Employer's Dream, Employee's Nightmare

When some workers care too much, while others care too little.

Without realising it, I inherited many traits from my father: Respect for women; distrust of politicians; a love of football and fishing.

But there is one trait I sometimes wish he hadn’t passed down. His work ethic.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I have no problem with hard work (although I realise that is a relative term as I sit on my arse all day, either talking to myself or tapping a keyboard).

My dad would work all the hours that God cared to send. Early start? He’d be there. Late finish? He’d be there. Weekends and bank holidays? He’d be there again. I used to mock him for it…until I realised I was doing it too.

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So let me take you back to the beginning of 1989. I was working on a magazine called Plant Managers Journal, and I had just been promoted to deputy editor. Now there were various people that worked across both Plant Managers Journal (PMJ) and our sister magazine, Contract Journal. However, PMJ was the publication that paid my wages. PMJ was my baby.

There was an unwritten rule at PMJ that, once a month, the entire team would gather in the office for our production day. That was the day in which the various elements of the magazine would be pulled together; the day on which we would do our final checks; the final opportunity to make any changes or improvements before the magazine went off to the printer. In the field of publishing, production day was the last chance saloon. It was sacrosanct.

My problems didn’t happen overnight. It was a gradual thing. One month, I found myself alone on production day. My editor (who was also my boss) had apparently double-booked himself, and wherever he needed to be was far more important, apparently. Not a big deal, I thought. I had seen a magazine through production day plenty of times by then.

But then the same thing happened the next month. And then the month after. Even then, I don’t think I twigged.

The penny finally dropped about 11.15 one night. I was in the office, completely alone. The whole building was in darkness, aside from the light above my desk. First I read through the leader column which the editor usually wrote but which - on this occasion - he’d left me to do. Then I read through the news section. Everything was familiar because I had written all of it. Then I read through the features. All of those were mine too. I finished with our old back page gossip column which, once again, was written entirely by me. As part of my final polishing, I actually changed a few of the bylines on stories so, rather than every single story saying “Mark Anthony reports” a few now read “PMJ reports”. Even while it was dawning upon me that I was being taken for a mug, I was trying to make the magazine appear to be the work of more than just one person.

I left a few months later. But the fact that it still rankles some 35 years later goes to show the depth of the anger I felt at having my enthusiasm, passion and commitment exploited by a boss who - frankly - didn’t give a toss.

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Now, aside from the fact that I was working on a construction magazine at the time of all this, you might be wondering what all this has to do with the demolition and construction world of today.

Well, I can tell you that there are many in our industry that are suffering the same fate literally as we speak. Men and women whose passion and commitment is being used against them while their peers and superiors coast along and take the credit.

There are thousands - possibly tens of thousands - in the sector that take their role every bit as seriously as I used to. Each machine, each site, each project is their baby. And they will fight to nurture that baby all the way to adulthood, even if those around them are apparently willing to let it die.

You can spot them a mile away, particularly if you are up with the lark. They are the first on site, not just today, but every day. Keen to get a head start, just in case something goes wrong (which it inevitably will) and puts them behind schedule later in the day.

They’re the ones that do their pre-start checks with an almost religious regularity. And often, they don’t just do their own. They encourage others to do likewise; or they do it for them, just because that’s how they were taught.

And that encouragement doesn’t end there. They rally the team around specific tasks; offer guidance to the younger and less experienced members of the crew. They are the captain of the team in everything but name. And that’s fine. In fact, it is better than fine. They are an invaluable person to have about the place.

Need someone to work late? They are the go-to. Need someone to take on some additional responsibility? You know you can rely on them. Need someone to learn and understand a new process or some new piece of equipment? Who better than the person that spends their days hard at work and their evenings teaching themselves how to do their job better.

But there is a problem. In fact, there is a double-edged problem that cuts them from above; and cuts them from below.

The site manager - the real captain of the team - recognises that leadership; that commitment; that determination.

Slowly, almost imperceptibly, that site manager begins to step into the background. Where he or she used to walk the site and check in on progress and the people bringing it about, they now spend more and more time in the warmth and relative comfort of the site cabin. On the rare occasions they do emerge, they do so purely to speak to the person that is really pulling the strings: sometimes to praise, often to berate. When a client asks a difficult question, they defer to the person that is really running things; even if running things isn’t reflected in their pay-packet. The weight of problems on site - from delays to staff morale - is lifted slowly from the shoulders of the site manager, and heaped upon the shoulders of their most committed worker.

That additional pressure comes from above. But pressure also seeps up from below.

All too often, the passionate and committed worker takes younger and less experienced workers under their wing. They show them the ropes, the right way to do things. Some take those lessons in the manner they are offered. But, all too often, that guidance is squandered and abused. Some young workers are quite happy to step aside and let their mentor do a task “because they do it better”. Meanwhile, they are staring at their mobile phone or they’re off in a corner somewhere having a cigarette. Just as frustrating, they will sit on a site dumper, watching the clouds roll by until they are told precisely what to do. They have no need to think for themselves, because their self-appointed mentor is doing all the thinking for them.

That mentor also becomes an unpaid trainer. Their machine is fitted with a new attachment or new operating system, so they spend night after night scanning YouTube and teaching themselves how to get the best from it. They are then expected to impart that knowledge to a group of people that have exactly the same access to YouTube but who - frankly - couldn’t be arsed.

When five o’clock rolls around, or when the proper working day is done, that self-appointed mentor is the last person to leave. While others are content to leave the site untidy and potentially dangerous, they will go around and tidy up, getting ready for a clean start the following day. This happens once, twice, three times. And pretty soon, it’s the norm. No-one bothers because they all assume - they all KNOW - that someone else will take care of it for them.

In many instances, this is a perfect storm. A lazy site manager and a lazy workforce, kept afloat by a single person whose passion and work ethic will not allow standards to slip and who finds themselves used, abused and exploited as a result.

What does this say about the way in which sites are run and managed today? What does it say about the commitment and dedication of the modern workforce? Just as importantly, what does this do the stress levels and mental health of the person that is carrying the weight of an entire site and project on their shoulders?

And what happens when that person finally breaks; when they succumb to the pressure; when the stress pushes them over the edge?

I know what I did. I quit. I walked away and left that magazine in the hands of the less committed and the lazy. That magazine – my baby - ultimately died.

Let that be a warning.