This is horrendous on the part of the managers:
“I want you to work faster, because we need the
material urgently,” he said.
I screamed. Everyone around me was crying and yelling.
They stopped the assembly line on the female side of
the room, but the men were told to keep working.
In my first year in university, before picking my specialization (computers), we had to study the basics of all the engineering disciplines, including mechanical engineering. One day in workshop class, we were given the assignment of making a nut --
a nut, from a metal block, using a hammer and chisel. After laboring at it for hours and producing completely uneven hexagon, I asked the instructor:
"Why do we have to learn this? I'm studying to be an engineer. I'll never be doing this."
The instructor replied, "So you will know the difficulty the tasks you order others to do."
I felt immediately humbled. Fifteen years on, I've never forgotten this. In my position, I can't avoid putting pressure on people to perform anymore. But as much as possible, I've learned to see if it's something I could do myself if I were in the same position.
Pushing people to work harder is not management.