Paul pays overtime

At the beginning of the year the drivers had noticed that the waiting times from customer enquiry to the job being done was rising. This was partly due to the absence of a colleague, partly due to rising demand. They were surprised that Paul had not suggested anything to correct the situation and so it fell upon them to come up with a plan. They negotiated for a temporary replacement colleague but found that it was several months before he could start.

Whilst they were waiting for this new colleague one of the drivers suggested that, for the time being, they do more shifts themselves to help alleviate the creaking waiting times and thus hold the service together. His colleagues agreed, aware though that this would significantly increase their workload but seeing that it would help the situation. The work they would normally have done during this time was largely displaced to out of hours but they did it anyway.

It was a great success. Waiting times more than halved and when their new colleague arrived things were in a much better shape. Neither Paul nor any of his managerial colleagues offered any thanks for their efforts but the drivers had come to expect this.

They put in their application forms for payment for these sessions. It was a full three months later that they eventually saw the money arrive in their accounts. At first they thought it was an administration error as the sums paid were so small. £40 an hour before tax for people of their qualifications seemed very low compared to what had been paid to others in the company in similar situations previously, even quite recently. And compared to market rates this was almost six times lower. But they knew that to complain was to appear greedy, especially in these times of austerity, and so they kept their counsel.

And Paul knew this and looked on from his office on the top floor and smiled.

The driver who had initially suggested all this extra work however, was saddened and upset that he had in effect made his colleagues do the work almost for free. Although the work had been done in normal working hours it had displaced other activities that still needed to be done and were, as often as not, done in the drivers' own time and moreover, the whole effort was on top of an already overfull working week. Upon enquiry - as usual - it appeared that there was nothing that could be done about this.

Morale had taken another kick in the teeth.

And Paul knew this and looked on from his office on the top floor and smiled.