Category: disapproving boss

Things that they don’t teach in manager training

I’ve been a manager at my job for quite some time now. I think seven years at last count. So I’ve been through a lot. And yet, sometimes, I’m still a bit thrown by the curveballs lobbed by the folks who have the grand misfortune to report to me.

On Friday, one of my employees, a very hardworking and rather quiet girl came tearing into my office. I swear, if she was a car, she would have left black marks on my industrial carpet.

The employee looked at me with wide eyes.

“Is it ok if I go home?” she said, and paused…then tacked on…”I don’t want to barf here at work.”

I happen to know she’s three months pregnant and having a rough time of it, so I said, quickly, “Go. Now.”

She turned and peeled out of the building.

This got me thinking about back when I was first made a manager, and the anemic training course they sent me to.

They discussed “things you shouldn’t say” and “things you should say” and “what to do if you have to fire someone.” But never, never did they discuss “when it’s ok to let someone go home early because they are gonna blow chunks.”

I guess that’s where you have to rely on that ol’ manager gut instinct, hey?

Other oddball things I have experienced and was never properly prepared for:

Male employee spent all of our one-on-one session telling me, in detail, that he and his wife were trying to get pregnant and, to their dismay, had ended up having to resort to IVF. TMI. But wait, there’s more. We haven’t begun to TMI yet.

About a week later, he comes running into my office…”My wife just called, she’s at the doctor, she’s fertile right now, so I have to go give a…um….sample. I’ll be back in about an hour.”

Ugh.

“Just go!” I said, and to his retreating back, tacked on, “If this happens again, please just tell me you have to go to the dentist!”

Or the really, really good employee, like top notch worker, who felt the need to tell me that the only way she could deal with the stress of her job was that she and her husband would smoke a bowl as they commuted home from work every day.

“I’m thinking about smoking one at lunch too, this job is crazy.”

Well. Ok. *Technically* she’s doing this on her own time and off company property. And my employer at the time was pretty lenient about such things.

But still. Things I don’t need to know. Especially as the manager!

Also important to mention that managing isn’t just about direct reports, it’s about managing your own manager too.

So, in that same vein, at that same employer, I had a boss who delighted in telling me how much cocaine she did at her wedding. “It was the only way to get through it, I never really loved my husband. Still don’t.”

Oooohkaaaay. She only lasted a year at the job. Freak.

And the best was, not long after starting this newest gig, one of the ladies on my team had been out sick for a few days. I assumed the flu, a migraine, tummy upset. Whatever. I didn’t need to know. Upon her return, I simply inquired, “hey, are you feeling better?”

What followed was a long, detailed and gory description. Let’s just say…you can have a colon polyp burst and leave it there, mmkay?

You can’t unhear something, no matter how hard you try.

But, when all is said and done, I haven’t had to have the granddaddy of all uncomfortable manager situations. My dear brother-in-law has been subjected to this more than once. Poor guy.

We call it…the Stinky Conversation.

The one where you have to ask your employee to please shower…and use soap…because their coworkers are complaining.

Double ugh!

I’m telling ya, those fancy politically correct manager’s training classes do nuthin’ to prepare you for the real world!

Funky Tut*

*With all due homage to the Steve Martin classic. “He gave his life for tourism.”

This past weekend, while my best girlfriend was in town, the three of us (The Good Man, The Friend, and me) went over to San Francisco’s De Young museum to see the King Tut exhibition.

This marked a 30-year anniversary for the De Young, as they also showed King Tut artifacts back in 1979. I remember the hubbub about Tut back in the day (and listened to the Steve Martin song on the album owned by my big brother).

Of course, the Tut traveling show never made it anywhere near New Mexico, so I was pretty psyched to see it this go ’round.

In short, it was amazing. I would love you show you photographs, a drawing, a pencil sketch, my notes or ANYTHING from that visit, but all of that is prohibited. *sigh*

After the exhibit, the three of us headed over to the historic Japanese Tea Garden located next door to the De Young, and while sipping tea in quiet surroundings, we talked about the Tut exhibit and our impressions.

Here’s where my train of thought was headed…..

Ok, so this whole funerary thing…they create these surroundings to make it nice for the person in the afterlife. There are chairs and other furniture, cosmetics, hair care items (gotta look good), and clothing. Favored toys, games, and pets also included.

Basically, all the stuff the deceased liked so they would have a happy, restful afterlife.

And so, with this in mind, I determined my tomb would be, on the inner sanctum, a replica of the red couch, with a fine yet tubby statute of my Feline at my side, or rather, on my legs.

And cheesy poofs. Lots and lots of cheesy poofs (I’m thinking they can use carnelian to properly capture the vibrant orange cheesiness).

My friend pointed out that we had to work out my regal name. As the Egyptian royalty ascended to leadership, their name was changed.

As we learned in the exhibit, the naming convention is something like:

A personal identifier + a word like “life” or “peace” or whatever + name of your preferred god

Thus:

Tut + Ankh (means “life”) + Amun (the diety)

Tutankhamun

And so my name would have to be something like:

Ka + Ankh + Cheesy Poof (cuz I revere the Cheeto)

Kaankhcheesypoof

And yet, we also realized that sometimes, on the cartouche, the name is actually represented in the other direction.

Thus making my name

Poofcheeseyankhka

Ok.

Now we’re cooking.

Also, in the funerary tomb, there are these little figurines placed about. They are called shabti, and their whole gig is to be the servants for the deceased in the afterlife. So, like, if there is manual labor to be done, the shabti have to step up.

Well, I thought on it, and then was all like, “you know, I think my shabti should be all my bad bosses through the years….put those b*stards to work for ME!”

Like opening fresh bags of cheesy poofs and going on beer runs. Stuff like that.

The Good Man and The Friend were *way* in favor of this idea.

However, the more I thought on it, the more I realized I don’t really want all of those bad bosses to hang out with me for all eternity. The good bosses (there have been plenty) are welcome, but why would I want the yuck around? We want a happy afterlife.

So what I need instead is a jar like this one (that we saw at the exhibit).

See, the tiger on top represents Tut…so on mine it would be…uh…a sloth. Anyhow, so there the sloth lays, all smug looking, and then at the bottom would be carved heads of my former oppressors managers (see the photo, heads of Tut’s enemies are found at the foot of the jar).

Instead, my shabti can just be really cool but hardworking people who, like, want to shag glasses of lemonade and make guacamole and are willing to get up a game of softball every now and again.

Ok, so we’ve got a good start on this whole afterlife plan….

Now I need to find someone to begin carving images of me. I need to be depicted throughout the years. I’m thinking all this carving and painting and gilding might take a while.

That’s ok, I can wait. Also, I’d like them not to take my brain out through my nose if we can at all avoid it, mmmkay?

Dear Canadian Hiring Managers:

It’s ok. Unclench. You might like it.

“A telephone survey of 100 senior Canadian executives showed that more than a fifth of executives said a single typo on a resume or cover letter could cost a potential employee a job, while 28 percent said two mistakes would kill their chances.”

Wow, really? I’m a hiring manager. I went through a two year period where I was constantly hiring. I’ve probably looked at over a thousand resumes. All were done to greater and lesser degree. Yes, some were so sloppy it wasn’t worth taking a look, but a minor error here or there, especially if it’s a common typo, teh for the, for instance, is certainly acceptable.

I agree that job seekers need to put a best foot forward all of the time. I agree with polishing the resume, having someone else read it, making it clean and crisp. This is your sales pitch and you need to get it right.

But for me and for the hiring managers I know, one typo doesn’t kill anyone’s chances. Unless this is a job for the typing pool where accuracy matters, it’s more about the qualities of the person, not their keyboarding skills. I think if that’s the view the company takes of minor human error, then who would want to work there anyway?

Source.

Office Archeology

You know, you work in an office environment for forty hours (or more) a week, and you start to become immune to your surroundings. Same gray walls, same tan carpet, same beige cubicle wall fabric.

However, when you are new, you tend to notice the odd stuff laying about, but being new, you don’t say anything for fear of sticking out like a sore thumb.

So you go along to get along…but you wonder. Oh you wonder.

Today, I had all my afternoon meetings wiped off the ol’ calendar, and found myself with some time on my hands (a very dangerous thing for a mind such as mine).

So I went on a walkabout to document some of the more puzzling items I find about my new office environment.

Put on your Indiana Jones hat and join me, won’t you, as we engage in an office archeology and sociology expedition.

Let’s just begin with the number one item that perplexes me on a daily basis.

It’s a pair of keys that go to a cable that secures a laptop against theft.

They are lying atop of a bank of filing cabinets that line a well-traveled thoroughfare at work. Meaning, these aren’t in a cube, they are actually far from anyone’s cube home, laying by the main doors to our floor.

I always ponder…WHO owns these? Do they know they are missing? Is there a laptop somewhere that is forever shackled to a piece of modular furniture with no means of escape? OH THE FUTILITY!

Seven months I’ve been here and these keys haven’t moved a centimeter. I often wonder how long they were there before I found them. Every day, there they sit.

Along the same lines of “something left on a bank of filing cabinets”, we have this:

I hear you saying, “What’s weird about that, Karen? It’s a stapler!”

Yes. Yes it is. A high capacity stapler. Yup. You could affix about 50 to 75 pages together with that big guy.

It’s sitting on a public thoroughfare, on top of cabinets that are at least chest high (and I’m fairly tall), so you can’t even get good leverage to push the handle to make the staple.

And the location is very, very far away from any copy room, copy machine, printer or other such device (it is right outside of a conference room, actually).

I mean, one of these high capacity staplers sits in every copy room. I’ve checked all the copy rooms on the floor, they all have one, so this guy isn’t lost or misplaced.

I have never seen a single person use this nice stapler.

There it sits. Lost and forlorn, unable to be useful for anyone’s stapling needs.

All alone. Maybe I should introduce it to the keys?

Ok, on to the stairwell. I happen to sit a floor above my boss and the rest of my team, so this stairwell is very, very well traveled.

Wait, what’s this?

Let’s go in a little closer, shall we?

Oh, it’s just a bit of rubbish, right? A bit of a Heath bar wrapper. Yup. What’s odd there?

One of our coworkers had a bag of mini-Heath bars in his office that was descended upon by office vultures. Sure, no biggie. Janitorial will just get that when they sweep the stairwell.

Trouble is…we haven’t had Heath bars in the office for TWO months. At least. Maybe longer. And I guess janitorial doesn’t sweep the stairwell because that bit of wrapper has been there for those two months, not moving a hair’s breadth to the left or the right.

Plus, I think it might have been me that dropped it, I’m not sure. I do remember a bad day where I was madly unwrapping and gobbling mini-Heaths as I stomped up the stairs, mad at my boss.

I keep thinking this wrapper will go away, but no, it’s become part of the landscape. (I know, I know…I *could* pick the damn thing up myself)

Ok, from the stairwell, let’s move on to the copy/supply room. Nothing odd there right? Paper products, binder clips, sticky notes, highlighters, and these:

Big deal, right? Simply those Vis a Vis dry erase pens that you use for overhead transparencies. No big deal, an office necessity, right?

Well…except that every conference room in the building has the kind of overhead projector where you hook up a laptop, not the old fashioned push a slide on there and write on it kind.

No one uses clear transparent slides anymore. As far as I can tell, they haven’t for some time here.

And we have a full stock of pens.

So you say, “oh fine, those are just leftovers”. Sure, I agree. No big deal. I took a couple packs for use at home (nice fine point pens! Yes!).

And this week, I notice the stock has been replenished.

For pens that no one uses.

Hmm.

Ok, big finish.

Despite the fact there is MUCH more that I could document here, I’ll draw to a close with the piece de resistance, the coup de gras, and some other French phrases I can’t think of but are probably fitting….

We have to go to the thirteenth floor for this one.

Here we go:

It is probably hard to see from the crappy iPhone photo, but that there is your standard office environment exit sign. But on the left of the sign is a clingy sticker thing that portrays…the bones of the human foot.

Now sure, we are a biotech company and interested in medical things…but we don’t do anything that involves feet. At all.

I have NO idea why the foot is on the exit sign or what it means? Is this some puzzle from employees past? Are they telling me to beat feet for the exit? Are they saying, “walk on!” Am I being told to think on my feet or I’ll be made to exit?

WHAT!?! What are you telling me? Speak to me, wise ancestors! I have to knooooooow!

Ok, I’m getting whipped up, so that must mean that’s enough for today’s scientific analysis.

Join us next time when we’ll explore “that stain on the cube wall” and “storage room, from dust bunnies to gold”.

Thank you, and good night.

Stages: Circling the Drain

If you’ve worked in a corporate environment, you’ve no doubt had the opportunity to watch one of your coworkers go through the progress of becoming ever more disenchanted and eventually leaving.

Things are pretty wacky around my own employer these days. Times are strange since the merger, so we’re seeing a lot of bad behavior.

There is the coworker who, on Friday, was in the employee directory, and on Monday, wasn’t. No one knows what happened. After sixteen years at this company, he was just…gone.

There was also the senior manager guy with a whole set of direct reports who suddenly no longer has direct reports. He is listed as a peer to the people he once managed.

Weird.

Right now, I have a good friend, mentor and coworker who is going through the “stages”…he’s on the path toward “I’ve had enough!”

So with that in mind, here’s my unofficial, opinion oriented, based on experience, stages of the descent of a corporate minion.

Stage One: Grumbling.

“This place is so strange, I don’t understand why (boss) has to manage like that.” This stage is characterized by a slight uptick in the complaining about the job. I mean, we ALL complain about the job, but this is taking it to a new, higher level, with some unconvincing, “I should find a new job” statements thrown in.

Basically, the disenchanted is still in the game, still meeting deadlines, still doing the work, but is starting to think about doing something different. This is like picking at the edge of a scab, really. Just picking and picking but not serious about it. The grumbling stage includes a lot of thinking, “Can I make this work?” and “I’ve been here a long time” and “Maybe things will improve.”

Stage Two: Misbehaving.

If the grumbling progress continues, things ratchet up and become tinged with a bit more emotion. Anger, frustration and acting out become obvious. Could be an, “I can’t believe he said that” comment from a meeting where the disgruntled shot their mouth off on something, could be missing a “mandatory” all hands event, could be missing a deadline. Enough to get noticed, but not enough to get fired.

At this stage, the disgruntled begins thinking seriously about looking for another job. They usually start by looking at other open jobs within the same company. May even go so far as to navigate over to Monster.com and Craig’s List to see if there is even anything interesting outside the company.

At this stage, the disgruntled usually stops just short of actually updating their resume and, usually, aren’t happy with job opportunities found elsewhere, so they decide to hang in there a bit longer to see if things improve.

Stage Three: Actively acting out.

Characterized by coming in late consistently, leaving early, disappearing for large parts of the day, distracted in meetings, more impassioned discussion of looking for another job, and complaints about “this place,” followed by mentions of actual job openings at other companies.

Resume has been pulled up in Word, updates are being made, daily searching the job sites. Asking friends for leads. Making rumblings among close coworkers that he’s looking. Trying to find allies that are also looking, or trying to convince others to join him in the job search.

Pretty serious, but yet, could be convinced to stay with a little management intervention, a little love, a little promise of something more.

This is usually where the disgruntled invites a trusted friend to lunch offsite and runs down a list of grievances and confesses they have had it. They are looking for a job. The case is laid out, discussed, asked “do you think it will get better?” Lots of “this is ridiculous” statements issued.

Sometimes, this is where the disgruntled will receive a surprise bonus or promotion or similar, and this puts them back at state one or less…at least for a while.

So this is the stage where my friend is hovering. Actively looking, actively disgruntled, been to several offsite lunches, discussing the merits of job opportunities at other companies. Then again, we are actually due for a mid-year review and bonus, so we’ll see…..

Stage Four: Stealth.

The disgruntled is not only actively looking, he’s got a few leads. Maybe even calling in sick here and so they can go interview. Something may be happening, so it’s time to pipe down. Many people (especially boss-type people) often confuse stealth with a move back to stage one. Easily confused, certainly.

The disenchanted person may be coming in on time again, but if you look close, they aren’t really working that hard, aren’t volunteering to take on new projects, may be handing off work to coworkers. They want to leave on a good note and are feeling optimistic that something is about to change. Mood has improved. Complaining a bit less. Laughing at all the boss’ jokes.

Stage Five: Poking the Tiger.

Not everyone gets to stage five. Many people get to stage four, find another job, and leave. They leave on good terms, shake hands with the boss and go off to a new gig with a fresh look of optimism in their eyes.

Those that can’t find another job or aren’t motivated enough to find another job move into the phase where they start stirring the sh*t. Oh yes, they are too timid to actually *do* something themselves, they want someone to do it for them. Passive aggressive.

So they start actively missing deadlines and meetings and coming in late and not even pretending like they care about the work. They may even speak insultingly or say stuff that’s not cool. They openly challenge people to say something. They aren’t just picking away at the scab, they are making new wounds.

At this point, the boss may actually realize they have a performance problem on their hands, and put the disgruntled on a performance action plan. This either spurs the disgruntled to find another job…or, bad attitude continues until the end of the performance plan and the inevitable happens.

Or, some powerless bosses still won’t take action, and they let the employee keep flailing away.

Often the employee will finally just up and quit. Sometimes in a blaze of glory “this is part of company folklore” kind of way.

Sometimes, the disgruntled poking-the-tiger guy gets weary, still lacking any self-starting behavior, becomes stuck in place, and they just pipe down and keep doing the job. These people become the “retired in place” completely useless employee, the guy who just can’t get fired and just won’t quit, so he sucks down company resources until retirement.

We’ve all known one of those, haven’t we?