homepage
  roll on christmas  
click here to find out more about ship of fools click here to sign up for the ship of fools newsletter click here to support ship of fools
community the mystery worshipper gadgets for god caption competition foolishness features ship stuff
discussion boards live chat cafe avatars frequently-asked questions the ten commandments gallery private boards register for the boards
 
Ship of Fools


Post new thread  Post a reply
My profile login | | Directory | Search | FAQs | Board home
   - Printer-friendly view Next oldest thread   Next newest thread
» Ship of Fools   »   » Oblivion   » First against the wall (Page 1)

 - Email this page to a friend or enemy.  
Pages in this thread: 1  2 
 
Source: (consider it) Thread: First against the wall
la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688

 - Posted      Profile for la vie en rouge     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
My place of employment has an appraisal system called “360° feedback”. This is a filthy lie. It is 180° feedback (if that) because if it was 360° then I would be allowed to evaluate my manager.

And as it happens, were I allowed to evaluate my manager, I would have a few things to say:

Areas for improvement:

Boss’s communications skills are worse than crap, especially by email. His mails are usually missing at least 50% of the pertinent information, like “please organise a conference call at 5 p.m.” without any indication of who the hell is supposed to be invited to the same, although I think my favourite was when he asked me and [colleague from marketing] to invite “Marie something” (sic) to an event. It’s not like Marie is a common name or anything, after all. It’s a rare day when the subject line of a message actually has any relation with the contents, however tenuous, and woe to us all if he emails from outside the office on his blackberry. At this point any semblance of grammar, or especially of punctuation, will be shot to hell and you will spend ten minutes staring in puzzlement at your screen trying to figure out what the blazes he wants. Never mind James Joyce. Boss takes stream of consciousness to a whole new level. Bonus points for me – I am now the official boss decrypter. So when the associates ask him “should I do (a) or should I do (b)” and the boss answers “yes” (clear instructions for the world) they come to see me and say “what does that means in boss-speak?”

Which leads me onto my next point. Boss pays zero attention to what you send him, doesn’t read his emails and asks if things are done when he was copied on the bloody email. Twice. Three times if you’re really lucky. He can’t remember anyone’s name and when he asks to me find someone’s contact details, out of the eight letters in the name he gave me, probably only four of them are actually right. Cue twenty minutes on Google trying to work out what the person’s name actually is. One time he asked me to get him a map to go to “Brézières”. Which I did. Turns out he actually needed to go to “Bertichères”. Unfortunately for him, Brézières is a real place which you find on Google maps, so he ended up driving around the middle of nowhere for an hour. I thought he might learn from this experience and be a bit more careful in future. Nope. Straight afterwards it was back to our regularly scheduled service of “please find Mr Bluberg’s number” when the person is actually called “Greeneburg”.

Boss has the attention span of a butterfly and gives instructions at random, usually over the phone, the minute he thinks of something. I think my favourite was when he called me and said “Can you take this down? It’s not urgent.” Good. So you’re telling me it’s not urgent, but since it’s dictation, I have to drop the thing I was doing (which actually was urgent) because by definition I can’t do it later. How to waste your subordinates’ time 101 from possibly the world’s most disorganised individual.

Oh, and Boss has no idea how to work his computer. Your thing isn’t going slow because it’s broken. It’s going slow because there are bloody 38 000 emails in your inbox and you never ever file them. Which incidentally is also why the rest of us spend forever trawling through said inbox looking for messages and documents because they are filed nowhere in the system where they are supposed to be. Also, no. No one learns bloody shorthand anymore because we aren’t in 1950 for the love of Pete (in case you’re wondering, boss is not old).

And I’ve got to tell you this one, because it’s possibly the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen. Last week, Boss parked his scooter somewhere he shouldn’t have done and it got impounded by the police. He went to get it back, presumably at some considerable cost. A little later, I came round to his office to give him some papers and heard that he was on the phone, with a funny voice saying something about the Embassy. What’s that all about?...He was trying to pass himself off as an angry American. I reckon the person on the other end of the phone (at the Prefecture of Police) must have been killing themselves laughing. The accent was, ahem, unconvincing. Also he has a really, really French name. He couldn’t look more French if he was standing in a bucket of snails wearing a stripy jumper and whistling la Marseillaise. Apart from which, even if he had been a bit more convincing, what the hell was this supposed to achieve, apart from getting Americans a bad reputation? Why would Americans not have to pay parking fines? I don’t even.

I don’t know whether I’m going to end up in jail or in a lunatic asylum.

What do we want? Clear coherent instructions! When do we want it? Before I throw the boss out of the window!

I hereby invite you to write your boss’s appraisal. It’ll make you feel better.

--------------------
Rent my holiday home in the South of France

Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005  |  IP: Logged
LeRoc

Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216

 - Posted      Profile for LeRoc     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
My current boss is rather good actually. Really great. I don't know what you've done to deserve such a boss.

--------------------
I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)

Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002  |  IP: Logged
Twilight

Puddleglum's sister
# 2832

 - Posted      Profile for Twilight     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
The last paragraph is a scream.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002  |  IP: Logged
Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748

 - Posted      Profile for Doc Tor     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Being self-employed, I regularly give my boss appraisals.

The bastard.

--------------------
Forward the New Republic

Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Sandemaniac
Shipmate
# 12829

 - Posted      Profile for Sandemaniac   Email Sandemaniac   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Get yourself diagnosed as Aspie. Find out how to hide the fact that you have zero people management skills as a result. That way you might get people to get things done instead of micromanaging them to destruction.

I realise that this might be considered hard on aspies, or discriminatory, but I was at a school where many of the pupils have since been diagnosed as such, and I'm about as sure as one can be without being a psychologist that he fits the bill, and that that explains the utter inability to handle other people.

AG

--------------------
"It becomes soon pleasantly apparent that change-ringing is by no means merely an excuse for beer" Charles Dickens gets it wrong, 1869

Posts: 3574 | From: The wardrobe of my soul | Registered: Jul 2007  |  IP: Logged
mark_in_manchester

not waving, but...
# 15978

 - Posted      Profile for mark_in_manchester   Email mark_in_manchester   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
LVER - why not play him straight for a while, and suspend using your deciphering skills to help him? You sent him to the real place he didn't want to go to - could you do this rather more often? Address things to non-existent people at his command? Let things collapse a bit?

--------------------
"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)

Posts: 1596 | Registered: Oct 2010  |  IP: Logged
cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338

 - Posted      Profile for cliffdweller     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
We have 360 reviews in my place of employment-- really 360 where, yes, I'm supposed to evaluate my boss. An evaluation he will read. Anonymous? Well, in theory. In a workforce of 15, what are the chances that boss won't figure out who wrote the honest/nasty review? But it's not out of 15, since he only has to choose 3 subordinates to review him. So he just has to pick me out of a line up of 3 suspects he chose for this honor. Yeah, I'm going to be honest about his shortcomings? Not likely.

And then there's the 180 part of it. So, for 364 days out of the year we're supposed to work like a team, supporting and encouraging one another, working together on common goals. Then we have "review day" when we pick each other apart like hyenas fighting over a carcass (the carcass of our dead careers, perhaps) in the desert. All anonymously of course, so you never can be quite sure who it was among your "team mates" who wrote that nasty note or speak to them to clear up any misunderstanding. Then the next day we're expected to go back to being team players and working collaboratively.

Yep, another one of those beauteous "effective leadership" ideas that corporate America has brought to us all, including our churches.

--------------------
"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner

Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008  |  IP: Logged
Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564

 - Posted      Profile for Leorning Cniht   Email Leorning Cniht   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
We have 360 reviews in my place of employment-- really 360 where, yes, I'm supposed to evaluate my boss.

Can anyone explain why that is 360 degrees? If I rotate 360 degrees, I'm facing in the same direction. If you want me to review the person who usually reviews me, it has always seemed that what you require is a 180 degree rotation.

If you want me to review the person sitting next to me, that would be a 90 degree rotation.

Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013  |  IP: Logged
Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528

 - Posted      Profile for Lamb Chopped   Email Lamb Chopped   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
We had this too at a non-lamented former workplace. It is 360 for the manager in that his subordinates and his superior are reviewing him (don't know about his same-level colleagues). And yes, it is a crock, particularly when they ask for demographic info up front for the supposedly anonymous review! (Like they aren't going to figure out who the lone female reviewer is, or the lone Asian.)

--------------------
Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
LeRoc

Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216

 - Posted      Profile for LeRoc     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Leorning Cniht: Can anyone explain why that is 360 degrees? If I rotate 360 degrees, I'm facing in the same direction. If you want me to review the person who usually reviews me, it has always seemed that what you require is a 180 degree rotation.
In this way, a 360 degree is an excellent way of finding out who in the workplace is a smartarse.

--------------------
I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)

Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002  |  IP: Logged
Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564

 - Posted      Profile for Leorning Cniht   Email Leorning Cniht   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
We had this too at a non-lamented former workplace. It is 360 for the manager in that his subordinates and his superior are reviewing him (don't know about his same-level colleagues).

Ah - now I see. The whole review process is 360 degrees, because the manager is reviewed from all directions. Referring to just the "reverse" review as 360 makes about as much sense as referring to a female student as a "co-ed".

quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
In this way, a 360 degree is an excellent way of finding out who in the workplace is a smartarse.

Around here, you'd be spoiled for choice.

[ 07. October 2015, 18:27: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]

Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013  |  IP: Logged
Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110

 - Posted      Profile for Barnabas62   Email Barnabas62   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Here's a tip for 360 degree evaluation.

If you tell a boss he's wrong and you're wrong, you may get positive points for thinking for yourself and willingness to challenge. If you tell a boss he's wrong and he is wrong - he'll never forgive you.

--------------------
Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528

 - Posted      Profile for Lamb Chopped   Email Lamb Chopped   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Yes, I made that mistake when I was very very young. [slaps head]

Ever wish you had a time machine?

--------------------
Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984

 - Posted      Profile for Doublethink.   Author's homepage     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Speaking as the person who once got delegated to tell her boss that if she kept speaking to her team like that they would end up putting in a collective greviance - you don't *always* get fired, but I wouldn't recommend burning your bridges unless you are really sure you are happy to leave if asked.

--------------------
All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell

Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005  |  IP: Logged
Schroedinger's cat

Ship's cool cat
# 64

 - Posted      Profile for Schroedinger's cat   Author's homepage     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
I have to say, if I had a boss who asked me to

quote:
“please organise a conference call at 5 p.m.”
I would probably do just that - between him and me. And then refuse the invitation.

If he asked me to

quote:
invite “Marie something” (sic) to an event.
I would have found a random Marie and invited them.

I have had some excellent bosses. I have had some appalling work "colleagues" - including one who was clearly sociopathic, causing utter havoc across the company to further his own ends. If I had been asked to review him - no hope - I would have explained that he is a total liability and should be removed as soon as possible, before he did any more damage to the business.

--------------------
Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.

Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528

 - Posted      Profile for Lamb Chopped   Email Lamb Chopped   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Which is great, provided that individual doesn't have it in their power to deprive you of the income that is standing between you and homelessness...

--------------------
Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338

 - Posted      Profile for cliffdweller     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Which is great, provided that individual doesn't have it in their power to deprive you of the income that is standing between you and homelessness...

Exactly. Which is why 360 reviews never really are.

The other proviso is the assumption that your review actually means something to someone and isn't just another meaningless stunt in order to look more "professional". Most often it's the latter-- a bit of hoop-jumping to comply with what someone somewhere thought was a "good idea" of "best practices." But the reality is, most likely your review is just filed away somewhere unread by everyone-- except the subject of the review. Who will stew about your calling him/ her a "liability" and attribute every future slight to your undermining. So much for team work.

Truth-tellers don't often survive well in corporate America-- or in ecclesiastical America either.

--------------------
"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner

Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008  |  IP: Logged
no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
# 15560

 - Posted      Profile for no prophet's flag is set so...   Author's homepage   Email no prophet's flag is set so...   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
In my view, if you need some process and label for how to talk to each other, and some consulting company or human resources pretend-professional to tell how it's done, you're in rather deep trouble already. The first thing to consider is that you are just supposed to play along. No one really wants honest feedback, what they want is as Gold Star®. Never ever be honest, genuine or real.

Or better yet, be Dilbert.

--------------------
Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/

Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010  |  IP: Logged
Schroedinger's cat

Ship's cool cat
# 64

 - Posted      Profile for Schroedinger's cat   Author's homepage     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Which is great, provided that individual doesn't have it in their power to deprive you of the income that is standing between you and homelessness...

I am aware of the risks involved. I suppose I am of an age and skillset that I would consider working for such a person too much, and so would seek to find somewhere else anyway.

I am very aware that this is not an option for everyone, by a long stretch.

--------------------
Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.

Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Doublethink.
Ship's Foolwise Unperson
# 1984

 - Posted      Profile for Doublethink.   Author's homepage     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
My problem is usually understanding the question on these things.

"Does X use examples and stories to inspire the team with their vision ?"

I decided to go with the "not observed" answer option.

--------------------
All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome. George Orwell

Posts: 19219 | From: Erehwon | Registered: Aug 2005  |  IP: Logged
Chapelhead

I am
# 21

 - Posted      Profile for Chapelhead     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
360 feedback - it's a bit like marriage, really.

quote:
The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception necessary for both parties.
- Oscar Wilde



--------------------
At times like this I find myself thinking, what would the Amish do?

Posts: 9123 | From: Near where I was before. | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688

 - Posted      Profile for la vie en rouge     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Actually, he’s far from the worst boss I’ve ever had. The dude who yelled at me so much for problems he had himself created so that I lost five kilos in three months wins that prize. In the two and a bit years since I stopped working for him, he is now onto his third assistant. Still, man is he frustrating. I’ve come to the conclusion that law firms are just very, very dysfunctional places.

(In answer to the obvious question: I’m biding my time. Within six months from now, I’m hoping to have a qualification on my CV which will make it much easier for me to find gainful employment doing something else. Not the moment to leave.)

--------------------
Rent my holiday home in the South of France

Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005  |  IP: Logged
Alan Cresswell

Mad Scientist 先生
# 31

 - Posted      Profile for Alan Cresswell   Email Alan Cresswell   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
quote:
Leorning Cniht: Can anyone explain why that is 360 degrees? If I rotate 360 degrees, I'm facing in the same direction. If you want me to review the person who usually reviews me, it has always seemed that what you require is a 180 degree rotation.
In this way, a 360 degree is an excellent way of finding out who in the workplace is a smartarse.
Turning 360deg is to go all the way around. There is a word for what we do when we turn round and round. It's 'spin', and most performance reviews are basically a form of management spin doctoring. You go through the process, put down words on the forms that are not inaccurate, but present things in the right sort of light to keep the human resources people content. And, then get back to doing your job.

Naturally, it's probably extremely unwise for someone who posts under their real name to say anything about their boss. I wouldn't want to be seen as a sycophantic boot licker.

--------------------
Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.

Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528

 - Posted      Profile for Lamb Chopped   Email Lamb Chopped   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Schroedinger's cat:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Which is great, provided that individual doesn't have it in their power to deprive you of the income that is standing between you and homelessness...

I am aware of the risks involved. I suppose I am of an age and skillset that I would consider working for such a person too much, and so would seek to find somewhere else anyway.

I am very aware that this is not an option for everyone, by a long stretch.

Yeah, I'm speaking from personal frustration. Once I did have such an age and skillset, and I did in fact walk away.

Now I'm older and less desirable (ha) and have a family to support. Which meant I couldn't walk away until the bastard fired me.

--------------------
Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
Carex
Shipmate
# 9643

 - Posted      Profile for Carex   Email Carex   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
The advantages of youth and lack of dependents...

Back in the day one of my bosses spent most of his time on the phone negotiating real estate deals. This was readily apparent to everyone, since we were in an old repurposed building with thin walls and his office was a small nook without a door. He was so popular that one of his teams rearranged their office furniture so that the doors couldn't open far enough to admit his rotundity.

At my first annual performance review I told him that I thought management was "a bunch of turkeys". A couple months later he quit, and told me, "see, I took your advice."

Posts: 1425 | Registered: Jun 2005  |  IP: Logged
Beenster
Shipmate
# 242

 - Posted      Profile for Beenster   Email Beenster   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
No one learns bloody shorthand anymore because we aren’t in 1950 for the love of Pete (in case you’re wondering, boss is not old).
I did ! I love it. I can write notes to me in meetings and no-one has a clue what I write.

My boss. I don't know whether to feel sad for him. Or not. I don't know if he's deeply unhappy or a sadistic bully. He's got this weird habit of sitting in his office not talking to people. And he wants things doing and doesn't tell his team - or me - what he wants. And then when it's not done, he gets cross.

There is a mysterious strategy. He says to his team "come and ask me if you have questions or concerns". So they do. And then he gets cross that they're not focusing on their day job.

Or, with me, he asks me to remind him of things that he needs to do. So I do just that. And guess what, he gets cross.

Or it goes on. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Eggshells is not the word.

I remember another boss. She would accept everything that came her way. And then each morning, we would sit there in her office and she would say "i don't feel like doing x today, please tell them I can't do it, I think I will leave the office at 2pm and go for a run instead". She was in training for a marathon. Oh she was so lazy.

But would I ever tell them what I thought - even "anonymously" - never. The 360 degree thing is such a fallacy. I remember it from my city days and friends "I'll do yours if you do mine - do you want to write your own and I'll write mine?" It was a joke.

Posts: 1885 | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110

 - Posted      Profile for Barnabas62   Email Barnabas62   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink.:
Speaking as the person who once got delegated to tell her boss that if she kept speaking to her team like that they would end up putting in a collective greviance - you don't *always* get fired, but I wouldn't recommend burning your bridges unless you are really sure you are happy to leave if asked.

Wow DT! How was it delegated? Drawing the short straw?

Seriously, it isn't always true. It wasn't with me. I used to have a poster on my office wall based on a quotation from one of the books in the "Dune" series. It said

quote:
If you put away from you those who try to tell you the truth, those who remain will know what you want to hear.
My predecessor in the job had been one of those managers who may have had his faults, but being wrong wasn't one of them.

Anyway, I stuck the notice up (very large print) on my office wall on the day I started and after a couple of days one of my staff came in and asked me if I really meant it. I said "sure, wouldn't have done it otherwise". It changed things; but not all at once. Fear and prudence die hard.

Three months after the change of regime and after a few honest and bruising exchanges, the notice on the wall was joined by an Argos poster of a very sad looking orang-utan. The legend on the poster said "If I've done anything wrong, I'm willing to be forgiven". That worked as well.

--------------------
Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?

Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Dark Knight

Super Zero
# 9415

 - Posted      Profile for Dark Knight   Email Dark Knight   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
LVER - why not play him straight for a while, and suspend using your deciphering skills to help him? You sent him to the real place he didn't want to go to - could you do this rather more often? Address things to non-existent people at his command? Let things collapse a bit?

Yay! Unsolicited advice! That always helps people.
[Roll Eyes]
I loved the rant, LVER. I felt angry and amused in equal measure. Keep them coming.

Posts: 2958 | From: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Registered: Apr 2005  |  IP: Logged
W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250

 - Posted      Profile for W Hyatt   Email W Hyatt   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Most often it's the latter-- a bit of hoop-jumping to comply with what someone somewhere thought was a "good idea" of "best practices."

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
You go through the process, put down words on the forms that are not inaccurate, but present things in the right sort of light to keep the human resources people content. And, then get back to doing your job.

I was once fortunate enough to get a very competent new supervisor that we hired in to increase the distance between me and upper management. He referred to these activities as "feeding the beast."

--------------------
A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.

Posts: 1565 | From: U.S.A. | Registered: Nov 2008  |  IP: Logged
mark_in_manchester

not waving, but...
# 15978

 - Posted      Profile for mark_in_manchester   Email mark_in_manchester   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Yay! Unsolicited advice! That always helps people.
How true, and selfless, of you to gratuitously interject.

--------------------
"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)

Posts: 1596 | Registered: Oct 2010  |  IP: Logged
Carex
Shipmate
# 9643

 - Posted      Profile for Carex   Email Carex   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:

I was once fortunate enough to get a very competent new supervisor that we hired in to increase the distance between me and upper management. He referred to these activities as "feeding the beast."

When I was a manager or team leader I used the phrase "running interference": my job was to keep management off the backs of the rest of the team so they could get the work done.
Posts: 1425 | Registered: Jun 2005  |  IP: Logged
W Hyatt
Shipmate
# 14250

 - Posted      Profile for W Hyatt   Email W Hyatt   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
I could really use someone to run interference for me.

--------------------
A new church and a new earth, with Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life.

Posts: 1565 | From: U.S.A. | Registered: Nov 2008  |  IP: Logged
Dark Knight

Super Zero
# 9415

 - Posted      Profile for Dark Knight   Email Dark Knight   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
quote:
Yay! Unsolicited advice! That always helps people.
How true, and selfless, of you to gratuitously interject.
This is a discussion board, numb nuts. Do you really not get how this works?
You offered unasked for advice to someone sounding off. I made fun of you for doing so. Much like I am now.

--------------------
So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me
- A B Original: I C U

----
Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).

Posts: 2958 | From: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Registered: Apr 2005  |  IP: Logged
la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688

 - Posted      Profile for la vie en rouge     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
<sobbing> I am supposed to reserve at a restaurant. The boss can remember neither the name nor the address.

I’VE HAD ENOUGH I WANT TO GO HOME AND IT’S ONLY MONDAY MORNING

[Waterworks]

--------------------
Rent my holiday home in the South of France

Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005  |  IP: Logged
LeRoc

Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216

 - Posted      Profile for LeRoc     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
We can give you some suggestions where you could reserve [Snigger] [Devil]

--------------------
I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)

Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002  |  IP: Logged
Jane R
Shipmate
# 331

 - Posted      Profile for Jane R   Email Jane R   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
You could reserve him a table here.

Ninth circle of Hell - reserved for traitors. [Devil]

[x-posted with LeRoc]

[ 12. October 2015, 09:16: Message edited by: Jane R ]

Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081

 - Posted      Profile for Eutychus   Author's homepage     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Translating 360° reviews is a large part of my summer workload.

What I have learned from this is that

a) you often find out a lot more about the reviewers than about the subject

b) you can tell which reviewers have got together in the staff canteen to coordinate their responses beforehand

c) you can tell which ones are in love with their boss.

--------------------
Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy

Posts: 17944 | From: 528491 | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713

 - Posted      Profile for Sioni Sais   Email Sioni Sais   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
Translating 360° reviews is a large part of my summer workload.

What I have learned from this is that

a) you often find out a lot more about the reviewers than about the subject

b) you can tell which reviewers have got together in the staff canteen to coordinate their responses beforehand

c) you can tell which ones are in love with their boss.

You learn the same from conventional staff reviews.

--------------------
"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"

(Paul Sinha, BBC)

Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338

 - Posted      Profile for cliffdweller     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
<sobbing> I am supposed to reserve at a restaurant. The boss can remember neither the name nor the address.

I’VE HAD ENOUGH I WANT TO GO HOME AND IT’S ONLY MONDAY MORNING

[Waterworks]

(aside that probably belongs on the "difficult relatives" thread...) this reminds me of the way my mom used to give directions, "...you drive and then you get to that place-- you know (if you object here she'd just say louder, oh, you KNOW) then turn and a bit later there's that street... that's where it is..."

--------------------
"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner

Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008  |  IP: Logged
Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528

 - Posted      Profile for Lamb Chopped   Email Lamb Chopped   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Beats the people who want you to turn left at a cow...

--------------------
Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!

Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338

 - Posted      Profile for cliffdweller     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Beats the people who want you to turn left at a cow...

In Africa we used to hear a lot "turn left where the bakery used to be..." (to be fair, everyone but us knew where that was)

--------------------
"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner

Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008  |  IP: Logged
Beenster
Shipmate
# 242

 - Posted      Profile for Beenster   Email Beenster   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Ha! The hotel is full and my boss wants to stay there. The request comes through from him "give them a call and see what they can do, they ought to be able to do something, they get plenty of business from us".

Do what? Build another room for him?

Reminds me of another story. The boss was throwing such a tantrum about a flight being full and was throwing his gold card about the place. Eventually, a seat was found for him. He got on and saw a client and laughed "haw haw haw I got a seat I had to make a lot of fuss to get this seat on the plane". The client responded "I know, I've just been turfed out".

Posts: 1885 | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
mark_in_manchester

not waving, but...
# 15978

 - Posted      Profile for mark_in_manchester   Email mark_in_manchester   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Dark Knight addressed me thus:

quote:
This is a discussion board, numb nuts. Do you really not get how this works?
Thanks (now twice - you're such a darling!) for your unsolicited advice as to my unsolicited advice.

[Roll Eyes]

--------------------
"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)

Posts: 1596 | Registered: Oct 2010  |  IP: Logged
Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564

 - Posted      Profile for Leorning Cniht   Email Leorning Cniht   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Beats the people who want you to turn left at a cow...

In Africa we used to hear a lot "turn left where the bakery used to be..." (to be fair, everyone but us knew where that was)
My mother still gives directions with reference to a cinema that closed down thirty years ago (IIRC, the actual building was torn down about 15 years ago. It's a block of flats now.)
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013  |  IP: Logged
Moo

Ship's tough old bird
# 107

 - Posted      Profile for Moo   Email Moo   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
Around here they give directions involving 'where the cheese factory was'. Said factory closed about forty years ago.

Moo

--------------------
Kerygmania host
---------------------
See you later, alligator.

Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338

 - Posted      Profile for cliffdweller     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Beenster:
Ha! The hotel is full and my boss wants to stay there. The request comes through from him "give them a call and see what they can do, they ought to be able to do something, they get plenty of business from us".

Do what? Build another room for him?

Reminds me of another story. The boss was throwing such a tantrum about a flight being full and was throwing his gold card about the place. Eventually, a seat was found for him. He got on and saw a client and laughed "haw haw haw I got a seat I had to make a lot of fuss to get this seat on the plane". The client responded "I know, I've just been turfed out".

hellishly delightful!
[Big Grin]

--------------------
"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner

Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008  |  IP: Logged
la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688

 - Posted      Profile for la vie en rouge     Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Beenster:
Ha! The hotel is full and my boss wants to stay there. The request comes through from him "give them a call and see what they can do, they ought to be able to do something, they get plenty of business from us".

Do what? Build another room for him?

This also happened to me recently. Our colleagues in the Munich office, who are German and therefore organised*, emailed the boss in July inviting him to an event they were putting on in relation to a major tradeshow (one of the biggest of its kind in Europe). The boss woke up a week before the event and then acted all surprised that the hotels were all either fully booked or charging 450€ a night for the rooms that had left. (See I have stories forever.)

When I announced the prices to the boss, he helpfully suggested looking on booking.com. What do you think I’ve been doing for the last two bloody hours? [brick wall] The travel agent eventually found me a hotel, of a somewhat less luxurious category than that to which he is used. Failing that I was planning to send him camping. Beenster, do you have a tent you could lend him?

* The best boss I ever had was German. He was so organised and straightforward. He would come and see me and say “I need a train ticket to Lille. I am leaving at this time, I am coming back at this time and it needs to be charged to this client.” It was bliss. Eventually he buggered off to work for an NGO because he was too nice to be in a law firm.

--------------------
Rent my holiday home in the South of France

Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005  |  IP: Logged
Dark Knight

Super Zero
# 9415

 - Posted      Profile for Dark Knight   Email Dark Knight   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
Dark Knight addressed me thus:

quote:
This is a discussion board, numb nuts. Do you really not get how this works?
Thanks (now twice - you're such a darling!) for your unsolicited advice as to my unsolicited advice.

[Roll Eyes]

Holy shit, you're dumb. I'm not giving you advice, you drongo. I am making fun of you for giving unsolicited advice.
I think you may have misunderstood the teasing you got at school. They weren't trying to help you. They really were laughing at you.

--------------------
So don't ever call me lucky
You don't know what I done, what it was, who I lost, or what it cost me
- A B Original: I C U

----
Love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6).

Posts: 2958 | From: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road | Registered: Apr 2005  |  IP: Logged
balaam

Making an ass of myself
# 4543

 - Posted      Profile for balaam   Author's homepage   Email balaam   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
In any work situation, when anyone says, "There's no I in team," you should be able to answer, "Yes, but there is a U in cunt."

Sadly I don't work in a place like this.

--------------------
Last ever sig ...

blog

Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
balaam

Making an ass of myself
# 4543

 - Posted      Profile for balaam   Author's homepage   Email balaam   Send new private message       Edit/delete post   Reply with quote 
For the sake of keeping my job let me say I am thinking of a previous job where working as a team was the boss's way of saying "do what I say." We had no input as to what the "team" should be doing.

--------------------
Last ever sig ...

blog

Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged



Pages in this thread: 1  2 
 
Post new thread  Post a reply Close thread   Feature thread   Move thread   Delete thread Next oldest thread   Next newest thread
 - Printer-friendly view
Go to:

Contact us | Ship of Fools | Privacy statement

© Ship of Fools 2016

Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM 6.5.0

 
follow ship of fools on twitter
buy your ship of fools postcards
sip of fools mugs from your favourite nautical website
 
 
  ship of fools