SuperCAD Posted September 6, 2011 Author Share Posted September 6, 2011 Give patient to him........later on he will change and you will use him more than your expectations... He's been working here for 18 months. He's had plenty of time to get his act together. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperCAD Posted September 6, 2011 Author Share Posted September 6, 2011 Speaking of the documentation, does anyone have a form that they use to write someone up for disciplinary actions that you wouldn't mind sharing? I know we don't have one here, but I'd like to start using something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rkent Posted September 6, 2011 Share Posted September 6, 2011 Always best to weed them out in the first 90 days. They should have been shown the door a long time ago. For the next hire consider bringing them in through a temp agency, you can try them out and them hire them permanent if they are good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReMark Posted September 6, 2011 Share Posted September 6, 2011 Does your firm conduct annual reviews? If so, is there not a place to comment on past performance, raise any issues, suggest future "corrections" to address those issues? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackBox Posted September 6, 2011 Share Posted September 6, 2011 Something like this should get you started. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrick Hughes Posted September 6, 2011 Share Posted September 6, 2011 Something like this should get you started. That looks really good. Nice and simple and importantly it should get the message across and also has the concerned employee sign it. That is if they are willing to accept their part in it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackBox Posted September 6, 2011 Share Posted September 6, 2011 Thanks, it's the best I could find in a quick Google search from my iPhone. LoL Not sure if the linked includes this or not, we also have an area for additional parties to sign if the employee refuses to sign. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Murph_map Posted September 6, 2011 Share Posted September 6, 2011 He's becoming one those people who are untrainable (and he's not even 40 yet!). HEY, just because I haven't learn to put the toliet seat down afterwards doesn't mean we elders aren't trainable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperCAD Posted September 7, 2011 Author Share Posted September 7, 2011 Get ready for a long read, here's the background on the last 18 months. We needed to hire a drafter, and after many interviews my supervisor and I decided on one of the candidates (she had an amazing portfolio, knew the job, was experienced with multiple CAD programs, etc.). At the last minute we get a call that the staffing agency found one more candidate that had experience in our line of work. We interviewed him and because of his background and they way he presented himself in the interview I knew that he was going to have a bit of arrogance about him and that he might not take directions from me (I guess he was the one calling the shots at his previous employer). We told the owner who we decided to go with, but he pulled the "I own the place and you'll do as I say" card and made us hire this guy because of his related experience. With the way this guy talked himself up, you'd think he could walk on water. Constantly bragging about his drafting degree and how he made drawings that were over 80 pages and all for custom one-off stuff in extremely high end places, and that he could do everything in AutoCAD and Inventor, and blah blah blah. In order to combat this, my supervisor and I had a meeting with him to kind of explain what we were looking for and what we expected of him. He said he understood and we all left hoping that a major problem would come up. Little did we know... So after a few basic (i.e. simple) drawings, we decided to see what he could do running solo on a project for a custom job. After a couple of weeks of working on the drawings we were starting to get really close to the day we needed to start production. Me: When will the drawings be done? Him: In a few hours. I only have a couple of details to finish. Two hours later. Me: How are those drawings coming along? Him: Should be just a couple of hours. I found a detail that I had to change. Two more hours later. Me: Where are the drawings? We need to get those out to the shop so they can start making the stuff. Him: In a couple of hours, I just need to... (I cut him off) Me: You told me this a couple of hours ago. You need to finish the drawings today so we can get them out to production! End of the day. Him: The drawings are finished and they are ready for production. Me: I'll take a look at them tonight and I'll have them out to production in the morning unless you need to change anything. Him: Shouldn't have to. They can build off of these. After three hours of reviewing the drawings (I didn't leave work until 8:30 that night), out of 30+ sheets ALL of them had things that needed to be corrected. The drawings were unusable and could not be built from. Details didn't match, half of the dimensions needed were missing, notes were not consistent with the details, etc. I put the marked up set on his desk and the next day when I walked in, he had the nerve to say "I almost didn't like you today." I had to put him in his place a number of times before he stopped with the I Know Everything mentality (in fact, his nickname was IKE for a while). Even when it came to using AutoCAD, he wouldn't trust what I said when I tried to give him some tips on working faster with AutoCAD. When I borrowed the macro from this site for locking all viewports, moving them to the viewports layer, changing the visual style to 2D wireframe, when I asked him why he wasn't using the button I set up to run the macro his response was "I still have to see if I can trust it" (even after I tested it multiple times before I released it to the other drafters). My supervisor and I had another meeting with him because he was unintentionally insulting our build teams by saying that we couldn't do the same kind of work that he did at his previous employer. We told him that even if he didn't mean to offend anyone, the way he was saying it was very offensive and that it doesn't really matter what he says but how he says it has a huge impact on how the shop guys take it. He agreed to control what he said and we moved on. When I first started bringing this to the attention of the owner, his response was "if you two can't get along, I'll have to separate you" (actually what he said was a bit more on the profane side, but you get the idea). The basic feeling that I got from that was that even though I was the CAD manager, this guy was untouchable and the boss favored him so much that he could do no wrong. Fast forward to the present, and I finally snapped. Drawing after drawing I was marking up the same mistakes over and over again. I would mark the drawings up with what was wrong, wrote on there exactly how I wanted to see the drawings, walked him through the drawings a few times, and gave him copies of the drawings that he messed up so he would know how to correct the problems on future drawings. But that didn't work and the mistakes continued. After a few months of this, and many hours of my life wasted marking up his drawings, I finally went to my supervisor and told him that I couldn't use this him anymore. I showed my supervisor what I was talking about and he said that he would talk to the owner to see what he wanted to do. I guess the owner was (FINALLY) growing tired of the mistakes that this guy was making (realizing that it was costing him A LOT of money) and said to get rid of him. So now the staffing agency is lining up another round of candidates for us to interview. I'll know more by the end of the week. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Organic Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 For his next assignment ask him to draw an unemployment check. Maybe he'll get the hint. That just opens yourself wide up to a lawsuit due to bullying in the workplace and/or unfair dismissal when he is eventually let go. As far as accuracy, one drawing he'll be kinda close to getting right, but the next drawing (which is VERY similar) he'll totally fudge it up. This annoys me. If I know people can do great work when they want too, yet for another job spent a lot longer on it (time wise they should have been equivalent/ the second job could have been done much faster), yet the quality is far worse then that is not really acceptable. It is particularly annoying when you see someone take dodgy shortcuts when they know full and well the correct method to do it (which takes little or no extra time to implement). Everyone has busy days where no as many checks may be carried out as perhaps would be on a quieter day or a more important job and this is more understanable, although if you are not overly busy and have plenty of time, then it is expected that the standards are followed as much is reasonably possible and that sufficient checks are performed. At the end of the day, finding staff and training them is not easy or cheap. Taking a few hours to make necessary changes on a job that was expected to take two weeks (and did) it not really that much time when put in perspective. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperCAD Posted September 7, 2011 Author Share Posted September 7, 2011 Taking a few hours to make necessary changes on a job that was expected to take two weeks (and did) it not really that much time when put in perspective. Let me put it to you this way. If I'm spending so much time correcting the stupid mistakes and/or omissions, there is a good chance that I'm going to miss a bigger problem with the drawings, such as a detail not matching the rest of the set and causing an even bigger problem with the product doesn't go together the way it was intended. If the build teams cut the parts using the wrong detail and try to put it together things won't fit. Then they'll have to figure out what is wrong with the design, figure out how the parts are supposed to be made the right way, re-cut all of the parts, rebuild the product, that all equals a lot of money in wasted time and material. I don't have a problem reviewing a drawing and marking it up, but looking at the big picture if I miss a mistake at review time it could potentially end up costing the company a lot more than what they pay me for those few hours of work. I'd rather get a drafter in that I can trust to do the work and only have them make a few corrections, than have someone who I can't trust and potentially need to have their drawing re-drawn from being so bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack_O'neill Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 When I first started bringing this to the attention of the owner, his response was "if you two can't get along, I'll have to separate you" (actually what he said was a bit more on the profane side, but you get the idea). The basic feeling that I got from that was that even though I was the CAD manager, this guy was untouchable and the boss favored him so much that he could do no wrong. I worked at a place that hired this guy's twin brother. Started out as a shipping clerk, then they transferred him into the engineering department as a file clerk. I suspect they did that because of repeated shipping to the wrong place. Three months after he moved into engineering, I was teaching (rather, attempting to teach) him to use AutoCAD. Three months after that he was my boss. Three more months passed before I found another job, leaving behind 13 years. Be glad it didn't go that way. Sounds like it could have. May yet, if he's the owner's cousin's brother's uncle's nephew or something. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee Roy Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 Call up that lady from the round of interviews 18 months ago, see how she's doing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackBox Posted September 7, 2011 Share Posted September 7, 2011 Call up that lady from the round of interviews 18 months ago, see how she's doing. 1+........ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperCAD Posted September 7, 2011 Author Share Posted September 7, 2011 We did. We eventually hired her. Unfortunately, money got really tight and I had to let two of my people go. One had been here longer that I have, and she was the other one. I suspect that the owner still thought that this guy was the best thing since sliced bread (or it would be embarrassing to him if he had to fire the guy that he forced us to hire) and that was the reason why she was let go and not him. I've only chatted with her once since she was let go and it didn't sound like she was upset with me, but I'd like to have her back. I'll see how this next round of interviews goes and see if I can call her back in or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Organic Posted September 8, 2011 Share Posted September 8, 2011 If I was made redundant from a company I don't think I personally would want to work for them again. If I can find another job elsewhere, then it is their loss not mine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperCAD Posted September 14, 2011 Author Share Posted September 14, 2011 By end of day today, the problem will be solved. Time to move the department forward now that we have let go of the anchor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackBox Posted September 14, 2011 Share Posted September 14, 2011 *The Jeffersons theme plays* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuperCAD Posted September 14, 2011 Author Share Posted September 14, 2011 Come on, dude. You know when you do that you have to post a link to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SLW210 Posted September 14, 2011 Share Posted September 14, 2011 Considering the lack of documentation on this employee, I would say things are just getting started. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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