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Interested in teaching? One more distraction to deal with...

High schools often ban phones in classes.

Can't colleges do the same???
 
If they want to pay to play on their phones, let em. They will be weeded out soon enough.
Posted from Rivals Mobile
 
I don't know that there's any correlation between playing on the phone and passing. We had kids at Iowa State, sit and read the paper while the prof was talking, some of them were dumb kids who were going to be MIS or business majors soon enough after not cutting it in engineering, and some folks who were just smart enough to not need to pay attention. I only had one prof in four years, that ever made show about it, basically telling the kid to have some respect and pay attention, or get out of his classroom. He was an old farm boy from Boone, Iowa teaching Calc 3 to a bunch of kids who had probably already taken it in high school. He also interrupted a lecture on Green's theorem to tell us about how he "loved cows" and was excited to high hell about some beef expo.

I had several professors over the years, flat out say they didn't care if you came to class, or paid attention in class or whatever. Basically because you or your parents are paying the university $500 an hour to be there, and you'll either get your money's worth or not. He was going to get paid either way.
 
The average meeting at TD Ameritrade in my experience had multiple members of upper level mgmt checking their phones well over 11 times an hour.
 
The other day I was in a critical meeting regarding new federal guidelines being implemented that impacted tens millions of dollars for the department. The IT manager next to me (who makes well over 100k) was surfing Facebook the entire time. It isn't just Millennials we need to worry about.
 
Originally posted by redfanusa:
The other day I was in a critical meeting regarding new federal guidelines being implemented that impacted tens millions of dollars for the department. The IT manager next to me (who makes well over 100k) was surfing Facebook the entire time. It isn't just Millennials we need to worry about.
I've been to a couple of the "name" management seminars where they basically preach the difference between a bad manager and a good manager is that a bad manager might get the average 4 hours of work out of an employee a day, and a great one might get 6.

Basically, its well accepted that between March Madness, email, water cooler of all kinds, lunches, football season, smoke breaks, and whatever else goes on in an office, your employer is getting about half of what he ponies up for.
 
Originally posted by jflores:
Originally posted by redfanusa:
The other day I was in a critical meeting regarding new federal guidelines being implemented that impacted tens millions of dollars for the department. The IT manager next to me (who makes well over 100k) was surfing Facebook the entire time. It isn't just Millennials we need to worry about.
I've been to a couple of the "name" management seminars where they basically preach the difference between a bad manager and a good manager is that a bad manager might get the average 4 hours of work out of an employee a day, and a great one might get 6.

Basically, its well accepted that between March Madness, email, water cooler of all kinds, lunches, football season, smoke breaks, and whatever else goes on in an office, your employer is getting about half of what he ponies up for.
Mmmm true to an extent, but then untrue to an even larger extent.

There are many jobs where there is simply not enough work for 8 hours a day for someone. Therefore during down times when there is no work to do, sure employees are checking facebook, or twitter or email or whatever. That certainly doesnt cut into "work time" though. If you are talking about a job that there is 8 hours per day of work and employees are only putting in 4 or 6 hours? Then that is a bad manager and needs to be fired simply put.

Also, lunches? Lunches as long as they fall within the required time of lunch that you are allowed is never something that takes away from work.

What the "lie" that you were told from that management seminar also didnt take into consideration is that there are a good number of employees that take "working lunches" because they are busy and they eat at their desk while doing work during their lunch times, as well as people that are working after work. Working after work replying to emails, cell phone calls, computer work. So they are indeed putting in more than 8 hours per day.

Those seminars are bubkis.

The moment you start telling your bosses that you dont have "enough to do" during down times, is the moment that you become "expendable" potentially and how they start looking at cutting costs. "Oh you dont have enough work to do?" Well I guess we can start cutting back on employees then.

I had a few "suckers" that I worked with at other companies that went to their supervisors and told them they didnt have enough work to do to keep them busy (kissing butt to try and get ahead)...every single time those folks were laid off within a week or so, as management started to reevaluate how many employees they actually needed.


This post was edited on 3/18 10:59 PM by huskerhomie

This post was edited on 3/18 11:01 PM by huskerhomie
 
Originally posted by huskerhomie:

Originally posted by jflores:
Originally posted by redfanusa:
The other day I was in a critical meeting regarding new federal guidelines being implemented that impacted tens millions of dollars for the department. The IT manager next to me (who makes well over 100k) was surfing Facebook the entire time. It isn't just Millennials we need to worry about.
I've been to a couple of the "name" management seminars where they basically preach the difference between a bad manager and a good manager is that a bad manager might get the average 4 hours of work out of an employee a day, and a great one might get 6.

Basically, its well accepted that between March Madness, email, water cooler of all kinds, lunches, football season, smoke breaks, and whatever else goes on in an office, your employer is getting about half of what he ponies up for.
Mmmm true to an extent, but then untrue to an even larger extent.

There are many jobs where there is simply not enough work for 8 hours a day for someone. Therefore during down times when there is no work to do, sure employees are checking facebook, or twitter or email or whatever. That certainly doesnt cut into "work time" though. If you are talking about a job that there is 8 hours per day of work and employees are only putting in 4 or 6 hours? Then that is a bad manager and needs to be fired simply put.

Also, lunches? Lunches as long as they fall within the required time of lunch that you are allowed is never something that takes away from work.

What the "lie" that you were told from that management seminar also didnt take into consideration is that there are a good number of employees that take "working lunches" because they are busy and they eat at their desk while doing work during their lunch times, as well as people that are working after work. Working after work replying to emails, cell phone calls, computer work. So they are indeed putting in more than 8 hours per day.

Those seminars are bubkis.

The moment you start telling your bosses that you dont have "enough to do" during down times, is the moment that you become "expendable" potentially and how they start looking at cutting costs. "Oh you dont have enough work to do?" Well I guess we can start cutting back on employees then.

I had a few "suckers" that I worked with at other companies that went to their supervisors and told them they didnt have enough work to do to keep them busy (kissing butt to try and get ahead)...every single time those folks were laid off within a week or so, as management started to reevaluate how many employees they actually needed.


This post was edited on 3/18 10:59 PM by huskerhomie

This post was edited on 3/18 11:01 PM by huskerhomie
As far as those name seminars go, I'm not really an adherent to them, and consider them mostly to be a industry unto themselves, where people can go to feel good about how much leadership they are learning. I think that tidbit I introduced resonated with me out of all the other fluff, because if you look around, people often think they are working harder or are more valuable than they might be. And the internet tends to inflate that, I've not once met a guy on the internet who was the "average" worker or the "less than average" worker who spends all day reading the internet or whatever even though statistically half of us are.

Alot of things tend towards a Pareto distribution. 80% of the work of a given organization is done by 20% of the people. 80% of the wealth, is owned by 20% of the people. Granted, not exact numbers, but those distributions are more Pareto than Gaussian.

Given that fact, and as you have noted, a number of people could go to their bosses and legitamitely say they are under utilized. They won't as you note for job security, but the logistical side is there, most jobs aren't engaging enough to keep most average people busy for 40 hours a week. They can get done what they need done, screwing around anywhere from a quarter to a half the time, not including lunch.

Is every job like that? No, certainly not. But I think there's a lot more "float" in the job economy than most people realize. Something we're just now getting around to realizing as folks who are afforded the opportunity to work from home or the road, or only 30 hours a week in the summer, or those kids of things go on.
 
"What the "lie" that you were told from that
management seminar also didnt take into consideration is that there are a
good number of employees that take "working lunches" because they are
busy and they eat at their desk while doing work during their lunch
times, as well as people that are working after work. Working after work
replying to emails, cell phone calls, computer work. So they are indeed
putting in more than 8 hours per day. "

I would also note that, for all intents and purposes, if you are working nominally 8am to 430pm with a half hour for lunch, or something like that, but lets say you have a "bad" manager and you work on fantasy football from 1230 to 430 and he's only getting his 4 hours out of you like the seminar suggests.

If you go home and answer emails sporadically during or after dinner from say 6-8, in a given day, that employer still only got 6-6.5 hours out of you. 4 at work, another half hour for a working lunch, and a couple "sporadic hours" at home with the fam. That folks for whatever reason, aren't engaged at their desk after lunch or whatever, doesn't really add anything to the productive counter. Its more shifting leisure and work around your schedule, than anything.

This post was edited on 3/18 11:21 PM by jflores
 
The bigger problem for employees would be, lets say you were one of those 20% guys that is engaged all the time. So the boss is getting his 7-8 hours a day. But then you go home and you are still doing an hour or two at night. Now someone is getting robbed.

To me, the guy that takes 20 smoke breaks a day, or the guy who's constantly in someone elses cube talking Husker football or whatever, complaining that they have to take 20 mins to answer email at night, when I've seen them spend a grand total of 90 mins or more at someone elses desk during the day, has not a lot a leg to stand on.
 
And just so I'm clear on wear I stand philosophically, I don't really give a crap if a guy works "15 mins in a given week" like on Office Space or 40 hours, as long as what gets done needs to get done.

I'm not real into the "I'm at my desk alot so I must be real productive" kind of vibe.
 
Not true by a long stretch at my company. Working

across all times zone we don't even take lunch.. You grab something and eat at your desk as time permits. I averaged 65 hours a week in 2013 as a software engineer, last year was much better at around 50. We simply don't have time to screw around.
 
Re: Not true by a long stretch at my company. Working

It really ticks me off when I see people on college football message boards at the office. What kind of ahole does something like that?
 
Re: Not true by a long stretch at my company. Working

Originally posted by Huskers_Rule:
across all times zone we don't even take lunch.. You grab something and eat at your desk as time permits. I averaged 65 hours a week in 2013 as a software engineer, last year was much better at around 50. We simply don't have time to screw around.
I'm a populist at heart, while I appreciated that tidbit from the management seminar, the much more damning piece of evidence on work in America is that since the 1970's, wages have not tracked productivity.

IMO, its a pretty good way to break people's faith in capitalism.
 
It is a new era. There are people in all age groups that clearly have no filter when and where it is appropriate to use a digital device.....mainly cell phones. Im going to share some specific examples. I walked up to the nurses desk at a local hospital (ICU) to get directions. A nurse was sitting there texting. Not once did she stop texting or make eye contact with me. Similarily, I have witnessed staff texting in patient rooms.....in front of patients. These are not isolated events....they are the norm. I saw it ever day as a floor nurse.

Contrary to the stats cited in the linked article provided at the beginning of this thread, I have had students tell me that the person next to them using their digital device was making it difficult to concentrate. How instructors handle it varies; some dont care and some are strict. My personal policy as an instructor is no cell phones or tablets during lecture. Students are welcome to take up the issue with my Dean.
 
I have my laptop up and running every class. Way easier for me to stay organized and take notes. Times are changing.
 
Using a laptop to take notes is a different scenario than someone spending the hour texting on their cell phone.
 
Originally posted by huskergina:
Using a laptop to take notes is a different scenario than someone spending the hour texting on their cell phone.
From the POV of the teacher, yes, ones paying attention, and ones not. From the POV of another student, a keyboard laptop is a lot more clacky than a touchscreen on a phone. If it were me, I'd rather sit next to someone playing games on their phone, than some dude typing 100wpm for an hour.
 
Universities are businesses first.... they are dumbing down and firing hard teachers because kids are dropping out at such a high rate and that effects the bottom line. The major university system is a joke at the bachelor level, just a money grab, a ton of hidden costs and worthless classes... and kids are funneled into communications, sociology, psychology, history, business where there is little option for future employment in their major. Universities are now paying for all high schoolers to take the ACT, so they can have access to their college where the entrance requirements has been dropped to accept more levels of kids, something I like, but these kids are not prepared for true post-secondary education, are duped into taking out huge loans, are strung on by poor advisors and end up dropping out with major debt or a getting a useless degree. The filters that used to be in place(ACT score, filling out paper work, harder requirements in HS, are all gone in the desire to make money, not actually improve the maturity and intelligence of our nation. Kids without good advisers are offered a free test, free money, and have people fill out their paper work, then get saddled with the debt and exorbitant interest rates. THe whole system is exploitative and the disinterested kids on electronics is just a symptom. Just waiting for the bubble to pop, which will hurt me, as I make money from the U, but eventually kids are not going to a major 4 year any more, they are going to do online, small tech schools, community college to get their bachelors, and then go to a masters program with appropriate filters once they have chosen a path, all the major investment in infrastructure that Universities are putting forth will end up busted because enrollment will drop, tuition will increase, and the feedback loop will be non-ending.
 
Originally posted by orclover:
Universities are businesses first.... they are dumbing down and firing hard teachers because kids are dropping out at such a high rate and that effects the bottom line. The major university system is a joke at the bachelor level, just a money grab, a ton of hidden costs and worthless classes... and kids are funneled into communications, sociology, psychology, history, business where there is little option for future employment in their major. Universities are now paying for all high schoolers to take the ACT, so they can have access to their college where the entrance requirements has been dropped to accept more levels of kids, something I like, but these kids are not prepared for true post-secondary education, are duped into taking out huge loans, are strung on by poor advisors and end up dropping out with major debt or a getting a useless degree. The filters that used to be in place(ACT score, filling out paper work, harder requirements in HS, are all gone in the desire to make money, not actually improve the maturity and intelligence of our nation. Kids without good advisers are offered a free test, free money, and have people fill out their paper work, then get saddled with the debt and exorbitant interest rates. THe whole system is exploitative and the disinterested kids on electronics is just a symptom. Just waiting for the bubble to pop, which will hurt me, as I make money from the U, but eventually kids are not going to a major 4 year any more, they are going to do online, small tech schools, community college to get their bachelors, and then go to a masters program with appropriate filters once they have chosen a path, all the major investment in infrastructure that Universities are putting forth will end up busted because enrollment will drop, tuition will increase, and the feedback loop will be non-ending.
Did you learn about paragraphs in school?
 
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