Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Weighing in on the topic. I fall to the side of, if you can't police yourself and your cell phone usage, that is another matter entirely. Needs to be dealt with by management. Which, I realize, is another time-consuming thing for management to have to deal with. But so is attendance or lack thereof, so is an employee's demeanor or lack thereof, and on and on the list goes....
*snip*
I would rep you a million times if I could for your entire post. For the sake of brevity, I didn't quote the whole enchilada.
I guess the point ShyGuy has made or is trying to make is, people will always find a way to goof off in the workplace if they want to. Whether it's cell phone usage, hanging by the water coolers or simply carrying a file folder around the office to 'look busy,' those that want an excuse to avoid work will do it.
Placing the blame squarely on technology is the issue. For every yutz playing on FB for 7 out of 8 work hours, I can bet that there's a hard worker that just takes a cursory glance at their phone before diving back into the job. In other words, you are blaming the symptom (phones) and not the cause (laziness).
That's not it at all, if you stopped for a minute and actually used that Hooked-On-Phonics education and READ what's been written by me before, you'd know better than to say such nonsense. (You know, the part about how at my last job they were very tolerant & easy-going about phones and yet if I got a "social" type of text I'd reply "at work will talk at lunch" or such even at that very tolerant job position.) It's about how if an employee gets an OCCASIONAL call or text from their school or family regarding something important, and it happens to go to their cell phone vs the company phone, that such is not anything for an employer with half a brain to get so worked up about.
In like manner, okay maybe it's not a big deal for an employee to wear a watch to know what time it is, yet at the same time (pardon the pun) if it is the case that anymore a lot of people will by pure habit pull out their phone to check the time (and it is) then an employer with half a brain wouldn't have an epileptic seizure at the sight of something so innocuous. If something that innocuous bothers someone that much, that person has no business in management, and as much as they probably wouldn't want me working there, believe me, I equally would have no interest in working for someone as ridiculous and buffoonish as that. Call me crazy, but I tend to prefer working for people living in this century and possessing actual brains and logical reasoning.
It's obvious that you've never worked in a supervisory position. If I'm responsible for a multitude of duties, I don't have time to stare at each employee for 15 minutes to determine how long they've been at their phone. If I glance over at you and you're playing with the damned thing, I have no way of knowing if you've been on it for 30 seconds or 20 minutes. While you claim to use your phone responsibly, there are plenty of people who are addicted to their phones and can't seem to leave them alone. Rules are made to be all inclusive. You can't let one person use their phone and not another because you perceive one to be "responsible" and the other irresponsible. You wanna get mad at somebody, get mad at your coworkers who have abused the privilege, not the management. Overseeing the personnel is probably just one of their myriad of duties, a no cell phone policy just makes that part of their job a little easier.
Again there is no reason for a regular employee to have a cell phone on them at work.
While I agree this is true for some jobs, don't paint with such a broad brush.
My work takes me away from my desk multiple times during the day, sometimes for most of the work day. Work doesn't supply me with a phone, but it does have a BYOD policy. So I check and sometimes answer my work email from my personal phone. Some of my coworkers even forward their desk phones to their personal cell phones. We are more productive because we use our wireless phones during the workday.
While I agree this is true for some jobs, don't paint with such a broad brush.
My work takes me away from my desk multiple times during the day, sometimes for most of the work day. Work doesn't supply me with a phone, but it does have a BYOD policy. So I check and sometimes answer my work email from my personal phone. Some of my coworkers even forward their desk phones to their personal cell phones. We are more productive because we use our wireless phones during the workday.
If you work in an office, it's different.
Customer-facing employees as referenced in the OP should not use their personal cell phones while on duty.
I would rep you a million times if I could for your entire post. For the sake of brevity, I didn't quote the whole enchilada.
I guess the point ShyGuy has made or is trying to make is, people will always find a way to goof off in the workplace if they want to. Whether it's cell phone usage, hanging by the water coolers or simply carrying a file folder around the office to 'look busy,' those that want an excuse to avoid work will do it.
Placing the blame squarely on technology is the issue. For every yutz playing on FB for 7 out of 8 work hours, I can bet that there's a hard worker that just takes a cursory glance at their phone before diving back into the job. In other words, you are blaming the symptom (phones) and not the cause (laziness).
Yes, yes, yes.
The post you are referring to, yes, I was about to nominate that as the post of the year, frankly, but yours referencing it is even better. As that one poster said: But the poster here who says it's no different than those who want to hang out at the water cooler and talk about yesterday's basketball game, is dead-on. Time wasted. Period. That is exactly what I was saying. Or, as you said, people will always find a way to goof off in the workplace if they want to. Whether it's cell phone usage, hanging by the water coolers or simply carrying a file folder around the office to 'look busy,' those that want an excuse to avoid work will do it. Yes, that is pretty much it. It doesn't matter HOW you're goofing off or what tool you're using or not using towards that end. Goofing off with a magazine is the same as goofing off with a phone.
What you said later also is what I was saying, to wit: For every yutz playing on FB for 7 out of 8 work hours, I can bet that there's a hard worker that just takes a cursory glance at their phone before diving back into the job. Again--yes, yes, yes, that has always been me, even at my last job, and that job was one that was very laid-back about phones, they were totally cool with them, and that job did sometimes provide me with some idle time. Yet, even there, I was focused very dominantly on work.
My point also was that sometimes people have a GOOD reason to take calls at work, and so long as they do so in such a way that it has minimal impact on their job, so be it, and really, what difference does it make if they are taking a PERSONAL call on their cell phone vs their company line? A personal call is a personal call, period. Heck, I would think it would make MORE sense to use a cell phone, because as the one person said, one number makes it easier, and also because the way things work they get a hold of you faster and they also aren't bothering bosses over it, so the interruption to work, which is what we're trying to minimize, would seem to in fact be minimized.
Where I work there is a "Zero cell phones on the sales floor" policy. Everyone is aware of this when they are hired. Everyone is reminded of it in weekly meetings. The company does make exceptions in certain cases and then management will allow an employee to carry their phone for that day or maybe a few days until the crisis is over. Cashiers caught using their cell phones in the cashier area are terminated immediately, and they are also made aware of this policy when hired and over and over and over and over again - but it still happens. Even here, where good employees can be hard to come by because of all the available job openings, some people still don't think the rules apply to them. They learned quickly that they do apply to them.
The customer is king where I work. Without the customer, well, there is no need for the company. Customers left hanging because an employee is busy on their personal cell is just stupid and unacceptable.
Recently, a new grocery store opened here. The first time I shopped there, the young lady cashier who rang up my order was checking her cell between scans of my items. I didn't call the store and complain, I figured that if she continued to do this she would be gone within a short time. Guess what, every time I have gone to that store since then, I have never seen her anywhere. Some employees basically 'get rid of themselves' by their own behavior. Follow the rules, or work somewhere else, simple.
How's this for an idea--if you're a manager, use the same common sense you say your employees should have. If someone is loafing around not working due to cell phone distractions, fine, reprimand them. If someone is goofing around talking to their co-worker in person ignoring a customer, it's the same exact thing.
Consistency is the key, and to have that, you have to have brains. If you don't have the brains to do that, you have no business being a manager or boss of anybody.
I can't believe how much hoopla this has all created.
I think there are occupations where no, that isn't appropriate. For instance, if I call someone over to fix my washing machine, and he is gabbing on his cell phone .. all the while I know the clock is ticking my $$'s away, I'm not going to be very pleased.
If I happen to need my bank teller for some reason and I can't get my transaction done because she is busy texting away on her cell phone or gabbing. I'm not gonna like it.
But don't people have any common sense anymore?
I don't encounter many of these idiots, to tell ya the truth. I deal with customer facing interactions all the time, and I rarely encounter the situation that I can't get the employee's attention due to distraction by cell phone.
I happen to agree with Shyguy. This is a job for management. And as a prior poster had indicated, .. when it was suggested "obviously you've never been in a supervisory position" and the difficulties of looking over and noticing so and so on their phone, and not knowing if it's been 2 mins. or 20 mins. Same applies for so and so at the water cooler, .. maybe you happen to notice some jovial conversation going on at the water cooler, and you don't know with that scenario either, has it been 2 mins, or 20 mins. Same with the other worker who can't seem to stay on task, because he wants to chat it up with his cubicle buddies all the time.
That's precisely the job management should be over-seeing.
I don't know how management determines too much talk/conversation at the water cooler, or whatever else is a supreme waste of time, but it does get done. Management does manage to find the squeaky wheel, or they should.
So however it's determined with the above, can also be at use to determine the cell phone addict and dealt with.
People who work in an office, and aren't customer-facing, maybe should be given a little more leeway with the fact that they can bring a cell phone to work with them. People like myself, I work in a call center environment, and there are no public interactions other than through a phone line. We are allowed to do so. Do some abuse it? You bet they do. Do they get away with it? Absolutely.
But so does the gal that can't seem to stay in her seat and answer calls, she wants to wander around and chit chat. So does the guy who hangs in the break room too long to talk about the latest news events.
It happens.
So be it.
If it's going to be a situation where no distractions are allowed, then you're talking a prison chain gang here, with wardens walking around with clubs to beat the minions back into submission. I'd rather deal with an environment where there are always going to be those who waste time, and abuse the system, than the above. I can't imagine the amount of management it would take if nobody is going to be allowed water cooler conversation or cubicle chit chat, or pulling up the cell phone to glance at it.
Listen helicopter parent, if your child has thrown up a lung at school, then let an ambulance take your child to the hospital. Or if it's not a crisis, then your child can spend the rest of the school day in the nurses office. Stop putting yourself on a pedestal. Geesh.
But maybe this is why the rest of us hardworking employees don't want co-workers who are so engrossed with their children's lives and want to leave work as soon as there is some faux crisis in their family's lives.
Ummmmmm. Nobody sends a kid to the hospital if they throw up at school. A sick child should not have to be miserable and spend a whole day sick and alone in the nurse's office. Usually parents pick sick kids up from school and take them home.
However-there is no reason parents can't give the school their work number. I think cell phone usage at work is unprofessional and makes people look like they are distracted and unavailable to their coworkers and customers. IMO cell phone usage by employees who are interacting with the public should result in immediate dismissal. Offices are different. There should be places people can go to deal with personal stuff on their cell phones. In our office the kitchen/lunchroom is the designated cell phone usage area.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
