'Supervisor' tales

[KellyHabersham]

I respectfully disagree. If she's known to be the one doing this, the only one doing this, then telling everyone off just creates a lot of bad feeling among everyone else while diluting any feeling of remorse she might have because it implies she's not alone. There's nothing wrong with singling someone out if they are the sole culprit.

I'm inclined to agree with this......experienced it often back when Phyllis was in my work area at the library. Just to give an example of what would happen:

My work area had been assigned the task of checking in magazines and newspapers. Two people were mainly responsible for this, Phyllis was the "back-up" person, and two of us had no involvement with this at all. (we'd not been scheduled the day training was held at work)

It would often come up that someone screwed up with making changes to magazine records, it was known that Phyllis was responsible, but still.....everyone had to be lectured about not making that mistake/ (even myself and the co-worker who were NOT involved with checking in magazines)

[Dreamstalker]

J knows she's the only one doing it and is the only one he plans to speak to; she has a distinctive handwriting (think a mix of tween girl and innercity graffiti artist). His concern was that even though they both know she's the one doing it, she would come back with "well why aren't you talking to anyone else about this/why is Dreamstalker allowed to write on boxes?". True, Dreamstalker (nobody else) also writes on boxes, but that serves a purpose where yours is just generally dumb, wastes time and can screw up what precious organization systems we have.

[wolfie]

Does your "writing on the boxes" consist of information about what's inside, so people don't need to search the label for fine print? If so, that's not a problem.

[Dreamstalker]

My writing on the boxes is only if the outward-facing surface of the case isn't already clearly marked (multiple colors/flavors of one brand etc). Saves time and hassle having to haul down every case looking for one single type; most cases are only marked with the brand and general product (if variety is specified but is not in English I will write the English translation).

[wolfie]

In other words, your writing on the boxes was providing useful, work-related information to co-workers. The time you spent writing (once) would save the company more in (repeated) checking of the contents of the boxes than it took you to mark them, so you were doing the right thing.

[Dreamstalker]

Yup. While S seems to be no longer writing stupid shit, she has decided that my system is a good one and has started labeling cases the same way. Except her writing is messy and too small...having to get up on the ladder just to read it kinda defeats the whole purpose. And why is a case of penne labeled "B"

I was standing still for two seconds in the warehouse marking off a list when she comes in and practically yells "Hi Dreamstalker! How's work going?" I think she was implying that I wasn't actually doing any work and hoping to catch me out.
Me: "Oh, fine! J was just looking for you, he wants you to do [some random non-task that he knew would keep her out of everyone's hair]." I was actually finishing up something he had asked her to do 20 minutes ago.

[Dreamstalker]

S is no longer scribbling on boxes, but has been seen eating in the warehouse (team no-no in light of some recent events that in fact dovetails nicely with an enforceable company policy).

We also discovered another bit of sabotage...a few months ago, I'd come up with a system of three clear lidded plastic buckets in topstock for three types of bulk candy; easier to see what's what and far easier to handle when refilling on the floor. Two of the three buckets are gone, and there will be a $$ outlay to reinstate it (I had been using spare packaging from Easter candy). It was obvious what they were for, and it lasted this long unmolested...