The fallout just happened and this compliance seed was planted a couple weeks ago.
My boss likes to send tasks via email, but to a group of employees and tell us to figure it out as far as who will do what. To further complicate it, when someone does volunteer to do a task, he will then tell you to make sure it’s okay with the rest of the team.
This annoys me to no end because it is incredibly non confrontational, inefficient, and fosters a lazy working environment where one person does most of the work.
We get an inquiry to create a new training curriculum. Boss sends normal email to myself and another lead asks who wants to do it. I don’t reply because I don’t want to do it. Boss meets with me in-person and said he wanted me to do it and had me in mind when he sent the email. (Why didn’t he just assign it to me!?). But he does his typical, run it by the other employee first. You already know.
I send the email asking the other employee and make sure to cc boss on it. An important note, because of this dynamic, employees have learned to just not reply to any emails. Even if it is to approve of the coworker taking the task, for fear of somehow being roped into the task. Shockingly, the other employee does not respond.
My boss just left my office panicked because not only did this one not get done but now there is another order. I’m swamped because I have been volunteering for his other email tasks that could warrant their own post. He realizes he is too much of a coward to force his other employees to do it and is now having to work both orders on his own.
Friday Eve got a little better.
Your boss should be up for the Miss Management of the year award.
Also known as "Can't manage their way out of a wet paper bag"
I had a boss like that... the stress of managing the company from the bottom was going to kill me.
Couldn't manage a piss-up in a brewery.
Couldn't manage a root in a brothel.
Couldn't manage a crap without written instructions.
The good old "couldn't pour water out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel"
right? its like they avoid the tough calls to make everyone else’s life harder
[removed]
I have been assured that being hired to MANAGE does not in any way shape or form imply being hired (or able) to LEAD.
seriously, he’s just making it worse for everyone instead of stepping up
for real, its like he wants chaos instead of just assigning tasks
and giving this award is... Ms Management
My boss is ok. He's good at the management stuff. So it would be unfair to say, this one is making my own boss look good. More like, I should really appreciate how lucky I am to have him as my boss.
Mr. Management. Boss is a He.
It's a play on words. Mis-management
It's a play on words. Mis-management
When I first started in the field, IT was called MIS (Management of Information Systems). I assume they changed it because managers got tired of being called MIS Managers.
He's still eligible.
Why is he in management?
An old book called The Peter Principle describes how many organizations work. People get promoted until they reach their “Level of Incompetence.” This is one level above where they were competent to do the job. They stagnate there, making the lives of everyone under them miserable and running the organization into the ground.
The converse is an old philosophy: quit when you’re ahead.
There's a corollary from the tech world, but it's applicable in other fields. "Great programmers are not necessarily great managers". If you're promoting someone because they're really good at their job, recognize that you just gave them a different job which requires different skills.
Boy, have I seen that in action. I worked for a couple of different tech companies. One had a dual ladder. Engineers could get to a level equivalent to VP and only do technical work. Projects were organized to have senior engineers designing architecture and lower level engineers implementing things. Managers generally had a BE and MBA. In another organization , engineers could only rise to the equivalent of a first level manager before they were advised to advance on the management ladder. Masters degrees were required of everyone and PhDs were common, particularly among the managers.
Guess which one was staffed with managers who tried to micromanage all technical work even when they hadn’t touched hardware for decades and had few people skills.
From my experience, it's both.
An engineer out of their element is worse than an average citizen at any job
BE ???
Bachelor of Engineering
I'm used to Bachelor of Science - Engineering e.g., Mechanical or Electrical (BSEE).
Some schools award BS in engineering degrees, some BE with BS reserved from things like physics, math, CS.
Thx!
This happens in education all the time. A good teacher does not always a good administrator (principal, etc.) Make.
You absolutely can sing that one in church.\ I’ve seen it in action multiple times in the 51 years I was in the workforce.\ I have no notion of why manglement would want to yank s good-or-better programmer out of something she does well and plug her into something she doesn’t know how to do — unless she agreed to try it. Thank @Pantheon I was given the choice.
I liked the "Red socks theory". If you are smartly and conventionally dressed apart from always wearing red socks, they will detract from your promotability just enough to save you from ending up in a job you can't do.
This is why some businesses require you to demonstrate you're operating at the next level before you get promoted to that level. It's harder to get promoted, but it gives the company some surety that you'll be able to do the job.
It also allows them to get next level work out of you for previous level pay.
Yes, but having had to work in both regimes before, I personally feel it's worth it. Working under a manager who's incompetent at their job is a kind of nightmare I don't care to repeat.
That is half of how the US military's enlisted side works. First, you have to be competent (as a minimum) at your current level. Then, you have to demonstrate that you can do the next level. Of course, part of that is training your subordinates to do YOUR job, too. If you can't/won't teach someone to replace you, well, you can't move up, now, can you? We need you where you are until we get someone in who can do your job. This is forced by the need to prepare for casualties, etc.
Oh, and don't ask how most of the officer class prepare for their promotions. I'm pretty sure that competence is not, as a rule, a factor.
Step one: hire a new employee Step two: throw them to the sharks. Step three: check on them in a year.
Are they chum in the water? Too bad. Time to run an ad to replace them.
Are they still alive? Promotion!
Que bigger sharks.
That’s the semi static organization case. I’ve seen the dynamic organization case which is worse.
Spend a lot of effort hiring new people.
Train them.
Reorganize so you have to cut staff.
You have to rate everyone every year. It’s hard to fire people who have been around a while, so give poor ratings to the new people, making them unemployable elsewhere in the company, even though the others are hiring the same skill sets.
Iterate.
I also worked for a defense contractor that had two divisions within walking distance of each other. They solved the hiring/training problem by laying off staff in one division and hiring into the other. Pack up your bags in Friday and start across the street on Monday. Each rehire started the length of service clock. Pensions (this was pre-IRA/401K) were vested in 3 years, which was generous at the time. The average length of a government contract was 2 years. Very few people lived to see a pension.
Failed up!
Some places only pay up to a cap. In order to get more money you have to take a supervisory position.
Yes. Ordinary workers do more for less.\ Managers do less for more.
Because he lacks the skill set for actual work.
This is not malicious compliance. This is your boss being a total wuss and not taking the responsibility of actually BEING a boss.
How you handle this is (In writing, especially if he only deals with email) is to put in writing:
"Boss, I am currently doing X, Y, and Z. If you also are directing me to to A and B, then I must put the other tasks on the back burner. Which tasks do you want me to stop the deliverables on?"
Use those words. Do not take waffling for an answer. Do not accept any sort of - "You need to work it out yourself." You simply can't get it all done, you WON'T stay late, and you won't work on it after hours. IF he wants the new stuff done, then your old stuff has to be put on pause.
If he actually comes to you in person to argue, NOW you remark about "What about Joe or Jim? Do they have availability?"
If you boss has a boss then if he won't deal you may need to CC his boss to get things done.
Another trick you can use is to weaponize their reluctance to actually manage against them.
"Boss, I am currently doing X and Y. Per our earlier communication, you have asked me to do A and B. You haven't said which set of tasks is a priority, so unless I hear from you, I will go forward with the new tasks A and B receiving my full attention."
This has the advantage that they're on the hook for a solid response if they want any changes.
Good, but I think I can do one better, the does not compute:
"Boss, I am currently doing X and Y as you told me to. Now you tell me to do A and B. I am now bigly confused about priorities and therefor will halt any ongoing activities on X and Y but also not start on A and B in order to avoid doing the wrong thing. Please let me know ASAP what you want so I can resume work."
That's a little excessive. Just say "got it, will complete A and B after I complete X and Y"
This is less about actually organizing the tasks and more about arm-bending the boss into doing his job. "If you don't start managing, I'll use your inaction to do less work."
I had one former boss that I did that with and it worked out well. For him, everything was urgent and little was less important.
I did what everyone else did and just accepted the extra work.
Fortunately for me, I got passed over for a promotion (job I had been doing for more than three years). When he next came with an urgent just-get-it-done task, I asked him what he wanted me to drop.
Nothing (of course).
So I did exactly as you suggested and he couldn't answer. In the end, he spun on his heel and gave it to someone else.
From then on, my task load got less and less, while I accepted fewer tasks. It was great.
I got a job elsewhere about a year later and haven't looked back. But my God, just a simple question was (for me at least) a great way to open up a lot more freedom in a toxic workplace over time.
That kind of handling works only if your team is engaged in the work. You consider that they are good enough they can share the job between themselves depending on their workload and their preferences. If no-one answers you have to be ready to assign it yourself. That manager needs to learn the last part.
Sounds like your boss and my boss went to the same management training course.
usually bad bosses are ones who boss too much, this is a rare one that can't boss
Boss needs to learn how to boss. My company puts employees who have been promoted to managers through manager training to avoid nonsense like this.
I dream of management training happening at my job.
Leaders need to lead, that's why they were hired. You can lead without being a total dick, but someone needs to do it. I've never seen the job title "Suggester" -- which sounds like a kind of jester.
Another incompetent manager.
Shocked! I'm shocked, I tell you!
With great power...comes great responsibility.
This guy is barely a supervisor. Definitely not a manager.
‘Just do it, someone’.
No accountability, no one to blame when it goes wrong, and the insurance sure as heck won’t pay out when it turns out everyone told the most inexperienced guy to do it.
Your boss doesn’t know how to boss and shouldn’t be in his current position
Your manager may just manage to make themselves redundant
Your boss shouldn’t be a boss if this is how he manages his team.
That do nothing mother farking person should never have been made supervisor.
Not exactly the same but close as we don't officially have a supervisor, we have a expert who is not a people supervisor but still responsible to make sure task get done. Confused? Yeah it's a high turnover position for a reason. Matter of fact upper management is all confuzzled on why they have a retention problem with the position.
Anyway our expert sends out an email every Friday of things that need to be done over the weekend. Not a damn thing will get done each and every weekend. Am I also to blame? Hell yeah but I got tired of being the only one working on the list, I'll do what I can but no longer stress myself out trying to get it all done. Long TLDR: There's not a thing he can do about it if nothing no work on his list gets done. The actual people manager, our manager, doesn't do anything if nothing gets done other then bitch out the "Expert" if the work doesn't get done. Poor guy even tried assigning task to each person but without enforcement ability and no backup from the manager nothing changes.
Personally if something is specifically assigned to me I make an effort to complete it, but if it's a general "will someone do this?" I may or may not get around to it depending on the workload. We are also permanently understaffed as manning levels are below work load. Issues are constantly going unaddressed just do to time restraints. My position also has a high turnover rate just not as high as the expert position. They could double manning and I'm not sure that would be enough people.
your manager is a bit passive/aggressive, isn't he? Can't just come out and assign a task to a particular person and wants everyone else to "check with the team". Maybe it's my age, but if he'd come at me about doing the task, I'd have just asked him why he didn't just send me an email directly asking me? And since he didn't, I would have told him that I didn't respond because I do not want to do that, as I'm already working on X, Y, and Z, which I've already been assigned and don't have the bandwidth for another project at this time. yikes.
This is known as the laissez-faire style of leadership and can be good in some particular situations but it usually causes more headaches and demoralizes staff more than is efficient.
What a messed up way to almost run really not run a business. Nothing getting done? What a surprise!
Sometimes people need to be voluntold. I was a lead before I retired and if we had a project I would ask if anyone wanted to spearhead it. I was always there for support. If no one volunteered, it was assigned to one of the team members.
Outlook has tasks. Someone should tell your boss
My office has a management team that is unsupportive and quick to throw people under the bus but at the same time they expect people to volunteer.
Radio silence when volunteer requests go out and radio silence when they try to broach the subject
The lack of self reflection is insane, and satisfying when they end up having to do the work themselves and they have no one to throw under the bus
Lol!!!
Where is the malice?