2/3rds of those fork lifts aren't even operable, and haven't been for a year. But the unit can't find the time to get them fixed, so they had to be pushed and dragged into position.
The forklift repair crews do not actually fix forklifts because it is widely believed that they only exist to "supervise" forklift operators while they perform the maintenance because operators should know how to fix a forklift in case a forklift repair crew isn't around when a forklift breaks.
Also, the people who operate the forklifts were not hired to be forklift operators. They are a random assortment of people whose jobs have nothing to do with forklift operation, and are constantly pulled from those jobs to go operate a forklift when needed which is always. The actual forklift operators are not qualified to operate the forklifts, and see no personal benefit in learning to do so. And most of them are about to be fired next week anyway for drug use and intoxication on the job. They will be replaced by new forklift operators with the same problems and lack of qualifications.
All of that work was done by six guys in a 40-man department staying until midnight with little supervision the night before. 20 of the 40 were required to be at the dentist. 14 are leadership, trapped in a constant cascade of hierarchically sequenced in-person meetings that should have been emails.
This is actually the fourth way in which the forklifts were parked, and the second time they were parked in this way. Every time they re-arranged them some guy just above the last guy flippantly wanted it done differently.
Now that one unit did it this way, the top guy wants this to be the "new standard" and the 20 other adjacent units will spend the next two weeks re-arranging their entire work area to accommodate it, ceasing all other work.
Midway through the second week of re-arranging, so many other requirements will have fallen through that everyone will forget about the new forklift parking policy as they scramble to meet the needs of the organization with six working forklifts.
Three months from now, the senior management guy will notice that everyone has stopped abiding by his previous forklift parking rules and get very, very upset. Everyone will again drop what they are doing to re-arrange the forklifts until midnight.
That guy will get promoted to a new position in some organization on the other side of the country. A new senior manager will come in, see the new way the forklifts are being parked, and declare it to be the dumbest thing he's ever seen. He'll draw out a sketch of his hazy memories of how they arranged forklifts in the early-2000's when he last worked at that site as an unqualified forklift operator, and tell everyone he wants it done that way by tomorrow.
Young members of the company that develop in this environment will know little else of the actual objectives and purpose for which the company exists, and will assume that the most important part of their job is being able to park forklifts in an orderly fashion. These people will rise through the ranks of the company, perpetuating this idea until the company loses so much money to mismanagement and incompetence that it becomes insolvent and collapses.
But the military can't become insolvent, so that's where the analogy really breaks down.
Edit: Damn, gold, silver, and platinum on a throwaway account.
Exentr1x on April 7th, 2019 at 13:05 UTC »
Anyone have the urge to run down the middle?
sdforbda on April 7th, 2019 at 13:39 UTC »
3rd on left didn't tilt down
SeventeenSee on April 7th, 2019 at 16:09 UTC »
If this were a military unit:
2/3rds of those fork lifts aren't even operable, and haven't been for a year. But the unit can't find the time to get them fixed, so they had to be pushed and dragged into position.
The forklift repair crews do not actually fix forklifts because it is widely believed that they only exist to "supervise" forklift operators while they perform the maintenance because operators should know how to fix a forklift in case a forklift repair crew isn't around when a forklift breaks.
Also, the people who operate the forklifts were not hired to be forklift operators. They are a random assortment of people whose jobs have nothing to do with forklift operation, and are constantly pulled from those jobs to go operate a forklift when needed which is always. The actual forklift operators are not qualified to operate the forklifts, and see no personal benefit in learning to do so. And most of them are about to be fired next week anyway for drug use and intoxication on the job. They will be replaced by new forklift operators with the same problems and lack of qualifications.
All of that work was done by six guys in a 40-man department staying until midnight with little supervision the night before. 20 of the 40 were required to be at the dentist. 14 are leadership, trapped in a constant cascade of hierarchically sequenced in-person meetings that should have been emails.
This is actually the fourth way in which the forklifts were parked, and the second time they were parked in this way. Every time they re-arranged them some guy just above the last guy flippantly wanted it done differently.
Now that one unit did it this way, the top guy wants this to be the "new standard" and the 20 other adjacent units will spend the next two weeks re-arranging their entire work area to accommodate it, ceasing all other work.
Midway through the second week of re-arranging, so many other requirements will have fallen through that everyone will forget about the new forklift parking policy as they scramble to meet the needs of the organization with six working forklifts.
Three months from now, the senior management guy will notice that everyone has stopped abiding by his previous forklift parking rules and get very, very upset. Everyone will again drop what they are doing to re-arrange the forklifts until midnight.
That guy will get promoted to a new position in some organization on the other side of the country. A new senior manager will come in, see the new way the forklifts are being parked, and declare it to be the dumbest thing he's ever seen. He'll draw out a sketch of his hazy memories of how they arranged forklifts in the early-2000's when he last worked at that site as an unqualified forklift operator, and tell everyone he wants it done that way by tomorrow.
Young members of the company that develop in this environment will know little else of the actual objectives and purpose for which the company exists, and will assume that the most important part of their job is being able to park forklifts in an orderly fashion. These people will rise through the ranks of the company, perpetuating this idea until the company loses so much money to mismanagement and incompetence that it becomes insolvent and collapses.
But the military can't become insolvent, so that's where the analogy really breaks down.
Edit: Damn, gold, silver, and platinum on a throwaway account.