Can Gannett sink any lower?

I think we can always assume that Gannett did the wrong thing with some certainty, given its track record, thank you.

 

I would be very interested in learning how many (if any) of her 16 regular off days those two months she used for testing.

If she used all 16, that means it took 23 days of testing to see if she was a good donor match. Does that sound right to anyone?

If she didn't use her off days for this heroic pursuit . . . why the hell not?

 

Are you assuming she had off-days during the week? I'd assume the testing wasn't available on typical Saturday-Sunday weekends. She was a sales person, which, I figure, means she worked Monday-Friday.

The story said she took seven days off in a couple (which I'm assuming is two) months. She took personal and sick time, which I assume, was actually available to her to use. Or, is it one of those things where the company provides the benefit, but heaven forbid if anyone actually uses it.

Ignoring the donating kidney aspect for a second, I can easily see someone missing seven days in two months. Catch a bad flu, and you're out a three or four days right there. Get it at the beginning of the first month, and at the end of the second, and you're sick twice in six weeks. Hardly a rare occurence.

Yet, she missed 17.5 percent of the time available to her. Unless she was screwing around on the days she actually worked and didn't sell anything, odds are she didn't miss her sales goal by a ridiculous amount. The goals shouldn't be calibrated to the exact dollar.

 

No. But hospitals work seven days.

And people work 8 hours a day, which gives them 16 free hours per day.

This testing could only be done during her exact work hours? And took up the entire day? So she could never come in a little early? Or go back to the office after testing and work a little late?

Or perhaps work on a Saturday or Sunday if you happened to be gone on Thursday and Friday? Is that so unheard of? And was an effort even made to try to satisfy all responsibilities?

She missed 7 days in 2 months --- all by choice. And many more days were to come for the operation. Did anyone think of that?

 

Just to play devil's advocate for a moment - and I know this won't be popular - but I believe they had some cause to terminate this woman. She had only been employed by Gannett for seven months, and she had admittedly already missed seven days. That is A LOT, Baron, especially when you have just started a new job, and especially in media sales. And consider the fact that a lot of employers don't allow for even ONE day off during your first six months of employment. Plus, as BTE pointed out, she was going to miss A LOT more days. This woman was also (admittedly) not focused on her job.

Sales reps generate most of the revenue that pays every other department in the building. No competent manager would want someone on staff who was not able to do
his/her job for long periods of time, especially due to a situation that is completely within the employee's control. And especially if he/she was not established within the company with a proven track record of sales, meaning one could expect immediate results upon that person's return to work.

I'm sure some sort of compromise could have been reached; Gannett could have handled this better, especially from a PR standpoint, absolutely. And I think what this
woman is doing is an incredibly brave, unselfish act. I also think she probably knew how this was going to end when she made her decision. Perhaps Gannett could have made her position commission-based and hired someone else, I don't know. But having been a sales rep for a television affiliate with scary corporate owners, I cannot even begin to count the number of reps I saw fired for not reaching sales goals. I'm talking
over 30 reps in two years. Some media companies do not dick around. At all. And I think a lot of companies would have acted exactly as Gannett did. Not defending them, I realize their reputation, just saying that, in my humble opinion, Gannett did not have an obligation to keep her employed.

 

Hospitals are open seven days a week, but all of their services are not available seven days. Most are Monday-Friday, 8 or 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Weekends are spent caring for the patients already in the hospital. They don't bring in patients unless they are admitted with immediate illnesses and/or injuries. Work that can be done during the week is pushed to then.

If I were to need an x-ray on a Saturday because I think I broke my leg, I'd get the x-Ray. If I need an x-ray as part of a general physical, it waits until the following week.

And I'm sure kidney transplant testers are just waiting to conduct tests at 2 a.m. on a Saturday. Seriously? They have hours of operation, just like anyone else.

The story doesn't say anything about her making up the time for work. Maybe she should. Maybe she did, and couldn't sell enough. Who knows?

And my point stands about missing seven days in two months. It's not like she was on a pleasure trip. From what the story said, she had the sick time and personal time available to use. What's the use of having those benefits if you can't take them?

 

Sick time is exactly that --- I'm sick and CAN'T work. Hers was something else entirely. A choice to help an acquaintance.

Personal time is fine, but as I said before, you have to pick your spots.

I have four "personal" days in addition to my vacation time. Just because I "have" the time does not mean I can call in today and say, "I decided to take a personal day today because I wanted to watch the Nadal-Djokovic final on Key Biscayne. See if you can find someone else on short notice to lay out the section today." That fucks over too many people and is simply wrong ---- no matter how "entitled" I am to the time coming to me.

You take the time when --- like vacation time --- you submit it and it is approved. And if I am assigned to work on, say, a special section previewing the NBA playoffs, I will not schedule personal time for the third week of April. Because I will miss my assignment if I do that.

 

Pressure? At a a job? As an adult? The horror! What kind of world are we living in?

 

You didn't say how many positions those 30 sales reps filled, nor how many are in the company. For argument's sake, I'll say that those 30 people filled five positions, six people per position, meaning three people filled one spot each year.

That means every four months, they're filling three positions. Maybe the company ought to look at their training and maybe look themselves in the mirror about their sales goals and wonder why they keep having problems filling positions?

The same with vacation time. If someone schedules and takes a week off, that means they lose 25 percent of their work time in one month. Basically, that means either they sell like crazy the other three weeks, or they're fired. It's not a vacation when you have to make up the hours.

EDIT: I meant every four months, they have to fill five positions.

 

The story didn't say that she just up and didn't show up on the days for personal time. From what I'm reading of it, she was given the time to use, and she used it. Then all of a sudden, it's "She didn't make her sales goal." Well, duh. If you don't work as much, you're not going to sell as much. What did they expect?

And sometimes, life circumstances intervene, regardless of the schedule. Suppose you wanted to donate a kidney, regardless of who was receiving it, and the transplant was scheduled during the NBA Finals?

I'll agree, yeah, she hasn't been there as long and probably hadn't built up as much goodwill as someone who had been there seven years instead of seven months. And there is nothing in the story that says if she had met her goals in the previous months. If she was a chronic failure, then yeah, I can see the company dismissing her for lack of performance. But there was nothing in the story to indicate that.

 

Almost all jobs have pressure. But there's a difference in pressure to get the job done, and right, and pressure for just pressure's sake.

As I've indicated, sales goals are fine. And if someone constantly is missing the goals, then yeah, they're gone. But if someone misses a goal once, give me a break.