January 31, 2013 - J

[6:08 ; I arrive]
7:15ish ; J arrives
7:15ish-7:35 ; wandering, yakking
+7:42-7:59 ; phone - see NOTE 1
8:00-8:08 ; sitting
[8:03-8:05 ; I am not in area to observe]
8:08-8:27 ; J "searches" for the pieces for his job
9:00ish-9:14 ; wandering
9:18-9:24 ; phone
[9:27-9:45 ; management (HK) in area]
9:31-9:47 ; wandering
9:54-9:59 ; yakking, with S, who was also not working
10:14-10:18 ; phone
10:24-10:28 ; phone
10:28-10:31 ; sitting
10:31-10:34 ; phone
10:34-10:40 ; sitting, phone, yakking
[10:38-10:42 ; management (HK) in area]
10:42-10:45 ; sitting, phone
10:52-11:02 ; sitting, phone
11:21-11:28 ; phone, sitting
[11:35-11:39 ; I am not in area to observe]
?-11:41 ; phone
[11:45-12:00 ; lunch, I am not in area to observe]
?-12:18 ; wandering
12:59-? ; phone, wandering
[1:04-1:13 ; I am not in area to observe]
?-1:13 ; sitting
1:17-1:57 ; wandering
2:02-2:06 ; sitting
2:09-2:14 ; wandering
2:19-2:22 ; phone
2:26-2:30 ; phone
[2:30 ; management (MW) in area]
2:43-2:55 ; wandering
3:00-? ; phone
3:04-? ; yakking
[3:08-3:10 ; I am not in area to observe]
?-? ; yakking
[3:15-3:23 ; I am not in area to observe]
3:35ish ; wandering
[3:43 ; I leave work, so I am not in area to observe], J's car still in parking lot


If the terms used seem confusing, you might read this.


NOTE 1: Bluetooth, or quietly rapping. Nope, Bluetooth.


Today's thought about J: "I'd call him useless, but he doesnt work enough to qualify".

January 25, 2013 - J

[6:27 ; I arrive]
7:00-ish ; J arrives, but is mostly unobserved until 9:00-ish, but NOTE 1
+9:25-9:45+ ; wandering
[9:45-9:55 ; I am not in area to observe]
+10:05-10:10 ; phone
10:10-10:36 ; sitting
10:36-10:48 ; wandering
10:51-10:54 ; sitting, phone
10:56-10:59 ; phone
11:00-ish ; NOTE 2
[11:32-11:58 ; lunch, I am not in area to observe]
11:58-12:02 ; phone
12:08-12:14 ; phone
12:14-12:27 ; wandering
12:29-12:44 ; phone
12:45-12:48 ; phone
12:50-12:59 ; phone, sitting
1:01-1:18 ; phone, sitting
1:26-1:59 ; wandering - NOTE 3
+2:08-2:14 ; sitting, phone
2:29-2:35 ; sitting, phone
+2:45-2:51 ; phone
2:51-3:08 ; wandering
3:08-3:10 ; phone
3:10+ ; NOTE 4
[3:37 ; I leave work, J still there]


If the terms used seem confusing, you might read this.



NOTE 1: As usual, today was a day marked by the standard J "work" pattern: start a run (which would last maybe a minute), then immediately turn to his phone. Stare at the phone long after the run finishes. Finally, turn away from the phone, clear the machine, start another run, turn to the phone and stare at it long after the run ends. This is a normal J day.

NOTE 2: J spends a lot of time counting and recounting his work. Why he doesnt count it as he goes, or perhaps tag it after he counts it, or find another method to fake looking busy, I dont know.

NOTE 3: As of 1:30, J had finished 135 simple pieces. Total. By contrast, by that time, I myself had finished 9 simple pieces, 113 less simple pieces, about 90 complex pieces, and 2 downright diabolical pieces. And had lunch. In the time J took to do those 135 pieces, he should have easily done 2 or 3 times as many.

NOTE 4: I wasnt watching him closely from this point on, but I couldnt see that he did much. In fact, I'd count pretty much the entire period from 1:59 on as a wash.

January 24, 2013 - J

Not much to report on J today. I have notes, but they're pretty penny-ante. The one truly pertinent comment is this: "pattern: start, stare, ignore, start, stare, ignore...".
What this refers to is J's general method of "working" these days, where he starts a run, then turns immediately to his phone. He stays on his phone for at least a minute or two after his run has ended. Then he loads another run, and does the same thing. This pattern will continue all day, occasionally changing things up by, rather than being on the phone, sitting down and writing something (rap lyrics, I think) or simply wandering off for a couple of minutes. If one had the time to spend doing nothing but watching J (or had a camera trained on him), you'd probably find that he is goofing off something on the order of 2 minutes out of every 3.

Another thing: J claimed that last year he made $40,000 dollars. Now, it's assumed (but not known) that he's making about $10 an hour, which would require him to have worked over 22 hours of overtime every week. Not impossible, but somewhat unlikely (not nearly as unlikely as it ought to be, though). On the other hand, if he makes $12.50 an hour, then he would only need 12.3 hours of overtime every week to make this amount, which is pretty easy to imagine him doing.
This is especially imaginable because for a while, he had the day manager and the night manager both thinking that the other had asked him to stay late, and was racking up anywhere from 2 to 5 hours of overtime some, if not most nights. There was also a rumor that for a period of time he was coming into work an hour or so early, clocking in, then leaving again to eat breakfast before returning (more or less) on time.


Addendum: I have been told that J makes $10.50 per hour, which would require a bit above 19 hours of overtime a week, which, while high, is not unimaginable.

January 4, 2013 - J (sort of) and me

[7:02 ; I arrive]
+7:02 ; J already in, and is eating in dept. until 7:15-ish

Today, I did slow running jobs on two different machines, so I couldnt really watch J with any kind of accuracy. I can tell you that he was gone from 1:30-2:30, with a pass-thru at 2:00. Wherever he went after 2:00, he returned with a shake or something like it. He also disappeared for a half-hour or so around 3:00-3:20-ish, but probably didnt go anywhere in his car*. I can also say that with a ratio on the order of 3:4 or better, every time that I looked over at J, he would most likely be sitting down and not working.

I, on the other hand, did 57 v-cut pieces from 5 different files, plus 20 large and 720 small fabric pieces, so bully for me.

[4:06 ; I leave, J still "working"]




* Management was saying that J needed to go home on time, and I commented that "you'd have to find him first", which got a big laugh, largest of all from management. And yet, though he apparently is aware of the lack of work (or even presence sometimes) of J, they do nothing about him.

January 3, 2013 - J

[6:45 ; I arrive]
[7:00 ; I begin Job 1, a v-cut test]
[7:45 ; I begin Job 2, a fabric job, 120 small pcs]
7:53 ; J arrives
[8:00 ; I begin Job 3, a v-cut job - 72 pcs]
8:00-8:20 ; gratuitous cleaning
8:30-8:47 ; phone
[8:47-8:48 ; management in area - MW]
8:53ish -9:00 ; See NOTE 1
[8:54-8:56 ; management in area - HP]
9:00 ; "starts" on first and only job - see NOTE 2
9:08-9:17 ; phone
[9:20-9:21 ; management in area - HK]
9:31- ? ; phone
9:38-9:42 ; phone
[9:46-10:06 ; break, I am not in area to observe]
? - 10:21 ; wandering
10:28-10:34 ; Note 3 @ 67%
10:44-10:50 ; phone
[10:45 ; I begin Job 4 - large fabric, 1 pc]
[11:15 ; I begin Job 5 - large fabric, 160 pcs - see NOTE 4]
11:38-11:41 ; wandering
11:41- ? ; phone
[11:44-12:08 ; lunch, I am not in the area to observe]
12:08-12:19 ; wandering
12:26- ? ; sitting
[12:27-12:42 ; bathroom, I am not in the area to observe]
? -12:52 ; sitting/phone
[12:53-12:54 ; management in area - MW]
1:00-1:10 ; sitting
1:12-1:19 ; management in area - HK, MW]
[1:23-1:24 ; management in area - MW]
1:23-2:01 ; wandering - NOTE 5
2:05-2:15 ; phone
2:22-2:24 ; phone
2:34-2:40 ; sitting
2:44-2:51 ; sitting/phone
2:51-3:52 ; wandering - NOTE 6
3:52-3:55 ; sitting
[3:56 ; I leave the building]


If the terms used seem confusing, you might read this.

NOTE 1: A bit before this, J is doing something involving an already finished job, looking it over, re-packaging it, something, I dont really know.

NOTE 2: So here's how the one job J did all day went down:
9:00 ; got table with uncut boards
9:20 ; first board on table
9:24 ; first board actually cut!
9:28 ; second board cut
9:37 ; fourth board cut
10:00 ; seven boards cut
12:08 ; 26 boards have been cut
1:30 ; 34 boards have been cut
3:00 ; 37 boards have been cut
Several things should be noted here: A) it took about 50 seconds to process a board, and no more than that to empty the table and reload, so say it should take about 2 minutes per board. S, who is no great worker himself, also worked on an identical job. He started at around 11:00 and stopped around 3:00 with 41 boards done.

NOTE 3: Sometimes, J doesnt work more, but goofs off smarter. He alternates between working and not, so that it becomes difficult to track him unless you watch him at all times. He's not goofing off non-stop, but he's not really working, either. I've struggled with how to document this, and I think I came up with a decent system: during a given time period, I look over at J at random and ask this question when I do - Is he working, yes or no? I am allowed to note this no more than once a minute, and at the end of a time period, I calculate the percentage of times I've seen him goofing off versus the whole number of observations within that time, which gives me a goof-off "rate". This eliminates (or at least lessens) the subjectivity of my estimates of the level of his malingering.
I dont actually use this much this day.

NOTE 4: This is the same job J was doing the entire day before (staying until after 8:00 pm), on the same machine, with a helper to catch the pieces. He did no more than I did, probably less, though it's hard to tell since he didnt log his work. He might have been more productive had he not been staring at his phone nearly every time looked over at him. I rather pitied his poor helper.

NOTE 5: where ever J went, he went there in his car, and returned with food, which he spent the next 15 minutes or so eating in the department.

NOTE 6: I saw J leave the building through the side door, and re-enter that way an hour later, looking rather stunned or groggy. His car didnt seem to move, so I wonder if he was outside sleeping in it?