Intimidation and Fear NOT Best Motivators in Dept. of Driver Services
What is going on at the Georgia Dept of Drivers Services? People are operating in a climate of fear of losing their jobs. There are 79 openings for examiners and only 3 are being recruited. Examiners are being fired left and right. Managers are being fired. District managers are being fired. Higher ups are afraid of losing their jobs also. There is no room for pointing out when something is wrong as this is construed as “talking back” and the penalty is possible loss of job. Talking back is not tolerated and we are told to “do as they say”.
Everything is now to be done faster than ever and slowness is a reason for poor job evaluation and lower pay increases or loss of job. Multitasking is also now the name of the game at DDS. We are doing more with less people than just a few years ago. Coming up short in your cash drawer too often can lead to termination. Some of the DDS Customer Service Centers have the same number of employees but process 2-3 times as many people! When asked about more people to be assigned to our CSC we are told the higher ups think we are not working as hard as some of the others.
Also we are not being managed as well as could be. It is difficult to get a single day off for family as we work Tue-Sat. Our family members work Mon-Fri. We are also advised to go to doctor appointments on our day off. Some other CSC’s and Headquarters personnel do not have to do this as they work a Mon-Fri schedule. It seems that the agency is in a negative reinforcement mode and the external customers are always right. The internal customers (DDS workers) seem to be in last place with the agency, especially with the hatchet man, Alan Watson in Conyers who everyone seems to be afraid of.
I feel the fellow in the director’s job is clueless as to the source of low morale at the less favorite CSC locations such as Columbus. Does Greg Dozier know there is a problem? If not, he should!! Not that long ago it was fun to come to work and now most of us dread coming to work. It kind of reminds me of working on the old southern plantation with the DDS workers as the modern day slaves.