Friday, March 17, 2006

Since you asked...

...about MY opinion on the quitting employee...

I didn’t want to bore everyone (TOO much) yesterday. I’ve been informed, politely in most (but not all) cases, that my posts about work are often neither interesting nor amusing. Since my goal is to be both of those, I try to limit such posts.

In a nutshell (HAH! I know how wordy I can be,) here were my hints:

1. Mr. Quitting Employee is 61 years old, was laid off two years ago from an electric power generating plant that was closing, and told me that he just intended to work here until he was 65 and could retire.
(My read: There was never any long-term commitment to “success” here.)

2. During the interview, Q. E. let it drop that his retirement investments had been doing VERY well for the last few years.
(My read: he no longer felt he NEEDED this job from a financial perspective.)

3. Q. E.’s tone turned bitter every time he mentioned “computers,” or “computer-based training.” He spoke favorably about the training methods at his former job, at which training was of the mentoring, show-and-tell variety. (Fine at that plant, possibly. Here we must prove to OSHA and others that not only was the employee trained, but that learning occurred. How do we prove that? We have the computer logs of the time spent going through the lesson, and there’s a test at the end. Perfect? No, but better proof than most.)
(My read: he was not comfortable with and did not like computers. That was confirmed by his co-workers.)

4. In the past Q. E. had worked as an electrician, and recently obtained a Master Electrician license. The grapevine tells me that he is currently wiring homes under construction at three different locations.
(My read: same as number 2 above. Plus, house-wiring is not a rotating shift job, can be done on his own schedule, no computers to deal with, no chemical or other hazards besides electricity.)

So, my take is that Mr. Q. E. truly didn’t like the computer-based training that was required, but left primarily for other reasons.

As I said, I’ll never know the WHOLE story.


AND ON A MORE INTERESTING NOTE...

Carol took our digital camera out today to record the current status of our blooming yucca. Since I KNOW that you are ALL interested and amused by THAT topic, I will not only include one photo here:


I will also provide you with a link to a web page with more photos including close-ups.

Enjoy! Then click “BACK” to get back here.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I see since you're still posting that Texas survived me.

In fact, I'm not sure I survived Texas, and I've been home for several days.

Hale McKay said...

That Yucca plant is something. At least now, I have some idea what a Yucca looks like.
...Perhaps I should ask your "future" self to e-mail me a photo of it in two months?

kenju said...

That plant sure grows quickly, doesn't it?

Anonymous said...

Carol has taken the most awesome pics. I had a yucca which I grew from a teeny weeny little shoot and 25 years later it is so big that it is now in my mom's garden. It does not flower though so yours is a sight to behold.