To anyone in a position of authority

[GONNAFISTYA]

Sounds like your office needs culling. If you're at a supervisor/lead/senior level then it's part of the job to speak with the higher ups about potential/existing bullshit within the team/office/brothel...so putting a bit of time into solving problems should be guilt free.

[axbaby]

i am a foreigner making 20 times more then everyone else. i have had to deal with jealousy from day one and people lying so i could get fired. it's a horrible place to work but i confronted management and they took care of the problem people. employees and supervisors should not have to deal with this sort of office backstabbing.
to think just a year ago they almost got me to resign.

oh and if you want to see the worse employees in the world come to Africa where it takes 3 people to do the job of one in Canada.

[phantasmagoria]

you don't have to be in a position of authority to realise people are morons.

[+JuggerNaut+]

no, but you have to care more. jackal is spot-on with his first post. a lot of these morons don't value their job in the first place - until they're without one. "gosh, i guess i shoulda..."

too late.

[R00k]

And the reason I threw "authority" into the mix was because the other half of the time when these people aren't crying like children is spent with them posturing to look like consumate professionals in front of the higher-ups. This just makes me hate people that much more.

I wish I could just turn my music up and drown out everybody but unfortunately that would mean that I'm not doing my job. Judging by how fucking petty these people can be, as soon as I try to ignore them they'll probably go cry to the CEO. That in turn will cause me to have to first have a conversation with the CEO explaining why said people are retarded and then for us both to talk to the person to either A) straighten them out or B) fire them. I'd rather spend that time doing my job.

Are these people your peers then? Your first post made it sound like they report to you, or report to your peers.

[Peenyuh]

... it's a horrible place to work but i confronted management and they took care of the problem people...

So you alienated them further by ratting em out? Hmmmm.

you don't have to be in a position of authority to realise people are morons.

Agreed. I've dealt with morons from the position of authority and from the subordinate. Either way, if YOU are a responsible person, your goal is to do a job well and on time. Whether it be authority or subordinate, you have to learn to communicate with them. Turn-over is not a productive quality...yours or theirs. Don't stress yerself out. Do what you can and go home at the end of the day.

or, run em over with a forklift...whatever....

[Giraffe }{unter]

It's pretty messed up the way some people act, I have a good team of 12 guys working for/with me and one against me. The odd part of this situation is one of them used to be my boss.

(short version) For 6 years I was your every day IT guy who took ownership of every ticket I touched until it was done. I became the Telcom manager and remained an IT tech as well. Last year I went into a meeting with my director, boss (IT Manager) and supervisor and was promoted to IT Manager. You can now imagine why he seems to be tossing monkey wrenches into all my projects...

I've been to a few work sponsored Management training courses and despite my first impression I learned allot and some things I thought to be correct were just the opposite.

Employees you complain about are allot like kids, they learn through repetition. If they screw up you need to talk to them "unofficially" either at their desk or for privacy "come take a walk with me" (this is building up to keep your office for the hard core last warning stuff). Do the usual explain what is wrong and offer suggestions on how to fix it. Then ask them to repeat the problem and their solution.

You will have to do this a few times of course so it requires patience. They are the employee and you are the man in charge, you are in this position for a reason. Sadly you have to suck it up and play babysitter sometimes.

Now here is the hard part...

will accept no responsibility for anything they do unless they're receiving praise for it.

You somehow have to manage to comment their good work more than you complain about it. This is one of my weak points as well. This makes them take a little more pride in their work knowing someone is also catching all the good things. It also keeps them on their toes whenever you stop by.

For those people that never learn, it's time to call them in the office (walk out and ask them, not by email) for an official talk about the big problem and their options to fix it. HR should get a copy of the conversation. If necessary maybe have one more meeting after that with HR, then toss them out without any concern that you did not try to help. This sends a clear message to the other people that BS will not be tolerated and that you respect them and have no problem getting rid of someone who makes them do double work etc..

Sadly it's a catch 22 you may have one dip shit in your office pissing everyone off, causing this petty behavior. "if Bob can slack all day why should I have to work my ass off". It's a good chance you have 1 or 2 people responsible for transforming your office into a non productive bunch of drama queens.

This didn't happen to the extreme you have but I was noticing all my good hard working guys take a moral hit due to one guy we hired. He was a higher paid person expected to do a specific job yet performed at a level lower than our first year summer interns. Once he was spoken to a few times, officially warned, then dismissed productivity returned.

As for my monkey wrench tosser, I fear their may be no hope for him. It's sad as a manager I used to respect him as a person. Now that it appears he trying to work me over, I just feel flustered with his actions. There is an exception to every solution and he has proven that he does not respond to normal measures, but I'm going to stick to my methods for now and see how it goes.

[Peenyuh]

Yeah. What Giraffe }{unter said.

btw, you hiring? Ihave wetwork experiance.

[xer0s]

I think it has to do with our culture and how we shove the high life of the rich and famous in people's faces, via tv and internet. Most people soak it up like a sponge and have no idea that it will affect them. They see how great a very small percentage of the population actually have it. They think they deserve a better life and so they take it out on anyone and everyone. Our society is so fuct, I honesty think we can never go to a better time. We are taking a nose dive into our own distruction. It won't be long before we destroy ourselves.

[Peenyuh]

You okay dude? Wanna talk?

[mrd]

There's lots of advice here for people in a position of authority to deal with dumb-ass employees, but how do employees deal with dumb-ass people of authority? The assistant manager at my workplace is a fuckin' twit at best and regularly demonstrates that she essentially has no clue what the day-to-day operations of the different departments are. A few months ago, I used to show up to work 30 minutes early every single day and clean up the previous shift's fucking garbage, arrange anything that needed to be arranged, and basically set everything up so that when 7am rolled around, it was GO time, not fuck around for half an hour time. I didn't take this as overtime, I simply took an extra long lunch to make up for my early arrival. Occasionally, at around 8am or so, I would get a quick snack (small bag of chips, bagel, whatever) to eat while I worked. Oh well, we can't have any of that. Courteous workers who show up early and align the environment for smooth operations aren't allowed to take 2 minutes out of their day to eat and work at the same time. I got several talks about it, my boss tried to tell her (the ass't mngr) to fuck off several times, eventually it just came down to "you can't eat on the floor". That's right around the same time I started showing up at 7am sharp and wasted 30 minutes of THEIR time doing shit I was previously doing ahead of schedule. Makes sense to me. I also used to take my break extremely late in the day to ensure that 90% of my day's work was done and that I wouldn't miss anything while I was eating. I usually ate about 6.5 to 7 hours into my shift. Well, I can't do that either apparently. Now we have scheduled break times. I'm waiting for the day when my break time comes and I'll just tell whoever I'm dealing with, mid-completion, that I'm terribly sorry and I must go eat my sandwich now. Please direct your complaints to that asshole over there.

I have other gripes but that's the jist of it... I've been thinking about quitting for a long time now but right now I can't do it cuz I'm moving so I need a steady, reliable flow of cashola for a bit. Part of me wants to secure another job and just stop showing up at the other one so they can realize how fucked they are without me, but that's stooping to their level, so I'll probably still give them some sort of notice. Either way, I want to throw a fucking firebomb into her office.

[shadd_]

you must be just starting out in the workplace jackal. people have been like this for ages. nothing new there.

there is hope though. even the most seemingly lazy useless people have high potential. this is where good leaders come into the picture.

[menkent]

narf

you'd be a better manager if you realized that "a lot" is two words and "allot" is a verb meaning to distribute or divide.

[mrd]

narf

you'd be a better manager if you realized that "a lot" is two words and "allot" is a verb meaning to distribute or divide.

Amen to that

My two pet peeves are "alot" and "anyways"

[Tsakali_]

weed out the prunes i say. No tolerance on the subject, eventually they will grow up or they'll be begging for food.
Having a 10% chance of dealing with someone noteworthy is the reason why I'd never want to be any type of boss. I hate barking orders...you either get it or you don't. The only way I could work with anyone is on somewhat equal levels...when people do what they are supposed to, everything runs smoothly and rank just blends into the background.

ps
This taking under consideration that the person in higher rank is binned by the same assumptions and is not a complete douchebag . I'm assuming we are targeting the right issue

[Peenyuh]

There's lots of advice here for people in a position of authority to deal with dumb-ass employees, but how do employees deal with dumb-ass people of authority? The assistant manager at my workplace is a fuckin' twit at best and regularly demonstrates that she essentially has no clue what the day-to-day operations of the different departments are. A few months ago, I used to show up to work 30 minutes early every single day and clean up the previous shift's fucking garbage, arrange anything that needed to be arranged, and basically set everything up so that when 7am rolled around, it was GO time, not fuck around for half an hour time. I didn't take this as overtime, I simply took an extra long lunch to make up for my early arrival. Occasionally, at around 8am or so, I would get a quick snack (small bag of chips, bagel, whatever) to eat while I worked. Oh well, we can't have any of that. Courteous workers who show up early and align the environment for smooth operations aren't allowed to take 2 minutes out of their day to eat and work at the same time. I got several talks about it, my boss tried to tell her (the ass't mngr) to fuck off several times, eventually it just came down to "you can't eat on the floor". That's right around the same time I started showing up at 7am sharp and wasted 30 minutes of THEIR time doing shit I was previously doing ahead of schedule. Makes sense to me. I also used to take my break extremely late in the day to ensure that 90% of my day's work was done and that I wouldn't miss anything while I was eating. I usually ate about 6.5 to 7 hours into my shift. Well, I can't do that either apparently. Now we have scheduled break times. I'm waiting for the day when my break time comes and I'll just tell whoever I'm dealing with, mid-completion, that I'm terribly sorry and I must go eat my sandwich now. Please direct your complaints to that asshole over there.

I have other gripes but that's the jist of it... I've been thinking about quitting for a long time now but right now I can't do it cuz I'm moving so I need a steady, reliable flow of cashola for a bit. Part of me wants to secure another job and just stop showing up at the other one so they can realize how fucked they are without me, but that's stooping to their level, so I'll probably still give them some sort of notice. Either way, I want to throw a fucking firebomb into her office.

gist

[plained]

whats that saying agin

takes an arse to to an arses job?

[Plan B]

I honestly can't imagine why someone would accept a position in (middle)management.
I mean, someone has to do it, etc, but unless I would lead a team of really enthusiastic and focussed professionals, I'd just set myself up for a lot of frustration and disappointment.

Hats off to people like Jackal, and if you have the hire/fire-authoritah, maybe some shock and awe by letting the rotten apples go will prove effective.
But from what I've seen in various working environments, the guy who does this dirty work usually ends up having to deal with an even more disgruntled and suspicious team, and is let go himself, because he couldn't properly 'mold' them.
Bit of a catch-22 there.

[Peenyuh]

Mommy, what does "elitist" mean?

[Tsakali]

I was gonna flame ya, but you're just so snuggly soft

[mrd]

gist

Surreal

[LawL]

Funny you should bring this up. There's a chap in IT who's just been pulled into HR for shouting and joking around and i've got to do a sit down with one of my team because he's having a 'point scoring exercise' with another employee and acting like a fucking ten year old in front of corporate clients. BTW he's in his 40's.
I'm going to throw the book at him because for some amazing reason he seems to thing the company will fold if he leaves. He also smashed he car up a few months back and blamed the service people at Ford. We asked for the forecourt video tapes and sure enough in the video the idiot backing the offside rear wing into a lamppost.

Last edited by Doombrain on Tue Jun 24, 2008 2:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

Even after GFY pointed out your spelling was horrible and you then tried to go back and correct all the errors, you still couldn't correctly spell:

think

his

idiot's

[GONNAFISTYA]

What a fag.

[Foo]

There's lots of advice here for people in a position of authority to deal with dumb-ass employees, but how do employees deal with dumb-ass people of authority?

By leaving or transferring. The authority to do that always lies with you.

[bikkeldesnikkel]

There's lots of advice here for people in a position of authority to deal with dumb-ass employees, but how do employees deal with dumb-ass people of authority?

By leaving or transferring. The authority to do that always lies with you.

Well that's obvious. Same goes for the employer.