A lot of what I read is penny-ante stuff. But, as others have said, it all adds up. Couple things have stood out. Any time an employer listens to the underlings over the job boss, something is drastically wrong with the Boss/Forman relationship and people need to seriously examine their professional relationship. In my state, ANYONE left on a job in an oversite position is technically and legally "management"; disposition and pay should reflect this.
A good worker who has punctuallity issues needs to be fired for it one time. See if that doesn't fix it (you can give him his job back if he begs for it; this will teach someone worthwhile a lesson they will never forget). A lot of times morning punctuality problems are silent rebellion, some aspect of their job/life that they are hating: challenge them. The biggest mistake a business owner can do is to lose a good employee: they are the most expensive tool in your inventory; but like all good tools, they must be taken care of. If an employee sees no possibility of becoming more in your company than he already is, then of course he's going to go into business for himself; you have to nurture the sapplings and prune the dead weight. (haha)
Hats, gloves, glasses, ear protection, in my line, those are hand tools and the responsibility of the employee. Oh, you came to work without your tools? Guess you're not working today. Parts missing from trucks and machinery? Tools damaged from carelessness? Those come out of pay checks. Good employees put it together real fast. Bad ones get gone. Either way, mission accomplished. I once had to buy an entire kitchen's worth of new cabinet doors: twelve years later I still remember that job like it was yesterday, and I haven't drilled a cabinet door wrong since.
You don't have to be a jerk or a tyrant about it, but, and especially, it's business, not personal. We/Our bosses are in business to make money, not losses from carelessness. And people who tolerate bad employees, for what ever reason and however they fit that definition, won't be in business long: the losses will soon outway the gains.
No Help Is Better Than Bad Help.
Funny story time: I once had a cub running a shopvac while the boss was running the Pardner demo saw with a water hose attached in the basement of a million dollar remodel; water was flowing every where and no matter how hard and fast the cub pumped that vacuum hose and wand, he couldn't get out in front of the flood of water flowing across this basement floor. So, the boss shut the saw down to see what was going on. The vacuum wasn't plugged in
. To this day we still laugh about this when we see each other.
