Plumbing Work Ethic/Employer Standards

[wm009]

I hope this is the right forum for this. But basically I have to ask about what is tolerated by bosses and work in general for plumbing.

I have a friend who is a plumber, currently working in Calgary. He has about 3 or 4 years of experience in Fort Mac prior to that.

He does plumbing for commercial buildings. But he has horrible work standards for himself and I don't understand how he's still employed. So I thought maybe it was standard.

He is constantly on his iPhone. Send him a text and he replies within a minute or two.
He calls in sick once or twice a week on average.
Was calling in sick to the crew he works with, instead of the office. The office recently found out he was doing this, still employed.
The foreman has banned him from talking to anyone on the job, as he won't stop talking and that's all he'll do.
Constantly complains about how everyone is an idiot and doing things wrong.
Takes long vacations, unpaid of course. He's planning 4 weeks at Christmas.

Basically I just want to understand because I don't get it. I don't work in plumbing. And I don't know if there is such a demand that they'll put up with this stuff. I wouldn't possibly attempt to do anything like this in my line of work.

I hope this doesn't sound like an odd question. I genuinely want to know.

 

[Leejosepho]

It sounds to me like he probably does acceptable work whenever he actually works and the boss has yet to feel any great need to go through the trouble of replacing him.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Jimbo]

In general, I think the smartphone thing is causing problems in society and the workplace. Somehow folks think texting away is ok in a context where in the past you would not just have picked up your phone and yakked. I am proposing a new law making WWT an offense.....Walking While Texting. You know how many people have just walked right out in front of me with never a second look!


I think employers in all areas of the workplace, from the small office, to the large office, to field work....will have to develop some standards and lay down the law.. This will probably get worse before it gets better.

 

[Bluebinky]

cell phones are the new cigarettes.

 

[hj]

It sounds like he belongs to a union, because that is "common behavior" when a union worker is on a "big job" where he can hide in a cubby hole all day long. Otherwise, unless he has dirty pictures of the foreman's wife, he would be out the door IMMEDIATELY. I would not be surprised if he also did "side jobs" in his "off time", using the company's tools and materials. I was on a "big job" one time when the cuctomer's construction superintendent said he thought he was watching some kind of circus act, with workers carrying buckets were going from the South end to the North end, and workers carrying the SAME buckets, were coming from the North end and going South.