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The School of Jack - Crocodile - 12th June 2013
Jack Wrote:Lesson 2: Subsection 1: Attendance[SIZE=2]
As a commercial digger, you will be expected to turn up for work on time (preferably 10 to 15 minutes early), ready and in a fit state to work, each and every day. Starting from the first Monday to the last Friday (or some such).
[/SIZE]
Never understood this mentality. If any job requires that you be there fifteen minutes before you are getting paid to be there, then this should be your start time and this is time you should be paid for. Most working people already dedicate a substantial amount of unpaid time toward their job and their working day, breaks, travel time, washing work clothes and cleaning equipment etc, if you think low paid workers need to dedicate another 58.25 hours for free, then knock yourself out. It's as if the eightees never ended.
The School of Jack - Kel - 13th June 2013
Crocodile Wrote:Never understood this mentality. If any job requires that you be there fifteen minutes before you are getting paid to be there, then this should be your start time and this is time you should be paid for. Most working people already dedicate a substantial amount of unpaid time toward their job and their working day, breaks, travel time, washing work clothes and cleaning equipment etc, if you think low paid workers need to dedicate another 58.25 hours for free, then knock yourself out. It's as if the eightees never ended.Not saying that I agree with the underlying principle, but it's not unusual. At my last place of employment, the call centre staff were "clocked on" when they signed into a particular piece of software on their PC which routed incoming calls to them. Given that the PCs could take 5-10 minutes at peak times to boot up and connect, this could easily add 15 minutes to the start of the working day. They were literally deemed to not be at work unless they were actually working. Taking a comfort break involved clocking off, as they had to sign out of the software to prevent incoming calls reaching their phones whilst they were away from their desk.
Not sure I like equating skilled excavators with call centre staff, but if that's how the industry sees itself...
The School of Jack - Sith - 13th June 2013
Jack Wrote:Lesson 6 Efficiency [SIZE=2]
[/SIZE]Also don't let the spoil heap expand so much that it encroaches on that important pit that no one has spotted yet.
If your able to put your spoil near to where your working on your own heap, make sure your not putting it on another feature...clean the area first. Otherwise you'll end up having to move it. Many sites have 'hidden features' that only show up later as the soil oxidises or when the ground is drying from light rain. It's worth taking the time to be sure.
And lastly, don't place your spoil on the grid lines (if you have a grid) it's a real pain to dig a channel through a spoil heap to run a tape between two pegs.
Blimey! I actually agreed with most of that one. But take note of the selected paragraphs above and remeber; don't place your spoil in the trench unless the curator/consultant has agreed the chosen area to be free from archaeology - unless you want to shift it all to prove it was.
The School of Jack - BAJR - 13th June 2013
To be fair to the course tutor ... Although I agree with Crocs sentiments.. I would hope that I would be at my place of work so that I can "start work" at the stroke of 8 or 8:30am rather than turn up, just after, and then have a cuppa, while getting a chat in before the "day proper" gets going around 9ish.
I always get to work with time to spare, to have a breather before starting work. either that or work out a way to arrive exactly on teh final strike of the bells and go straight to my trench. ah teh 80s..
The School of Jack - Dinosaur - 13th June 2013
@Barkingdigger -That sadly only applies where the diggers are capable of doing the digging - I've had several occasions over the last few years where I've had to dig stuff since no one else on site seemed to have the faintest. The one and on
The School of Jack - Dinosaur - 13th June 2013
Jack Wrote:[SIZE=2]'I have ta clean this whole area, then re-cut these twa sections, then get the photos done....then I can tak a break!'
- The bulldozer[/SIZE]
Careful! - I know who that is! }
The School of Jack - Dinosaur - 13th June 2013
Sith Wrote:Blimey! I actually agreed with most of that one. But take note of the selected paragraphs above and remeber; don't place your spoil in the trench unless the curator/consultant has agreed the chosen area to be free from archaeology - unless you want to shift it all to prove it was.
They've been letting Jack loose on large-scale open area stuff recently! :0
The School of Jack - barkingdigger - 13th June 2013
Dinosaur Wrote:@Barkingdigger -That sadly only applies where the diggers are capable of doing the digging - I've had several occasions over the last few years where I've had to dig stuff since no one else on site seemed to have the faintest. The one and only dead Viking with shiny stuff that this unit's ever had was dug by yours truly cos everyone else walked off to go dig a ditch somewhere! I've even been accused of making features up by another PO who was just a c**p digger (one of the up-and-coming Lego-brick school generation) -good news I'm old and crafty enough to have got OSL profiles done through 'em to prove the point. We've got an awful lot of stuff round here on our sh**e local selection of subsoils that the 'dig the soily bit, record it and move on to the next section' generation are never going to get
Dino, fair enough - it only works if the "soldiers" are competent and the "officers" are free to lead! As for incompetent "officers" and "NCOs", that speaks to a whole lot bigger problem with the industry... As the saying goes, if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys!
And as for the whole spoil-heap location issue, there is a cosmic law that dictates the best features will ALWAYS be under the spoil-heap! Not sure if this still applies to spoil carted away by muck-lorry, but they rarely slow down enough to check under...
The School of Jack - Dinosaur - 13th June 2013
Not just spoil heaps either - I once inconvenienced Jack on a pipeline job by finding a load of live munitions in the field up-line of his excavation so that the bomb-disposal guys kept driving over his roundhouses }
...pipeline guys gave up at that point and went off to build another section of the route
The School of Jack - Crocodile - 13th June 2013
Kel Wrote:Not saying that I agree with the underlying principle, but it's not unusual. At my last place of employment, the call centre staff were "clocked on" when they signed into a particular piece of software on their PC which routed incoming calls to them. Given that the PCs could take 5-10 minutes at peak times to boot up and connect, this could easily add 15 minutes to the start of the working day. They were literally deemed to not be at work unless they were actually working. Taking a comfort break involved clocking off, as they had to sign out of the software to prevent incoming calls reaching their phones whilst they were away from their desk.
Not sure I like equating skilled excavators with call centre staff, but if that's how the industry sees itself...
Under minimum wage law, breaks don't have to be included in paid time but booting up your computer would do and if an employee was to receive less than minimum over the pay period for that loss of 5 or 10 minutes each time they booted up then the employer will have broken the law. It doesn't apply of course if you are paid more than minimum wage and the unpaid worked time does not reduce your pay below minimum but you will have a contract of hours and the principle of what counts as worked time is detailed in minimum wage law, you'd probably have a strong case if you wished to contest the issue.
Work time counts as any time that you are required to be at work, other than when you are on a rest break, including travelling during the working day, though not to and from work.