. Bob had requested that all conductors arrive at 8:30 am on Monday, March 22. This was because it was assumed that Railroad Construction would have most of the repairs done in the area that had been damaged by flooding and that we would have a busy morning moving cars around for D E. When the payroll sheet was submitted on Monday the 29th Bob did not recall this and a heated exchange between Bob and Bill occurred. Bob claimed there was a discrepancy in our hours. He claimed we came in at 11am, not 8:30 am. When proven wrong Bob apologized, but that does not make up for his disrespect, nor the lack of record keeping on his part.
We respectfully request that these payroll issues be resolved once and for all.
Our Workplace Issues
Since Paul G was terminated what was once an incredibly mismanaged, but tolerable work place has become a disastrously dangerous place to earn a living. Prior to Paul leaving the working conditions weren't great, but we trudged along getting the work done to the best of our abilities despite being poorly managed. We were able to accomplish this because we had two incredibly qualified crews established. On one side Paul ran the engine with Bill and Nick conducting. The other side consisted of Joe as the engineer and Tom on the ground. Each crew pulled their weight equally and we moved rail cars safely and efficiently.
Now that Paul is gone we still have two crews working. The morning shift consists of Bob running with Bill and Nick conducting. The afternoon shift is Joe behind the throttle with Tom and Raul on the ground.
Now that Bob has taken to running the morning shift does approximately 1/4 of the work it used to do and the rest is left for the afternoon crew to finish. The reason for this is Bob is incapable of managing your business affairs while running an engine at the same time. When operating the locomotive he is often distracted by phone calls (an incredibly serious FRA offense punishable by fine) and regularly puts his crew on stand by while he takes these calls. And becoming more and more frequent is his under utilization of the morning crew. There have been a few days over the last few weeks where the morning staff has made only one move during their shift and even times when they haven't made any at all. You have been paying them at times to sit in the trailer for 8 hours straight without doing any work. This is certainly not for lack of wanting to do their share of the workload, it is because they received no work orders what so ever.
The afternoon shift has been making an average of 2 hours of overtime daily for more than two months straight. Sometimes four hours and on three occasions we have even worked beyond the hours of service. Twice were thirteen hour days and one was a fourteen and half hour day. This is by far and away once of the most serious FRA infractions we can commit. When we pointed this out to Bob and he threatened to fire us if we did not comply with his order. This is completely out of line but, even more importantly, it is against the law. If the car accident that occurred a few weeks ago happened after our hours of service had lapsed and a fatality occurred we, the crew, would have been subject to manslaughter charges and possible jail time and you, the owner, would have faced severe fines. Bob is taking way too many chances. This will no doubt eventually come back to haunt us all.
When we are given our work orders we never get the full list of items to do. All of us working for you are very experienced at what we do. To most efficiently conduct we need as much of the work that can be given to us at one time. We can handle more than one move at a time. We prefer it so that we can figure out the best, most efficient way to get the job done, rather than work in circles. What ends up happening nearly every day is that we get one move which we attend to. Then we return to the office to be given our next move. Over and over throughout the day. Not only is it time consuming, it wastes fuel. It is unsafe. We end up crossing roads way more times than is necessary. We end up returning more than once, sometimes three times to areas we already had worked and could have completed our tasks for the day.
Overall, Bob is not a pleasant person to be around. He is angry most of the day, speaks negatively about each of us all behind our backs to other employees, and often refers to your consignees as crybabies and whiners. We can only imagine how negatively this has impacted customer relations through out the years. He is scatter brained and many times thinks he has given us orders when he hasn't and then questions why we didn't perform a specific task we didn't even know we were required to do. One look at his office should give an insight into the chaos that must be his thought process.
We, your employees, Bill M, Tom O, Nick G, Raul S, and Greg B, all feel that Bob T is beyond a shadow of doubt the most incompetent manager any of us has ever had the displeasure of working under. None of us want to continue working with him as our boss or co-worker. Therefore we, your employees, respectfully request that Bob T be terminated of all capacities on the grounds of Payroll Tampering, Negligence of Duty, and Gross Incompetence.
While we understand that this a very serious request we would not be making it if we did not feel it was absolutely necessary. We also understand that this constitutes almost an entire restructuring or your company. That you have may fears that if Bob goes so too will Joe. Leaving you without a manager and without a qualified engineer.
We feel you have at your disposal all the resources you need to make the changes currently. Both Raul S and Tom O are licensed engineers. They have not been allowed to qualify despite numerous requests on both of their parts to be re-qualified. We believe that Bob has done this as a power grab to keep you thinking that you were unable to terminate him. He has gone as far as to say that you can't fire him because "he holds all the cards", not you. We would like to see a time when all of your employees are qualified as both conductors and engineers. This would allow us far more flexibility with scheduling and would not put you in such a vulnerable position if or when people quit or need to be terminated.
We also believe that Joe T will stay on if Bob is terminated. None of us want to see him leave. None of us have any issues with him at all. He is a good worker and a hard worker. We sincerely believe his payroll is being manipulated just as much as ours, that he is currently owed a significant amount of overtime that has yet to be reported. That his life and relationships outside of the railroad has been negatively effected by the amount of overtime he is being forced to work, and that if he could get out from under the dark shadow Bob casts over his life he would be much happier. We believe he knows this.
This may appear to leave you without a manager. However, we also believe that if you offered Greg B that position he would accept it. We think he is far more personable, he has a great report with your staff already, and would be a much more pleasant person for your customers to deal with. While he may not be completely up to speed on all aspects of railroading we assure you that we all would offer him our many years of experience to help him understand the tools we need to perform our duties at an optimum level.
We recognize that these changes could represent a short term rough patch for the company, but we sincerely believe that the long term benefits are worth it. And that doing nothing will result in potentially devastating consequences for the future of R C Railway. We are all willing to work extra hard to make sure we make it through this tough period and come through it successfully in the end.
Thank you for your time and attention to this matter,
Bill M
Tom O
Raul S
Nick G
Greg B
Dr Mr. S,
Contained within this email are the details of the issues we would like to discuss with you on Tuesday, April 6th.
Payroll issues remain even after we made every effort to resolve them.
In our previous email we discussed our payroll issues with you. Since then we have had another occurrence that has caused us concern.
On Monday, March 29th when Bill M submitted the payroll sheet for the week of 3/22 - 3/28 to Bob T. Bob had requested that all conductors arrive at 8:30 am on Monday, March 22. This was because it was assumed that Railroad Construction would have most of the repairs done in the area that had been damaged by flooding and that we would have a busy morning moving cars around for D E. When the payroll sheet was submitted on Monday the 29th Bob did not recall this and a heated exchange between Bob and Bill occurred. Bob claimed there was a discrepancy in our hours. He claimed we came in at 11am, not 8:30 am. When proven wrong Bob apologized, but that does not make up for his disrespect, nor the lack of record keeping on his part.
We respectfully request that these payroll issues be resolved once and for all.
Our Workplace Issues
Since Paul G was terminated what was once an incredibly mismanaged, but tolerable work place has become a disastrously dangerous place to earn a living. Prior to Paul leaving the working conditions weren't great, but we trudged along getting the work done to the best of our abilities despite being poorly managed. We were able to accomplish this because we had two incredibly qualified crews established. On one side Paul ran the engine with Bill and Nick conducting. The other side consisted of Joe as the engineer and Tom on the ground. Each crew pulled their weight equally and we moved rail cars safely and efficiently.
Now that Paul is gone we still have two crews working. The morning shift consists of Bob running with Bill and Nick conducting. The afternoon shift is Joe behind the throttle with Tom and Raul on the ground.
Now that Bob has taken to running the morning shift does approximately 1/4 of the work it used to do and the rest is left for the afternoon crew to finish. The reason for this is Bob is incapable of managing your business affairs while running an engine at the same time. When operating the locomotive he is often distracted by phone calls (an incredibly serious FRA offense punishable by fine) and regularly puts his crew on stand by while he takes these calls. And becoming more and more frequent is his under utilization of the morning crew. There have been a few days over the last few weeks where the morning staff has made only one move during their shift and even times when they haven't made any at all. You have been paying them at times to sit in the trailer for 8 hours straight without doing any work. This is certainly not for lack of wanting to do their share of the workload, it is because they received no work orders what so ever.
The afternoon shift has been making an average of 2 hours of overtime daily for more than two months straight. Sometimes four hours and on three occasions we have even worked beyond the hours of service. Twice were thirteen hour days and one was a fourteen and half hour day. This is by far and away once of the most serious FRA infractions we can commit. When we pointed this out to Bob and he threatened to fire us if we did not comply with his order. This is completely out of line but, even more importantly, it is against the law. If the car accident that occurred a few weeks ago happened after our hours of service had lapsed and a fatality occurred we, the crew, would have been subject to manslaughter charges and possible jail time and you, the owner, would have faced severe fines. Bob is taking way too many chances. This will no doubt eventually come back to haunt us all.
When we are given our work orders we never get the full list of items to do. All of us working for you are very experienced at what we do. To most efficiently conduct we need as much of the work that can be given to us at one time. We can handle more than one move at a time. We prefer it so that we can figure out the best, most efficient way to get the job done, rather than work in circles. What ends up happening nearly every day is that we get one move which we attend to. Then we return to the office to be given our next move. Over and over throughout the day. Not only is it time consuming, it wastes fuel. It is unsafe. We end up crossing roads way more times than is necessary. We end up returning more than once, sometimes three times to areas we already had worked and could have completed our tasks for the day.
Overall, Bob is not a pleasant person to be around. He is angry most of the day, speaks negatively about each of us all behind our backs to other employees, and often refers to your consignees as crybabies and whiners. We can only imagine how negatively this has impacted customer relations through out the years. He is scatter brained and many times thinks he has given us orders when he hasn't and then questions why we didn't perform a specific task we didn't even know we were required to do. One look at his office should give an insight into the chaos that must be his thought process.
We, your employees, Bill M, Tom O, Nick G, Raul S, and Greg B, all feel that Bob T is beyond a shadow of doubt the most incompetent manager any of us has ever had the displeasure of working under. None of us want to continue working with him as our boss or co-worker. Therefore we, your employees, respectfully request that Bob T be terminated of all capacities on the grounds of Payroll Tampering, Negligence of Duty, and Gross Incompetence.
While we understand that this a very serious request we would not be making it if we did not feel it was absolutely necessary. We also understand that this constitutes almost an entire restructuring or your company. That you have may fears that if Bob goes so too will Joe. Leaving you without a manager and without a qualified engineer.
We feel you have at your disposal all the resources you need to make the changes currently. Both Raul S and Tom O are licensed engineers. They have not been allowed to qualify despite numerous requests on both of their parts to be re-qualified. We believe that Bob has done this as a power grab to keep you thinking that you were unable to terminate him. He has gone as far as to say that you can't fire him because "he holds all the cards", not you. We would like to see a time when all of your employees are qualified as both conductors and engineers. This would allow us far more flexibility with scheduling and would not put you in such a vulnerable position if or when people quit or need to be terminated.
We also believe that Joe T will stay on if Bob is terminated. None of us want to see him leave. None of us have any issues with him at all. He is a good worker and a hard worker. We sincerely believe his payroll is being manipulated just as much as ours, that he is currently owed a significant amount of overtime that has yet to be reported. That his life and relationships outside of the railroad has been negatively effected by the amount of overtime he is being forced to work, and that if he could get out from under the dark shadow Bob casts over his life he would be much happier. We believe he knows this.
This may appear to leave you without a manager. However, we also believe that if you offered Greg B that position he would accept it. We think he is far more personable, he has a great report with your staff already, and would be a much more pleasant person for your customers to deal with. While he may not be completely up to speed on all aspects of railroading we assure you that we all would offer him our many years of experience to help him understand the tools we need to perform our duties at an optimum level.
We recognize that these changes could represent a short term rough patch for the company, but we sincerely believe that the long term benefits are worth it. And that doing nothing will result in potentially devastating consequences for the future of R C Railway. We are all willing to work extra hard to make sure we make it through this tough period and come through it successfully in the end.
Thank you for your time and attention to this matter,
Bill M
Tom O
Raul S
Nick G
Greg B
The first thing our boss said at the meeting on Tuesday morning was, "Bob will be gone this Friday." And today, true to his word, the boss sent our manager his walking papers. This is the power of unity. We are not unionized at this particular job, but all of us have been in unions before. We understand the importance of standing together to make a point.
VIEW 11 of 11 COMMENTS
lixi:
hehehe cute!
treblah:
how's the new place?