How to Handle Poor Attendance in the Workplace

Every teacher has heard this one at one time or another along with a myriad of other lame excuses for not doing what was assigned. If you are going to come up with an excuse, make it more believable than this one. The problem with providing an excuse is that it is ultimately a lie and your forget which lie you used the last time you got in this kind of predicament. Just how many grandparents can one person have? Managers in the business world catch on after a while when you have gone to your 28th funeral for a grandfather, grandmother, uncle, aunt, etc.

Telling the truth is a lot simpler in the long run. You don’t have to remember it because the truth isn’t made up. It’s just simply the truth. Having beeen a manager of people in my working career, I found I got real tired of “the dog ate my homework” approach to poor attendance. One particular case was an employee that made a habit of not showing up for work on Fridays. The truth seems that he would party on Thursday night and not show up to work because he just stayed out too late and didn’t feel up to working. He also drove in a co-worker so now two people wouldn’t be at work on Friday.

So to rectify the situation, I took the approach of the first time was a friendly discussion regarding the importance of showing up for work. The second instance resulted in a verbal warning. The next instance resulted in sending him home along with his ride without pay and a written warning that the next time would be the last.

This may not seem fair to the other worker but the rest of the workers in the department were unhappy with the poor attendance of the first worker and needed to be supported with actions that showed this would not be tolerated in the long run.

So when the culprit showed up on a Monday morning after missing yet another Friday (without calling to say he wouldn’t be in. He even had his mother call in sick for him), he was told by me that he was given plenty of chances to correct the problem and now is no longer an employee of this company and he should leave the premises. Yes, he threatened legal action (which never happened) and he was smart enough to not ask for a reference.

Another person I know (in a completely different business) used this technique when someone called in sick. He would give them two days off with no pay and told them to rest up and get well and come back to work when you are feeling better. The second time this happened he gave them the week off with no pay and very quickly the problem stopped.

There will always be schemers out there trying to avoid work because they just don’t feel like it. The important thing to remember is that you must show those that take their job seriously and have exemplary attendance that they are not mistreated by allowing others to get away with bad business practises. It isn’t cruel. It’s just plain fair and those reliable employees will appreciate it.

According to my research, this is defined as someone who is 100 lbs. (or about 45 kg) in excess of the recommended weight for that individual’s body size. Let me first start by saying I am not a doctor. In my work as a freelance writer, I recently was handed a lot of assignments relating to the medical profession and observed some interesting insight into this field. An individual who is seriously overweight needs to find a way to reduce that weight to more manageable numbers to relieve the strain that this puts on the internal system and chances are they will quite possibly live longer.

One topic I was given was “lap band”. Since the other part of the assignment is to associate this with a U.S. city selected from a predetermined list, I chose New Orleans and came up with a title that said, “Lap Band is not a new Dixieland Jazz Band from Norway”. LAP- BAND® is a product now marketed by Allergan, Inc . and was originally a product of the Inamed Corporation. Allergan claims they acquired Inamed and other sources say it was a merger. No doubt, the lawsuits around silicon breast implants had something to do with Inamed’s demise.

The band is a very interesting concept and is considered minimally invasive surgery. A gastric bypass is much riskier surgery, if you believe the figures of a death rate on the operating table of 250:1 for the bypass and 2,500:1 for the band implant surgery.

Essentially, the band works like a tie-wrap that is wrapped around the oesophagus just above the stomach. Attached to the band is a tube that is connected on the other end to a “pad” that is sutured just below the skin to allow the doctor to inject a saline solution into the tube. The solution will expand the band and, therefore, restrict the flow of food into the stomach. The whole apparatus doesn’t involve a lot of stapling or removal of any part of someone’s anatomy. It can be removed if it is no longer a viable option as it was for one entertainment individual who will remain nameless.

The concept is simply this. The brain and the stomach don’t communicate very well. We tend to eat until we are full. So slowing down the intake of food into the stomach will add time to the process and may allow for less food intake. It can work, but it is also up to the patient to work with it. Otherwise, they just eat longer and don’t lose weight.

Anyone considering this surgery, should obviously discuss this with a medical professional to see if it is right for you. Fashion models might consider themselves candidates for the surgery to control weight but the surgical scar would probably deter them  from considering it because bikini modelling would likely be removed from their list.

I also discovered that the field of radiology is growing in leaps and bounds and that job opportunities are expected to grow by 15% in the United States in the next 5 years or so. There are not many careers out there in this economic environment that can talk about that kind of growth.

I am also not a financial expert, as are most writers. We don’t write for the money because it isn’t that good but save for a very few. But I would have to think that the medical health field will perform better than a lot of segments in the world market because the world population is getting older and everyone is a potential customer for some form of medical treatment.

So if you are in the category of the seriously overweight, looking for a career that will be quite stable and also looking for a place to invest your money, you might want to spend some time investigating medical websites. It is most surprising what you will learn.

MO is wondering who came up with the phrase..indefinite lay-off….and why is it used soooo lightly?

This is another Facebook status that came across my news feed and it’s one that we are all growing very tired of for sure. MO is not alone in the feeling that the term is really a cop out for what is really happening. It has become acceptable to use politically correct phrases which means that it has become acceptable to outright lie. The reality is indefinite layoffs are now permanent today. The definition below is the most meaningful for what a layoff has become.

layoff
The temporary or permanent removal of a worker from his or her job, usually because of cutbacks in production or corporate reorganization.

The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source

It used to be that a business owner took pride in his/her employees and reluctantly put people on a temporary layoff because business slumped or it was seasonal and the money wasn’t there to sustain that level of employment. When the business improved, the proud owner quickly recalled those individuals that were put on layoff.

Certainly times have changed. The bean counters that we put in charge, measure the score and determine that the team has too many players and he provides a number to cut. There is little consideration for their ability and what will happen to them. It is time that the bean counters are put aside to be replaced by people that will find new ways to deal with cost cutting. After all, cost cutting only results in more losses. It is just a temporary measure and will not improve the business. It only stops the bleeding temporarily.

So to all business owners out there, you need to find individuals in or outside of your business that will find ways to generate more business. The cost cutting approach has not worked. It is a self fulfilling prophecy and is doomed for failure.

We need to find ways to keep the MO’s of this world gainfully employed so that they contribute to the local economy and are employed locally. Shipping your production offshore is also a temporary measure and does no good for domestic economies. Again, we need to find ways to keep production in our individual countries.

So stop looking to the bean counter for the score and his idea of the game plan. We already know that we are behind in the game. Find the players that can create a game plan to march down the field to score and put the bean counter back on the bench with his clipboard. He isn’t even well suited as a water boy. Find a new direction or the market will show you where your business will end up—gone out of business.

Most of the time, when I write these “What Will Replace” stories, I don’t have a valid suggestion for the topic. Instead, the post is intended to make you and others think about possibilities for the replacement.

But in this case, I actually have a very feasible option that can be created using graphic editing software such as Photoshop and in my case Picnik. The concept is based on those algorithim things that mathematicians and computer geeks understand. I only know that they are a bunch of numbers and formulae that can be run through various iterations. The resulting jumble of numbers is pretty difficult to decode, I would think.

So I started with a graphic that I created and set it to 256 x 256 pixels. I learned that computers work well with numbers like 128 and 256 because they are divisible by 8 and return an even number. So this could be considered a variation on 128 bit encryption with the additional complication of colour and a password.

The next six graphics might make this a little easier to understand.

1. Original graphic
2. Addition of a password using a font. In this case, Georgia-Bold-Italic in various colours using the full range available in Windows. It could be randomly resized.
3. Rotating the password on an axis. In fact the password could probably be the owner’s real name or a username.
4. Resetting the font to difference in the text options in Picnik.
5. Run the new graphic through the Hypnotic option.
6. Set the Hypnotic option to Difference.

The final graphic could be used as a sort of electronic colour signature that would have to be matched on either a high resolution printed document or via a digital transmission. Scanners and id matching software would probably be required to identify the sender as the owner.

It seems to me that this has promise. Maybe the CIA can play with it and see if they can decode it. I’m hoping they might advance me funding for my research project. The annual fee for the Picnik Premium upgrade is $24.95 US.

Maybe you could send it on my birthday every year. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you what it is. I’m thinking you might already have it on file.

Sing it Sheryl
“All I wanna’ do…..

At this stage, I don’t even know what it means!

But that is one of the keywords in an assignment I have from my editor under the primary keyword of asbestos testing. So I will begin researching it.

What these articles will attempt to do is share my personal experiences in pursuing writing as a profession and not just as a really rewarding hobby. By sharing successes and tips, then maybe others out there will gain some insight into what will work for them and that is key. Everyone has there own style and shouldn’t look to changing it because someone says you shouldn’t do this and you shouldn’t do that.

But you have to keep the target in sight. Most of the jobs will involve writing stuff that you may or may not be interested in and you are a means to an end. That’s why you will receive compensation for your writing. It certainly helps that it your writing is interesting, informative and even potentially thought-provoking or humorous or both.

So some good starting points might include the following ideas.

Start a blog

You can use your blog to test and try out all kinds of different ideas in writing. You can even find ways to get feedback about what is interesting to others. It isn’t a bad idea to use Facebook as a method to get friends to help you with feedback. It is surprising how helpful and honest they are about your understanding of the subject.

This site, today.com, pays enough that it will cover your monthly expenses for your Internet connection so it is not a bad place to host your blog. The following link will take you directly to the site and start you on your way to blogging.

Get paid to BLOG at Today.com

Learn how to create links

This is an essential way to help your blog to become a useful source of information for others utilizing the Internet. Here’s a simple example. It is very handy to have two browser pages open for this exercise.

The project here is to create a link that you can use to get driving or walking directions between your house and anywhere else that you would like to go. The link will be to Google Maps.

1. Go to your a blank browser page and type in Google Maps in the search box.
2. Select the link that says maps.google.com/
3. Now highlight the address link in the box at the top of the screen. It will be shaded blue when you have done this successfully.
4. Now hold down both the Ctrl key and the C key. This will copy the link to your temporary clipboard.
5. Go to a place in your browser like Google docs, notebook or your blog editor and type something like “My Maps”.
6. Highlight My Maps , select the chain link symbol and now hold down both the Ctrl key and the V key.This will paste the URL link and use the term My Maps as the link. You can make it anything you like.

So we should have a link called My Maps here. Now you can go back into this link at anytime and use it for a point A to B route planner. Feel free to experiment with it.

You will use links in emails to prospective employers and editors to apply for assignments or jobs. The traditional resume is not that useful on the Internet and well written blog posts can use graphics, white space and even video and music. Keep it simple for applications. They are interested in your writing ability and not necessarily in your presentation skills.

Learn how to use graphics in your blog editor

There isn’t enough room here to cover this subject but it is important to understand the concept of a picture is worth a thousand words. The correct picture can help set the tone for your story. It also helps to learn how to manipulate graphics to customize your blog posts. I can’t draw a stick man to save my life but I have taught myself how to play around with graphics to develop art that is pleasing to my eye. I use Picnik for my graphic editing.

That’s probably enough as a starting point for now. I have to go and research that malignant alphabet thing now. Since I only know it has something to do with asbestos and probably relates to something to do with asbestos insulation installers, I will start with Wikipedia which is where I usually begin research. Use the language link that you are moist comfortable with.

It didn’t have anything so I went to WebMd which I figured would be more appropriate and it was, albeit far too clinical

I’m hoping that I might find something humorous to say about Malignant Pleural Mesothelioma. I’m not holding my breath.

And for those that have been suffering from this type of lung cancer, there is nothing too funny about it. I am reminded of a gentleman that played in one of our many golf tournaments at the club where I work in the summers. The group in this tournament raises money for insulation installers and this gentleman was playing with the assistance of an oxygen supply and guess what. He was having a lot of fun with this group and so were they.

There’s a bright side to everything if you look hard enough. Some of the copy here will be used in my assignment.

secretdealsearch.com

While researching Hi Speed Internet Connections the other day, I tripped over this website and thought it would be useful to any reader looking to save a buck or two. In today’s world, that would pretty much include everybody I would think.

The site is more than just deals on computer realated items and services. There are listings for travel destinations and beauty salons. The following is a sampling of some of the links within the site.

Victoria Secret’s Official Website - seems kinda’ appropriate, doesn’t it?

Oprah Winfrey’s Diet Secret Revealed - ah, not gonna’ go there!

Cheap Perfume - isn’t that an oxymoron?

Cheap Domain Names - lots of links for those looking to set up their own website.

Cheap Package Holidays - who wouldn’t want to investigate this one?

Build A Website - 25,000+ Templates. Maybe you will find one you like.

Hi Speed Internet - DSL and Cable are some of the choices.

And for fun, I tried typing in some searches to see what they would return.

Politics - like there are no secrets in politics.  It came back with links for bullet-proof clothing,  and campaign buttons, and a CD for getting free money from the government. That last one seemed a little shady but consider the category.

Ice Hockey - it came back with links for equipment, jerseys, renting a goalie. I hung up my pads a long time ago. Teams were always looking for a goalie. Only so many of us were stupid enough to put on the pads. I loved it.

Fire - it came back with links for fire protection equipment and clothing, fire retardants and fire doors. I’ll let you try Earth and Wind.

So it looks like you can consider using this as a starting point for just about anything that you are considering as a purchase.

I guess it’s true. There really are no secrets. I couldn’t find anything that would come up blank. The infamous “No Matches Found”. Go look in the kitchen drawer. There’s always some in there.

In Canada one of more our popular beers is Molson’s Canadian. It has come under attack from brewers that are offering a simpler and less expensive alternative for beer drinkers in Canada. Lakeport just happens to be one and since Canadian was already taken, they decided to call it Lakeport. It’s simple.

There isn’t a lot of advertising and the packaging is pretty basic and beer is pretty much all the same. So the consumer is sending a message to the bigger breweries by buying Lakeport. And the big breweries aren’t listening.

Instead they are trying all kinds of tricks to deceive the market into buying their product and spending money on advertising that is falling on deaf ears. It’s simple, just offer us a product that is simpler and less expensive like Australia is doing in the automotive industry with the Mazda 2. This car is simpler and less expensive.

So for the breweries around the world, here’s what you do. Fosters, you bring out Australian. Heineken, yours would be Dutch and Corona, yours would be Mexican and Great Britain would have Ireland, Scotland and England. And the German brewers could use German, and so on and so forth.

They would all have one thing in common. They would be simpler and less expensive and the consumer would end up buying this product. The breweries would likely be more profitable because they would be wasting less money on advertising and packaging redesigns and image stuff.

Does “simpler and less expensive” equate to “tastes like crap”? That was a question that my Aussie friend MF asked in response to the first cut of this post. The answer would be no because then the breweries have missed the point. We still want a quality product but we don’t need all the whistles and bells added to the product that we don’t or just can’t use. Who needs 10 speakers in a Mazda2 anyway? And we don’t need a “slab box of beer” to be printed on 12 colour printing presses. 4-colour process will do just fine thank you.

They could think about hiring more people to spread the word about their products instead of administrators and desk jockeys that measure the decline in sales. Send the scouts out and find out what the market wants and give it to them. The world has changed so don’t be wasting your time on the deluxe models. We have all come to the realization that we can’t continue to buy it.

So everywhere you turn, businesses should be looking to market a Canadian. It’s simpler and less expensive, just like me.

And we the consumer, the villager or worker really, should look to simpler and not so high paying jobs that are available out there if the employer’s would just recognize that they can get a better bang for their buck if they took on these types of individuals and gave them some incentives for using their heads instead of just their backs.

We all need to look for more Mazda2’s in everything we do today and I will write more about this in the future because I think that is our future. The world needs to be simpler and less expensive and the Internet is helping that to become a reality.

We “travel” a lot more on the Internet than we do in the physical sense and that isn’t such a bad thing either. I think I have experienced more new and exciting things in the last 2 months than I have in the last 10 years by “visiting” other parts of the world.

We just have to do things differently to make the world a little better, don’t you think. They have a word for that.

It’s called change.

That’s part of a Facebook conversation I had today with LS, another really friendly Aussie. We were talking about the weather and how we both suck at typing because we have “fat fingers”. She responded with the title and like the great “thief” that I am, I pounced on it. A lot of my story ideas come about this way.

And what is it with the Aussie ladies? That’s the third one this week that has shown me how “refreshingly easy” they all seem to be.

OK, get your mind out of the gutter. I already have dibs on it and it’s not big enough for all of us to fit anyway.

What I mean by “refreshingly easy” is the ease in which these three really nice people have accepted me in conversations that we are having on the Internet. As you may know I am Canadian and like most Canadians, well we are pretty harmless. We have an army of sorts but we are more like the welcoming committee in a new neighbourhood. Most of the weaponry belongs in some museum and that suits me just fine. War is really outdated anyway. It might be best done in computer simulations and the “winner” gets reward points from the loser. That’s another story for another time.

The “fat finger” syndrome is more about how all of us are with sharing our thoughts on the computer. We are in such a rush to spit out and share what’s on our minds that the keyboard just gets in the way. When you really look at, the computer keyboard and its predecessor, the typewriter makes no sense really. The QWERTY concept of a keyboard was something that others have tried to change with pretty much no success.

I guess I’ll have to write the “What will replace the computer keyboard” story some time soon but like the other what-will-replace stories I never have the answer, just more questions. I don’t think voice recognition software is the answer either.

It can’t get into your mind and heart and figure out what you are really saying. It has trouble with people who have speech impediments and with background noise so don’t be using that software for your next business presentation with the latest porno thing playing in the background.

If somebody is developing the next level of that software, pick me as part of your beta testing program. If it can figure me out, it’s got a good chance of figuring out a lot of other people, too.

The thing I am learning in my most recent Internet adventures is that people all around the world are full of surprises. Sometimes all it takes, is a passing comment about the weather at the coffee shop.

That’s how I see Facebook and the news feeds now. LS accepted me as friend as part of my “recruiting” game (another story for later) and now we are starting to get together over a cup of coffee.

At least it should be, in my opinion. It’s invasion of privacy using the telephone.

I am seriously looking at getting rid of my home telephone and going to a CC. Most of my meaningful conversations are either email or Facebook based now anyway. The problem with the telephone is that it could be something important and some bozo is trying to sell you something that you just aren’t going to buy that way.

If you need something, you go to the store or you check it out on the Internet and then you might call them. Telemarketing has become so ineffective that I wonder why companies still bother with it. I think it tells you something about the people running the company if they insist on bothering people in the middle of their dinner or while they are relaxing in the early evening hours.

Some even think you will listen to a taped message of their pitch and respond by clicking the appropriate button. So somebody must be responding or otherwise I have to believe they will eventually give up because it’s an incredible waste of time and money.

So to those people who are responding to telemarketers, I have one thing to say.

Stop It!!!

You should be charged with aiding and abetting a criminal. And I am being very close to being serious here. Your courteous and caring response is perpetuating one of the most annoying creations of this era.

I guess I’m just going to have to stop answering the telephone and let voice mail kick in. It is so impolite but there isn’t much choice. Maybe break down and get call display. The blocking thing is only good if you know who the bozo is that is bothering you.

I get tired of saying “No thank you. I’m not interested” and hanging up, once I figure out who they are and what they are trying to sell. Why is their phone quality and phone manner so poor? The bozo that runs the company? That would make sense.

I can’t figure out why Thursday seems to be their busy day. Must have something to do again with the bozo running the company and that quota stuff, no quota junk.

Stuff is useful. Junk is just junk. Telemarketing is really bad junk.

CFO’s should not have been put in charge of the game in big business. I think that is one of the major reasons why we are in the world wide pickle that we now face. The Chief Financial Officer is really nothing more than the head scorekeeper in the game of business.

He is very much like that kid who played in the local pick up game that everybody picked last. He wasn’t very skilled at the game but he knew all the rules and all the terminology. He just sucked at the game. So if you let him have the ball he wouldn’t give it back and he made a lot of stupid moves with it while he had it.

I really don’t see any difference between this childhood playground scenario and what the big bosses have done in the commercial business world. So stop blaming everything else on your poor decision to let Ernie the accountant try and throw a touchdown or hit a home run or sink any basket at all. He doesn’t know how to do that.

He can only tell you how many times he shot, how many times he missed, how many times somebody else was at fault for his inability to score a point. He’s perfect in his mind. Ernie is an accountant and not a gladiator of the game.

I think the CEO’s need to get out of their over-upholstered executive offices and start looking for the gladiators in their organizations that will provide new and productive ideas on how to make their business a force in the world market. We need new plays, new game plans, new formations, new offensive and defensive strategies. We don’t need Ernie to remind us that we are losing this game. It is already painfully obvious.

It’s time for a comeback. Let the real players show you how the game is played. It’s really quite simple. Just ask them what they think could be done to improve the team’s performance. Just don’t be surprised that you will be hearing a lot of things you didn’t think of before.

Ernie was good at another thing—blocking.