Wow jobs would be really boring if the world worked how you think it did. I would certainly not work for any employer who required I keep all my opinions to myself.
On Jeter and Posada, as it turns out, it is really difficult to manage an aging superstar. Everyone thinks their team’s stars will be different, but they aren’t. Jeter and Posada aren’t going to go quietly into the night when they are done. They are incredibly competitive people, and will still think they can do everything they used to, well past the point that they can’t.
Hawkeye-I thoroughly DISAGREE with your 1st paragraph, but your 2nd is on target; on my team, we’re getting there with Varitek and Ortiz. IF your opinion is warranted, and applicable, (i.e. you have an opinion on something that DIRECTLY effects you) then yes, your opinions should be solicited, otherwise, what you think doesn’t amount to anything. Oh, incidentally, interesting work is GREAT, but what really matters is work that allows a good standard of living.
Be confused no more: You’re a Sawwwx fan so you made a fairly ridiculous thread criticizing the captain of the Yankees for giving his opinion when asked about it and are trying to say it’s insubordination.
I thoroughly DISAGREE with this post. Well, OK, the OP probably is a BoSox fan, but I think he also actually holds very peculiar notions of workplace propriety. His notion of employee relations might work with assembly line type jobs, but most professionals I have known would tell a boss with the OP’s attitude to go take a flying fuck at himself.
I meant Jeter didn’t put him back in the lineup the next day, but I should have worded that more clearly. The point is that the OP seems to believe Jeter either ignored an order or made someone do something, and that’s not the case.
If you want to say Jeter shouldn’t have said anything, you can do that. (My response would just by “Why shouldn’t he, and who cares?” There is not much to discuss there.) You went further by saying Jeter did something he is not ALLOWED to do. You were wrong about that but you’ve stood by it. Do you see the problem here? Unless his contract says otherwise - and I am sure it doesn’t - Jeter is allowed to register his opinion. His manager, GM, and the team owners don’t have to listen, but that doesn’t mean he can’t say anything. That’s how it is in a general way for most of us. Our employers don’t have to take our suggestions but they’d be stupid to treat every opinion as a crime, or to imply that things that affect our coworkers don’t affect us. The difference between Derek Jeter and the rest of us in that sense is that nobody’s asking us those kinds of questions on TV.
Clearly. etv78, the literal meaning of “insubordination” is refusing to obey an order. In the more figurative sense it means someone who is disobedient or doesn’t submit to authority. Absolutely none of this applies to what Jeter said. He didn’t refuse anything, he didn’t disobey anyone, he didn’t buck the chain of command you are talking about. What he did, more or less, is give his opinion where it may not have been asked for. And if I had to guess, I’d say he did it without a full understanding of what Posada did. He may have believed Posada just made an excuse and asked out of the lineup after seeing he was hitting ninth; it’s possible Posada said something more like ‘then screw you, I’d rather not play for you than hit ninth.’
You do realize that professional baseball players are conspicuously offered up to reporters for Q&A after every game. It is part of the job, to sit in a locker room and take questions from reporters, offering your thoughts and opinions.
Anyway, as far as I read it, Jeter didn’t criticize the team, he supported his teammate. His teammate had a beef with management, apologized for his improper actions, and Jeter figuratively patted him on the back and said he didn’t do anything wrong.
Compared to the team faltering and high priced veterans failing to produce, this is a tempest in a thimble.
etv78, I find your notions of workplace communications odd and possibly anachronistic. What line of work are you in that you hold to such dogmatic standards for who should talk to who about what?
If I expressed a negative opinion of my company’s business decisions to a media member who then published my remarks and caused them to become public knowledge?
By backing Posada, BY DEFINITION he was contradicting the people who sign his paycheck! But I absolutely agree the brouhaha is a function of the team involved.
As has been told to you repeatedly, “contradicting” is not the same as “insubordinate”. They’re not even close. Your complete disconnect and lack of experience with actual, real world working environments is preventing you from holding a rational argument here, etv.
Correct. He is not the boss. That’s why is opinion on Posada did not change anything. Now, why is he not allowed to express an opinion about what his manager did?
YogSouth-I agree good ideas don’t need to be explicitly solicited, BUT employees (and Jeter, like it or not, IS an employee) shouldn’t have a say in their co-worker’s future
Munch-I concede I’m using “insubordiante” colloquially, not in its strictest definition. However, I can’t think of another word that adequately describes Jeter’s actions.
WTH does THAT mean? If you mean that I’m not singling out the Yankees (as a Sox fan) then yes, you’re right, but otherwise I’m confused.
Well, OK, the OP probably is a BoSox fan, but I think he also actually holds very peculiar notions of workplace propriety. His notion of employee relations might work with assembly line type jobs, but most professionals I have known would tell a boss with the OP’s attitude to go take a flying fuck at himself.