to wonder if the people who work with DH want their jobs?

[ThatVikRinA22]

DH is a craftsman, and has worked for the last 20 years for the same small company, he worked his way up and is a manager, but the nature of the job means the pay is crap and the hours are diabolical, certainly never conducive to family life.

In 20 years he has taken less than 4 days sick leave. He is not a whinger and plods on regardless, he is extremely put upon by the owners of the business but he wont change and ive given up trying to get him to be more 'assertive'

6 weeks ago he hired a new starter. within that 6 weeks this employee did not turn up for work for odd days here and there that have added up to 2 weeks - but his sicknesses have ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous - and then on other occasions he hasnt even bothered ringing in. DH has had to work double or split shifts to cover, he does not get paid overtime for this, (he is not a big earner - i earn more than him), and it is a massive bone of contention for me but he thinks that in this current climate he is lucky to be working, and ultimately the fate of the employees he manages is not up to him but the owner of the business

this employee has just come back and now his other colleague has decided to do the same, he should have been back to work yesterday, just didnt turn in. DH knows he has gone home for a holiday over easter but knew he was due back yesterday - (this is something this employee does often citing he cannot get flights home etc) but this time he hasnt even bothered to phone up - just didnt turn up for work yesterday or again today.DH has again gone in to cover despite being ill, this means i have had to juggle child care, re arrange appointments, re organise workmen that were due to come and who now cant as DH will be in bed, and as i am coming in from work DH is going out.

in this climate, where people are getting made redundant, AIBU to wonder why apparently grown men, with families to support and who claim they want to work, cannot be arsed to turn up half the time leaving other people to do their own workload plus the work of those who dont turn up?

Agree with cat. If he hired them, if he's their manager. Then he should take control.

If he is such a soft touch, then you'll probably find they've already sized him up as someone they can take the piss with.

he does warn them, but it all has to be in agreement with the owner and of course a warning really means sod all...

and he can warn them. he does warn them, official procedure etc etc. means nothing to them. He has done it, but of course following procedure means they get away with it, he could of course get rid of the new guy as he is still on probation, but he will then have to cover him plus his own work until a new recruit starts, and ultimately is the owners decision.

i just wonder, when they have all had potential redundancy notices, because things ARE really really tight for the business, why they still take the piss.

YANBU. It might be hard for your DH to feel his actions are responsible for someone losing their job, but it's not really his actions, it's theirs. What has the owner said?

It reminds me of a sketch on that programme, Modern Toss (anyone remember it?) "So if I keep not coming in, you're gonna start not paying me. I'm not being rude but at my interview no-one told me that."

I've had more than my share of people saying that to me when I was working on payrole and they wanted to know why I hadn't paid them anything.

If you are sick you are sick but I don't think not calling in is acceptable unless of course you have been completely incapacitated.

Your DH needs to stop covering for them. If it's cover, then presumably it's extra hours that there is no legal compulsion for him to do. If your DH stops covering, then the owners have to face the problem with the other staff.
I know you say your DH is unassertive about work etc - ok, but he can't just moan about people and do nothing. If he carries on enabling their behaviour by covering for them, just tell him you have no sympathy for him and won't listen to him going on about them. At least then you don't have to listen to it, if he has no intention of actually helping himself out of the situation.

This why you should always put new employees on a probabationary period so if prove to be pisstakers or not suitable or competant then you can get rid.

exactly byrel - your DH is doing no one any favours by covering their hours if they don't show up, vicar - he will just prolong their employment and prolong his own agony!!!

They are dumb but to be honest your DH isn't managing them very well.

do they get paid if they are not there? If not your DH working for nothing to cover them isn't exactly providing any sort of incentive to the owners to change things. they get the same amount of work done for less money.

if your DH is going to be a manager then he needs to manage and that includes the unpleasant bits like firing people if necessary.

the very new on is on probation - he has only been there 6 weeks. but the owner will not get rid, and tbh - if he does its my DH who will end up covering for the sacked employee.

i just dont get it - dH and the owner had a meeting with him and he said he really needed and wanted the job. clearly not though, and whatever he has is catching 'cos the other one who has been there a few years has done the same this last few days.

its a small business, Dh cannot simply not cover. they have all had warning letters about redundancy, i know for a fact that things are very dire and the business is losing money, if he just refused to cover, then they would lose clients, lose more money and the business is already treading a fine line.

Dh has been there too long and is too dependable - they even rang him the day of his fathers funeral, and it does seriously piss me off, but he needs the job, and he may be the manager but the final decision lies with the owner.

i cant change my dh. but i dont get why people apply for jobs, maintain how much they want the work and then just not bother to turn up or phone in, especially in this economic climate.

but he is not allowed to fire anyone without the owners say so. and if the owner doesnt say so then he cannot do it!

he has gone to the final stage of the grievance procedure with other employees, so that if they do anything else they can be sacked, but dh hasnt got the authority to take that final step. so his hands are tied.

i dont know, im just having a moan i suppose as im fed up, but i cant see how a couple of employees not turning in for work can possibly be DH fault, when he has managed the place perfectly well for the last x amount of years before these two were there and when he has no authority given to hire or fire.

If they are so loathe to get rid of anyone - even those who have gone through the grievance procedure because they're so bad - then clearly your DH doesn't need to worry about redundancy etc.
If things were truly heading that way the owners would have taken the chance to get rid of these individuals.
Your DH is in a stronger position than he is making out.
However as you say, he's not going to change now - however, YOU don't have to enable him and his work in terms of juggling your childcare, appointments and builders etc so your husband can be made to do extra hours.

What does he think will happen if he says NO! He has been there 20yrs. If they try and sack him on what basis? He will not work for no pay?
He should march into the boss's office and ask for a pay rise or at least get paid for all the extra work he is doing!

If he gets sacked then he can work for himself and sod them!

But if he keeps covering for them for free then why would the owners do anything about the situation? The work is being done and it isn't costing them anything.

He needs to stop covering for them, then tell the owners that they are not pulling their weight and need to go.

Right now, the only one unhappy is your DH, he doesn't have to accept that.

Can they replace DH though ?

If they can't, he can, with good reason, probably sack who he likes.

Back me or sack me. IYSWIM

you are all saying what i have said for ages....he is so placid, on one hand i love that he never gets riled, but sometimes he SHOULD get riled and doesnt.

this morning he came home at 4am.

at 6am the phone rang. woke me up (and i work shifts) and DD up, who had to get up for school an hour later. got to the phone, picked it up, no reply.

dialled 1471 and low and behold - its his fecking work number. I am sooooo sick of them.I really had to stop myself dialling back and asking what the fuck they thought they were doing.... I want him to march in and tell the boss he is owed a pay rise - he is! its been 4 years! but the owner keeps telling him the money isnt there to do it.

He would be the last one out, if there were redundancies. He says he has to cover absence as he is the manager, and there truly is no one else and the owner clearly believes that this is part of being manager.

reading this back, i can see what a mug my DH is.

I it's persistent and warnings and improvement plans are on file, he can sack them. I had this with a man who just didn't come in sometimes and used to walk out at lunchtime and not return. Sacked him in the end.

It sounds like your DH isn't suited to being a manager, and he is given responsibility but no power. It's a bad combination, both for you, your DH and the employees he's supposed to deal with.

From your posts, it also sounds like your DH has no sense of boundary between his work and home, and lines where he will or will not do something for his job. It baffles me why he would just continue to go in when other employees are not turning up for shifts for no pay - this can be accommodated, and should if he's a manager, on a short term emergency basis.

But these aren't emergencies. There should be a process in place e.g. hiring temps, people on a flexible zero hour contract, sorting out the HR issues with existing employees, giving power ALONGSIDE responsbility to your DH and other managers.

Sorry but your DH's workplace sounds disfunctional, and he sounds like a soft touch. Even if he were being paid above the market rate for his skills, such a disfunctional environment generally isn't worth it, in terms of damage to one's self esteem, stress, mis match between work/life balance. So I wonder why your husband's stuck with it for so long for his not-incredible wage?

"Part of being a manager" is not to cover for employees willy nilly. It's to manage employees and direct them as required, and take on more responsbility than those lower down the food chain. If your DH's employer thinks his managerial responsbilities include "cover an unknown quantity of overtime when other employees fail in non-emergency situations for the forseeable future", there's not many employees would accept that.

It's just shocking that his boss would think that.

Have you considered questioning your husband's confidence? If he's really been there that long, and works like this, and takes no action to remedy it, and still thinks himself lucky, I wonder if he's scared of change, or become slightly institutionalised.

I know institutionalisation may seem a strong word to use in this case, but I've seen a similar thing happen to family members... an uncle of mine was a security guard for many many years (not quite as long as your DH though) and his employers increasingly took the mickey with what he was expected to do, but at the time he'd been working there so long he NEEDED the job to pay the mortage - couldn't get another job paying the same rate. In the end, he ended up staying there the rest of his working life just because it was familiar (even when they no longer needed the bigger income since my aunt went back to work once the kids were at school) - i saw confidence (or lack of it) and fear playa huge part in that as I was growing up.

But if he keeps covering for them for free then why would the owners do anything about the situation? The work is being done and it isn't costing them anything.

Exactly, Morloth - the OP's DH is the one who is enabling this situation to continue.

What would the boss gain if he were to cause more work by actually implementing decent HR policies and giving his managers the support (and power) they need to work effectively. At the moment, the only one feeling the pain from none of this being done is the OP's DH.

so what do you do when there are 3 people on a night shift, and two of them dont turn in? DH manages 2 shifts, a day shift and a night shift. if someone doesnt turn in, they phone him. there is no one else to cover. they are running on a minimum staffing. the business is in danger of closing, i know how unreasonable the owner is because i used to work there too.
so if no one goes in and does the work they lose yet more contracts?
this is not a big company. its a small business.

there are no other managers. he is it.

i know that they are losing in excess of £500 per week and i know that if they continue to lose money or contracts then they will close with a loss of around 50 other employees who work in their shops etc.

he could stop covering, and i guarantee he would lose his job and he knows it. i dont see that as enabling and after 20 years i dont see how he could just turn around and say he isnt doing it.

but i would dearly love him to go and speak with the owner, but i know from past experience that the owner is not a reasonable person. he "blows". the last time he "blew" at me i threw something at him and walked out, and i am not a volatile person at all, DH just is not like me.

i tried to talk to him about it this morning, he refuses to discuss it with me, i know it pisses him off, but he sees no alternative because he does need his job.

i know why i ended up with a man who is so placid that people take the piss and its better than the alternative.

i cant make him go out and get another job, i would love him to go and get another job, but after 20 years in this firm and 30 years in his trade i cant see it happening, so i guess i either accept it or leave him, and everything else with us works fine. except his sodding job. plus jobs are not exactly 10 a penny at the minute.

i am finding it more difficult since i got my career, as my shifts tend to work opposite his, great for childcare, crap for any semblance of a life.

i guess its going to be put up or shut up,
i just needed to vent.
ive vented.
off for a

If the company is in dire financial straits then they won't want to be paying people who fail to come in and it might be useful to point out to your DH's employer that they do not have to pay people who fail to fulfil their duties.

If someone doesn't turn up to work and either call in sick or be using planned holiday they do not have to pay them.

I reckon that will sort the problem more quickly than anything else.

In that situation I would be looking for another job TBH.

There isn't anything you can do, this is all up to him. No-one else is suffering except him (and by extension you) so they are not going to change a thing.

Sounds like the company is going to tank in any case, personally I would jump ship now because it is a hell of a lot easier to get a job when you already have one.

my mum managed a care home and many of the staff would have a poor attitude to attendence (possibly not surprising given how low paid care work is). my mum would always cover for staff not turning up because she thought of the residents first and couldn't bear them getting less than full care and attention.
it really wore her down and she took early retirement in the end.

what happens if your dh doesn't cover? does somebody not get their bedding changed? not fed? or is it just that a client's delivery is late by a day? i find it hard to see how what he does could be so crucially time-bound. i often order things and then get told there's an 'unavoidable' delay on delivery.

VicarInaTutu, how long can this go on? Is your DH's attitude simply "put up with it" (bad HR, poor employees, being given responsibility but no power, working overtime with no pay, and so on) until the company goes under or he retires?

WHAT is the driving force hind this determination to go against common sense, his wife's wishes, surely even his sense of self esteeem, and stay in that job?

It's not the money, you've already said that. His co-workers sound unreliable and awful, if even the guy who's been there years is now starting to take advantage of your DH. The boss is clearly inept (HR practice/business planning) and delusional (thinking it's a good long term strategy just to let his manager fill any vacant shifts unpaid). So what is driving your DH's determination here?

Something doesn't add up.

And the only thing I can think of is that he's institutionalised, as I suggested earlier.

I hope it gets better for your DH, but I don't think it will. Unless he forces a change, he retires or the business goes under.