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[Silversong]

Teddy, is this certain co-worker generally reviled as a busybody no-good-nik? Because it sounds like she ought to be and probably is and if so you can just go have a good chuckle about it with your other co-workers around the water cooler.

[Malikial]

I gotta say, everything but #3 and 5(But only if listening to music slows down productivity) seems like bullshit. Number 3 on the other hand... when I was managing people I would fire them for shit like this and I PERSONALLY do not use the internet for longer than the time it takes to type out the occasional text(and no more than 5 texts an hour, I have limits to which I will allow my hypocrisy) while at work. But, it was long ago established that I am a crazy working robot due to my dislike of any type of break or distraction from my goal while working... if I can get away with it I refuse to take lunch or 15 minute breaks during the work day because they break my routine. I've only worked at one job that didn't have corporate rules in place that make it mandatory to take some sort of break every 9 hours or so. Still if your job has clear cut internet usage rules and you are breaking them, saying, "So is everyone else." even if it's true will have no effect on the outcome other than to maybe get other people also in trouble. Your bosses are not going to care that everyone else does it too if someone is giving them specific reason to look at you. It sucks, but it's how shit works.

[Mongrel]

Not necessarily.

I'm not making excuses for people who fuck off all day, but in departments where a person is rated by work completed rather than use of time, then that is the relevant measure of the employee and not what they're doing at every minute. People have different work patterns and some workplaces have an allowance for that.

If there's a culture that says "look we don't really care what you do as long as you shit gets done and you're not too obnoxious about it", then it's valid to say "That's what everybody else does". Only you don't actually SAY "That's what everybody else does" you just point out that acceptable use has been established in the department for however long this has been a thing. You have to say that you are working within the established environment of the department or something similar to that. The key is to not be blaming your co-workers.

Because it IS bullshit for someone to be singled out for something an entire department is doing. If you do that as a manager, you poison the well and risk being labelled as a manager who targets people or has an axe to grind with specific workers.

If on the other hand you're the manager in that situation and you think your department is fucking off way too much or that a large number of them are gaming the system, then you FIRST raise it with the whole team - or maybe even consult with your general manager/director/whatever superior before that, to look at maybe changing the production requirements.

You also have to be careful because this can happen innocently over time if jobs in a department get easier (which they should! A good manager should ALWAYS bee looking for ways to do this!) and of course employees aren't going to speak up and say "Hey make my job harder." (well, sometimes they do, but not most of the time).

I mean, it's a tough situation to handle, because you have to correctly assess if it's one or two guys or if it's the whole department. You can't afford to be wrong because that's some real chocolatey shit-dip all-round if you are.

[Brentai]

There's a huge difference between a service position and an office position.  In service, yes, if you're fucking off an especially fucking off somewhere where people can see you, you're doing something wrong.  In an office position it's a lot more wishy-washy and the general theory is that, if a person is hitting all their deadlines and not using company bandwidth for anything too obscene or traffic-heavy or insecure or (policies), then let them do whatever the fuck it is that lets them keep performing.

[Mongrel]

What Brentai said.

If it wasn't clear, I was referring only to office-type stuff (since Ted works in an office environment). I figured we were all on the same page there, but I suppose it's possible someone thought otherwise, so might as well be clear.

[Malikial]

I mean, I love Ted... probably too much... 
Ted is so awesome...
Ahem... sorry...

So, um... I'm willing to bet he's not doing anything wrong and I don't think he should get in trouble. Hell, I was gonna talk to him about it later, not on the boards, and be like, "Yo dawg, I don't think you should get fired or anything I didn't want to give that impression on the forum and re-reading my post it looks like I did. I just think that, if someone above you in corporate structure has a nit in their shit about you then maybe you should try to change your actions a bit, if only until it blows over or figure something else out. It's not really fair but it's better than getting fired and being forced to make a, 'I can't believe I got fired for doing something everyone else was already doing' post on the forum."

I'm posting this here now because I do want to clarify, I am crazy about work and I don't think anyone else should be... I don't think anything mentioned is worth getting him fired as long as it does not affect productivity. I highly doubt Ted is doing anything wrong and I love every part of him.

[Joxam]

Without trying to get into the 'I don't know what I'm talking about because obviously I've only ever worked at shit jobs' argument I think the best thing you can do is just discuss with the person exactly what they have a problem with and exactly why. I'm not saying make excuses or even to argue with someone, but if you explain to them that listening to music helps you work more efficiently (it does for me at least) and that you're just trying to make your desk a comfortable environment which also helps your efficiency she'd be hard pressed to keep bitching about those things.

At the end of the day she's basically complaining that you aren't being professional enough. You should address this also, but in a more meaningful way. Ask her point blank what she thinks you need to improve on and put together some actionable plan to do so along with clear checkpoints for you to show you're making progress.

[Joxam]

Of course I'm only suggesting this if you think there is actually a reasonable problem that you need to correct so that you don't face disciplinary actions. You know more than us, she might just have been having a bad day or something. Bitches be trippin', man.

[François]

Ask her point blank what she thinks you need to improve on and put together some actionable plan to do so along with clear checkpoints for you to show you're making progress.

Ideally that is the way to proceed, in case you are surrounded by honest and reasonable people. If the manager is just a douchemo though, that's pretty much asking to be slapped with some vile "doesn't understand the demands of the job" or "needs constant handholding" BS.

Is tricky.

[Mongrel]

Also, if I understand correctly she's not his direct superior. She's someone who outranks him who he has to submit stuff to. Which is awkwaaaarrrrd, but happens often enough int he corporate world.

It may turn out that "ignore her" is the best option, though you have to be careful about that. It's probably correct under the following circumstances:

a) Her continued bitching will make her look much worse than Ted.

b) This is some "just a bad day" shit that will blow over (have to be verrry careful about assumptions like that though).

c) Ted's own direct manager doesn't give a shit what this lady thinks.

If none of those apply, then talking to his direct manager about it may be the best idea, so long as he's on good terms with his direct manager.

[Shinra]

Ask her point blank what she thinks you need to improve on and put together some actionable plan to do so along with clear checkpoints for you to show you're making progress.

Ideally that is the way to proceed, in case you are surrounded by honest and reasonable people. If the manager is just a douchemo though, that's pretty much asking to be slapped with some vile "doesn't understand the demands of the job" or "needs constant handholding" BS.

Is tricky.

Yeah, I wouldn't do this for the latter two reasons. I've seen that go down way too much in an office environment. ESPECIALLY if you are expected to set your own work pace - if that's the kind of job we're talking about here, asking for that kind of planning would be a poor career move to say the least. I would, however, go to your boss and say 'Hey, this lady is harassing me for stuff that has been established as acceptable in the work place'. It's my experience that managers in office environments don't like it when other people swing out of the rafters to manage their people. Pulling rank on someone else's employees is a horseshit thing to do and it hurts morale and productivity across the board. I've never been in a functional workplace where this was allowed, and if this kind of thing goes on constantly where you work Ted, it's probably time to brush up your resume. That shit isn't worth it, unless they're paying you a hell of a lot of money (and if this kind of shit is tolerated where you work, they're probably not)

From what this sounds like to me, the project manager is a 30-something who has spent their entire life doing bullshit work and now that they have some modicum of power they use it to bully people around them. Having once worked as a project manager in an office full of project managers (that was a weird {also: awful. Never do this profession} fucking job) these people are a constant in the profession and the best way to deal with them is to put up with as little of their bullshit as possible. 'I am above you on the totem pole' does not give someone a license to set workplace expectations for you, unless you're that person's direct report. (and even then, I would argue that a job that micromanages so much you can't have toys on your desk is a job not worth fucking working)

[Ted Belmont]

Wow, I was not expecting this much discussion. Let me clear up a couple of points.

1. We do have an acceptable use policy. It basically boils down to, "don't use the computers for anything illegal or offensive, and limit personal use so that it doesn't affect your productivity". My productivity has never suffered because I was chatting with my mom on facebook.

2. She's not my direct supervisor; I just do some work for her. However, she is one of the two managers on the biggest project we have going right now, so my manager was just informing me that she had made these complaints, with the implication that he knew they were mostly bs, but we have to keep her happy. So he said I should start sending her an email every Monday laying out what work I'd be doing for her project that week, and asking her to reach out to me if she had anything else she needed help with. Which I did! She did not respond.

3. She's not known as a busybody so much as someone who holds anyone who works for/under her up to ridiculously high standards. Which is kind of hilarious, since...

Yesterday we had a meeting scheduled in the morning to discuss some project work. She emailed me about 10 minutes before the meeting was supposed to start, asking to reschedule it for 1:30 in the afternoon. So I did! She didn't show up for the rescheduled meeting. I tried to contact her via email and instant messenger, and got no response until a couple of hours later, when she told me she had sent me a message in the morning saying she wasn't going to be at the meeting. You know, the message where she actually HADN'T said that, but HAD asked me to reschedule to a specific time.

I thought briefly about mentioning that to my manager, but a. I'm not that petty and b. I'd rather be seen as someone who stays above the fray on this kind of crap.

[Beat Bandit]

That's something you should at least be keeping the logs of if you're not.

I can understand not jumping back on top of her, but if the next time she accuses you of slowing productivity you can turn around and tell the bosses what's actually doing it, she may think twice before using you as a scapegoat again.

[Mongrel]

Sending stuff to her manager is a very dangerous game, but I do agree you should be keeping logs of shit that stupid.

Clearly she's dumb enough to pull shit like that in email, so she may be dumb enough to do other things.

Cover Your Ass! The (rather unfortunate) watchword of an office!

[Ted Belmont]

Yep, that is exactly what I am doing. I doubt it will matter much in the long run, though; the project she's assigned to is going to be ending in a couple of months, and I don't think she'll be sticking around after that.

[Mongrel]

Hilarity today!

So a bit of backstory. At work, there are three ranks of "regular schmucks". There's the bottom of the shitpile regular analysts (me), and two types of Senior reps, regular senior reps and trending reps.

Of course, senior reps have the pay grade of a manager and we're one tier below that, so we're all several steps up from minimum wage call centre slaves, "regular schmucks" is only a relevant description within my department. The only real difference is that senior reps get their stuff fed to them, work at higher volumes, and are generally seen as more capable (they can take some manager functions in a pinch, etc). Regular seniors do what we do, but on a larger scale (they work a lot of corporate and business account fraud). Trending reps look for overall trends and patterns.

The best way to describe our operation is that every single day an elephant comes in and takes a giant shit in the middle of the floor. And by and large most of us dumbfucks sit there with our shovels, playing janitor in a world of stink. The only people in the department who actually say "Hey, maybe we should find a way to stop that elephant from coming in here" are the trending reps. Basically the only work that seems at all interesting or fun or anything at all is the trending team.

The trending team is tiny (two people), but they are looking to expand. Now, I put myself forward for an opening they posted, and have been trying to do some work on the side (without even knowing a position was coming up). I did this in spite of the fact that there are two people in the department who are very obviously being groomed for trending roles (one guy who totally deserves it, because he knows the systems inside and out and one guy who's clearly being set up to be a manager someday in the future - neither of them are bad guys and they both work hard, though the second due has become something of an obvious brown-noser). My goal is mainly to show I'm interested, maybe to slip in if another slot opens later.

It's kind of frustrating because I have the shit manager who won't help me even when I ask him directly, whereas employees of ANY OTHER MANAGER all get coaching and help to work towards promotions. In fact my manager is so bad they recently shuffled a third of his team away (But not me! So much for that opportunity!). In fact another person who sits near me is starting to eat my lunch so to speak (stealing my slots in meetings relevant to the trending department) thanks to her manager's help (she still has no chance, but damned if that helps me! And those meetings are literally the only interesting thing I get to attend all week!).

Anyway, I work weekends. My days off are Monday and Tuesday (and Friday - I work 4x10h). So I come in today and plant my butt in my seat and begin looking at the emails from the past two days. I don't get very far when I see a reminder come up: "HI YOUR INTERVIEW IS ONE MINUTE AGO".

Yep. Stupid assholes sent my notification on my off day and nobody called to tell me or anything. I went in late and winged it, but fuck me if I didn't have to laugh all the way down, because the fuck else am I supposed to do? I mean, I wasn't going to get the damn job anyway, but I really don't need help to make myself look any dumber than I already am.

[Büge]

It's kind of frustrating because I have the shit manager who won't help me even when I ask him directly, whereas employees of ANY OTHER MANAGER all get coaching and help to work towards promotions. In fact my manager is so bad they recently shuffled a third of his team away (But not me! So much for that opportunity!). In fact another person who sits near me is starting to eat my lunch so to speak (stealing my slots in meetings relevant to the trending department) thanks to her manager's help (she still has no chance, but damned if that helps me! And those meetings are literally the only interesting thing I get to attend all week!).

But don't you see, Mongrel? You're his only friend.

[Mongrel]

Uh, that's not really that far off. I think he's as useless as tits on a brass bull (he got the job because his mom used to be a VP and he knows sweet fuck all about the job or about being a manager), but he almost never bugs me about anything and I don't actually hate the guy.

[Mongrel]

I also thought it was awesome that I wore a crappier shirt and had off-colour socks today because the damn washing machines have been busted, so I was like "Ah whatever, no one's going to give a shit today."

[Beat Bandit]

A reenactment of what became of Mongrel's interview:

peter gibbons interview