Negative Results

I'd like to thank Boomer for taking the time to write about some of his experiences dealing with The Beard. For me it was an interesting read, his stories are prime examples of what happens to a production line when you have an incompetent egotistical ass in charge.

There are a number of adverse things that happen to a department when a manager like The Beard is allowed to harass his subordinates and run his assigned area in such an out of control fashion. Employees who are top performers find themselves stuck working for a boss who is a serious obstacle to accomplishing basic job tasks as well as being an obstacle to growing in their careers. When people come to the conclusion that they cannot work with or for a manager like this, they either move to another job elsewhere in the company or they simply quit the company altogether. The resources expended and invested time it took to train that individual are lost. It will cost even more money to go back out and hire another person and take many more months to train a replacement. In the meantime other employees that remain must work harder to fill in the void left by coworkers who have bailed out. It's like trying to push a car down the road when it has a flat tire. You can do it with help from a few people, but it takes much more effort on your part to get the axles to turn. With each employee run off of the production line pushing that car becomes more and more difficult.

Another direct result is that the word spreads around that Mr. X manager is a real bastard. When that happens employees will likely go out of their way to avoid working in an area where Mr. X happens to be. It is then extremely difficult if not impossible for Mr. X to attract skilled workers when he has open jobs to fill. Ultimately his production line will suffer for it because he will be stuck with whomever he can find. Many times those people will be the bottom of the barrel, the dregs. Problem employees that get shuffled around from area to area because nobody wants them. This also will further hamper the efficiency and success of Mr. X's product line. If you consider that The Beard has been like this for the past 20 plus years it's easy to imagine Bill and Dave's company lost a considerable amount of money through attrition of capable employees and instrument lines left under his supervision that were operating far below expectations.

During the past week while the spotlight was on Boomer another employee who had worked for The Beard emailed me a story. He's a veteran electronic technician, very skilled. His name is Paul. I've known him for the past few years but while we were at Bill and Dave's we never worked on the same instrument lines together. He's a good guy. Paul is another example of a gifted technician who is an asset to have on your instrument line. The Beard of course didn't recognize Paul for his skills or for his efforts and like Boomer, he escaped to another department.

Now I'm going to turn Bill And Dave Are Dead over to Paul for yet another story illustrating The Beard's stupidity and lack of control running his area.