Fired for Having Soliraire on the Screen! or Off with His Head- It's Good to be the King!

To wit:

New York mayor fires worker with solitaire on computer screen -- Newsday.com: "Office assistant Edward Greenwood IX was going over some papers at his desk as Bloomberg made the rounds with his photographer, greeting workers and posing for pictures. When the mayor reached him, Greenwood stood, they shook hands and the photographer snapped a photo.

But the eagle-eyed mayor _ a billionaire former businessman with a certain idea of how offices should be run _ noticed Greenwood's game of solitaire glowing on his screen. He said nothing about it to Greenwood but later told an aide to give him the ax.

The story was reported by the New York Post on Thursday, and Bloomberg defended his no-tolerance decision.

'The workplace is not an appropriate place for games,' Bloomberg said. 'It's a place where you've got to do the job that you're getting paid for.' "

It is so refreshing to see that Mayor Bloomberg does not act implusively. It is with pride that I see our great mayor using only the latest in sweat-shop employee management techniques. There's none of that wimpy employee counseling for Bloomie. Off with their heads I say! Fire at will! Pay no attention to an employees work record. Yes, we should go back to the sweat-shop methods of employee management. The boss man gets the shop kiss-up to do the stupid firing for him. Gutsy? No. Gutsy would have been to speak personally to the employee and require more staff development. After all, you can't let the press know you are PMS-ish today... But power has its perks. Oh, the joys of running non-union shops. You can destroy anyone, for any little whim, and get someone else to do your dirty work for you. I personally hope his girlfriend never gets off task...Sweet! As Mel Brooks said: "It's good to be the king!"

My personal recommendations to increase employee productivity

Fire immediately anyone who is caught in any of the following states:

• Using a stress ball.
• Writing a not immediatley usable list.
• Drinking water on company time.
• Wasting time in the bathroom- confirmed by bathroom stall cams linked to supervisor computers.

My personal recommendations to avoid employee reduced productivity

Remove the following from all work places:

• Bathrooms
• Water Coolers
• Writing instruments
• Paper of any kind
• Any computer program that is not directly realted to the task at hand. Programs can be served up on a need to use basis. (This further guarantees job security for the IT department- my favorite.)

The above suggestions should show immediate results. For help implementing the above the UFT leadership provides positive role models.

For those employers who are just so worried about not getting their monies worth out of their employees, put up or shut up- there is software that will put you in control over which web sites they can go to, and which (if any) games they can play! It's called, uh- PARENTAL CONTROLS. Any average network admin can get it up and running easily. Yes, employees should be able to monitor themselves, nut they are human. Humans occassionally make little mistakes. THis gut was not surfing for pornography, doing Internet shopping on company time. He took a short break when there was no work at the moment. Should he have pretended to look at some old work, to appear busy? Perhaps, but let's get real. If you need to get rid of an employee, document several infractions, then give due process. Keeping this man from getting unemployment is p[lain unnecessary Making power postures is just infantile and makes you look insecure. Stop ruining peoples lives over such foolishness.

Then again... "It's good to be the king!"

Any more suggestions are most welcome!

~JRY

Tags: An Educatonal Voyage! New York City