# Hey boss, everything can't be top priority! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 25, 2005, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-boss-everything-cant-be-top-priority/286620 "2005-01-25T18:05:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-boss-everything-cant-be-top-priority/286620/21 "2005-01-25T21:27:38Z")
Whenever one of my bosses gives me an assignment, I always size it up and give them an estimated duration (I’m a Project Scheduler, so my estimations are pretty good). If assignments \> time in the day, then boss=SOL. If boss = unsatisfied, then An Arky = finds other employment. I won’t work for dickheads. Been there, done that, never again. Generally speaking, though, by being upfront with my bosses about what it takes to do something, I’m able to manage expectations to a reasonable degree. However, if you have an unreasonable boss, I reckon that doesn’t work. ---
**Author:** ![galt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/35a633/32.png) [@galt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/galt)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-boss-everything-cant-be-top-priority/286620/22 "2005-01-25T22:43:51Z")
I used to have a boss that did this, and I was able to point it out and curtail it somewhat by making a joke about it. When he’d tell me something was my number one priority, I’d say, “is that more important that my existing number one priorities?” or “Ok, which of my number one priorities would you like me to do first?” Deliver it right, and he’ll get that you’re teasing him about making unreasonable demands. Of course, if your boss is a raging asshole who can’t possibly admit his flaws, this probably isn’t advisable. ---
**Author:** ![Caught\_Work](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/919ad9/32.png) [@Caught\_Work](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caught_Work)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-boss-everything-cant-be-top-priority/286620/23 "2005-01-25T23:01:28Z")
You need some subtlety around your office 😃 Try one of these: [http://www.caughtatwork.net/demotivations/](http://www.caughtatwork.net/demotivations/) ---
**Author:** ![Medea\_s\_Child](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Medea\_s\_Child](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Medea_s_Child)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-boss-everything-cant-be-top-priority/286620/24 "2005-01-25T23:21:47Z")
This thread is giving me flashbacks - I worked for a boss that wanted me to have everything as top priority and when I explained to her that only so many things could be top priority on in a given day/work week/hour/moment she said that I needed to learn to multitask. :smack: We had this discussion several times, she honestly expected me to have seven top priority, full focus projects. Usually in different labs and offices. (“Your top priority is to type that for Linda, and take this to Dr. X, and organise everything the lab has ever ordered without having access to any sensitive purchasing information.” “Which should I do first?” “You’re so stupid, don’t you listen? All of them.”) Of course she is also the woman who whipped out a calculator to prove to me that 2 divided by .5 is 1, and then said the calculator was wrong. (She also disagreed with using Excel’s ability to automatically calculate formulas - instead of typing in a formula and dragging it so that it would be calculated in each cell she wanted me to do all the calculations by hand and type the answers into each cell. She didn’t trust that Excel would do the math right.) ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-boss-everything-cant-be-top-priority/286620/25 "2005-01-25T23:32:29Z")
> [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > What _does_ “exacerbates” mean? Don’t ask, you’ll just make it worse. All this “I in team” stuff reminds me of when you couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting a “Successories” poster at a workplace. My boss was handing out trinkets and I got a pack of post-its that read “We can’t spell SUCCESS without U!” I pointed out immediately that we can’t spell FAILURE without U either. She was not amused. This was a previous job; I wasn’t there much longer after that. My boss came over to me earlier today when I was about halfway through a stack of about 500 items that needed to be data-entered and complained that I wasn’t done already. Then when I finished them an hour or so later she was surprised that I got them all done so quickly. She may very well be nuts. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2005, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-boss-everything-cant-be-top-priority/286620/26 "2005-01-25T23:50:52Z")
> [@Otto](#): > > My boss came over to me earlier today when I was about halfway through a stack of about 500 items that needed to be data-entered and complained that I wasn’t done already. Then when I finished them an hour or so later she was surprised that I got them all done so quickly. She may very well be nuts. In a past job (aerial manlifts), I once spent four days to fix (read: completely redo) a bill of materials for a product that my boss spent three weeks to enter wrong. (I mean completely wrong; stuff like four axles, three tires, five chassis…all in the same bill.) He was upset that I: [ul]“Wasted” the time to correct the bill, [li]took four days to configure and enter an approx. 1000 component bill, and[/li][li]didn’t inform him of the changes. (Um, Phil, take a look at that memo I handed to you. Yeah, the one with the proposed corrections to the BOM. The one you glanced at and said "Whatever’.)[/li][/ul] Actually, he was just upset that he looked bad for screwing it up, so he went to his supervisor and complained. The stupid part is that his supervisor (and everybody else who wasn’t working on the project) never would have known that he made a mistake had he not yapped his trap. (Well, the manufacturing engineers who were trying to plan to the old bill knew, but that’s why I corrected the damn thing in the first place.) Sadly, things aren’t any better in the aerospace field than they were in construction equipment. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Odinoneeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/97f17d/32.png) [@Odinoneeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odinoneeye)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-boss-everything-cant-be-top-priority/286620/27 "2005-01-26T00:05:04Z")
> [@Medea's Child](#): > > Of course she is also the woman who whipped out a calculator to prove to me that 2 divided by .5 is 1, and then said the calculator was wrong. (She also disagreed with using Excel’s ability to automatically calculate formulas - instead of typing in a formula and dragging it so that it would be calculated in each cell she wanted me to do all the calculations by hand and type the answers into each cell. She didn’t trust that Excel would do the math right.) I wouldn’t trust it either. I mean it claims that 2 dived by .5 is 4. 😃 That’s one of the things I like about my job. Our shift managers are pretty good about accessing the workflow and ask for input from the department supervisors on taking more work. Also all jobs are given a priority and put into the computer so anyone can take a look at the job list and know exactly which jobs have priority over which. ---
**Author:** ![Odinoneeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/97f17d/32.png) [@Odinoneeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odinoneeye)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-boss-everything-cant-be-top-priority/286620/28 "2005-01-26T00:06:11Z")
:smack: Make that **divided** ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-boss-everything-cant-be-top-priority/286620/29 "2005-01-26T00:16:32Z")
We used to ask managers if this was top priority #1 or top priority #2, etc. Some of them still didn’t get it… ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-boss-everything-cant-be-top-priority/286620/30 "2005-01-26T00:25:02Z")
> [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > What _does_ “exacerbates” mean? 😃 > > Stranger Woohoo! I am exacerbating like a motherfuck! ---
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-boss-everything-cant-be-top-priority/286620/31 "2005-01-26T00:44:53Z")
Once when my old boss (Stutters) gave me three projects to do and said that every one of them had to be done ‘right now’, I was also fighting a bad case of ‘I haven’t had time to pee all damn day’, and so just after she explained to me that all these things needed to be done yesterday (nevermind that she just gave them to me), I got up to leave my office and she said ‘Where are you going?’ I told her that although she wanted all three of her projects to be my top priority, number one for me was the need to not piss my pants. Then she thought I was crazy so she left me alone for a couple of days and I got some of the work done. Except, of course, the parts that needed her input which she was ‘too busy’ to do even though these projects were ‘top priority’. I’m glad she’s gone. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-boss-everything-cant-be-top-priority/286620/32 "2005-01-26T01:14:03Z")
> [@Caught@Work](#): > > You need some subtlety around your office 😃 > Try one of these: > > [Caught at Work Productions - Demotivational Images](http://www.caughtatwork.net/demotivations/) I **want** a tattoo of [this one!](http://www.caughtatwork.net/demotivations/view.php?itemid=114) Sadly, my whole company is like \*\*Otto[/n]'s boss. Yes, I’m planning on an escape. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-boss-everything-cant-be-top-priority/286620/33 "2005-01-26T02:12:28Z")
> [@Nametag](#): > > Woohoo! I am exacerbating like a motherfuck! TMI! Way too much TMI! Get a room, man! 😃 Stranger ---
**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-boss-everything-cant-be-top-priority/286620/34 "2005-01-26T02:23:00Z")
/ring ring Ed: Yeah Phone: mumble Ed: Naw, Aw’ve got nutin’. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-boss-everything-cant-be-top-priority/286620/35 "2005-01-26T10:42:54Z")
I suppose a simple "Do you understand what the fuck the word priority means you overpaid asshat?’ would be counterproductive. Anyway, on a related note, my so-called superior was once trying to formulate a policy on taking pictures. His goal was to use less film (our supply was low because he had spent that year’s budget buying the wrong film). So he told me I was only supposed to take pictures in situations where we’d need them for future lawsuits. I tried to explain the concept of time to him and point out how its effects made it difficult for me to know at the time an incident occurred whether or not a lawsuit would be filed in the future. But to no avail. Sometimes during conversations with the man, I swear I could actually see the facts bouncing off his forehead. ---
**Author:** ![BiblioCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed8c4c/32.png) [@BiblioCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BiblioCat)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-boss-everything-cant-be-top-priority/286620/36 "2005-01-26T12:58:18Z")
> [@Otto](#): > > Hey boss, you know how you’ve given me eight different tasks, all of which you’ve tagged in one way or another as top priority (“this has to be done first,” “this is your priority,” “this needs to be done now,” “this is the number one task” and so on)? Afraid it just doesn’t work that way. It just ain’t possible for me to do more than one thing first. Hey, I used to work for this same guy! I used to just slide the projects behind one another and work on them in the order he gave them to me. If he asked for things out of order, I’d get all the unfinished stuff out and line it up and ask him exactly what needed to be done first. He’d look at me as if I had three heads and say, “It all needs to be done NOW!” (I was doing WP stuff - typing up reports and proposals). I’d look at him and say, “I can only type so fast, you know. And I can only work on one thing at a time.” He’d get all exasperated and put it in some sort of order, then an hour later he’d come back and rearrange the order. Then the next day, he’d want it all in some other order. Drove me freaking nuts, he did. ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-boss-everything-cant-be-top-priority/286620/37 "2005-01-26T13:05:27Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > It is almost refreshing to such naïveté expressed among today’s youth. _ALL_ projects are number one priority at the point they are being discussed. > > I worked at a shop that was seriously downsized to cut costs for an impending LBO (26 in-house and 5 - 8 contractors reduced to 8 in-house–three of them demoted managers who had not coded in ten or more years). At the end of five months, management began complaining that the necessary work was not being done. (Ya think?) The IT manager explained that requests were handled as they arrived and that there was no method for IT to identify which department had a better claim for resources than any other. So the departmental managers got together and arranged all the projects in order: breakdown, #1; government demand (_e.g._, taxes and SEC reports for the LBO) #2; and on down to #12. Then they set a priority Zero. These were projects that were _so_ important that they simply _had_ to be done before anything else. In order to get a priority of 0, one had to plead one’s case to the corporate controller supported by the managers. At the end of three months, they had a two-year backlog of priority 0 projects–and a continuing hiring freeze. > > (The development manager used that to his advantage. Any user that pissed him off did not get any work done. When there was a complaint that he was not working on this #0 priority, the manager just pointed to the stack of other #0 projects.) And I thought _Dilbert_ was just a comic strip … ---
**Author:** ![CanvasShoes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-boss-everything-cant-be-top-priority/286620/38 "2005-01-26T14:09:46Z")
> [@Otto](#): > > Hey boss, you know how you’ve given me eight different tasks, all of which you’ve tagged in one way or another as top priority (“this has to be done first,” “this is your priority,” “this needs to be done now,” Thank goodness you’re moving to a new department, but in the meantime, I’m sure you’ve probably tried this but… Is there anyway to simply ASK him which "priority he wants done first? When he comes up and interrupts you with item number two that “needs to be done RIGHT now”, have you tried simply asking something to the effect of “did you want me to interrupt task one? or is this second in importance to that?” or some such. Maybe he’s just not aware of where you are in your tasks, and assumes you’re almost done with the first one he gave you or something? Or maybe he forgot he already told you the first one was priority? Sorry bout the pain in the buttness of it all though, hopefully Feb will come soonest! ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-boss-everything-cant-be-top-priority/286620/39 "2005-01-26T16:44:13Z")
> [@LonesomePolecat](#): > > And I thought _Dilbert_ was just a comic strip … I’ve heard that IBM would periodically try to flush Scott Adams out from their workforce after recognizing something in the strip as something they did or had done. At the time, of course, Mr. Adams worked for PacTel. I’m not sure which is more frightening, that IBM did things that showed up in the strip, or that the IBM managers **recognized** the strips as things that had happened at their company. Note that this doesn’t mean that Scott used an idea suggested by an IBMer, either. ---
**Author:** ![carlb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carlb/32/5930_2.png) [@carlb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlb)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2005, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-boss-everything-cant-be-top-priority/286620/40 "2005-01-27T04:57:48Z")
I worked for this guy (or his brother). I finally realized that getting all pissy just wasn’t accomplishing anything, so I would usually say variations on the following: Boss: This new project is your top priority! carlb: OK, just to be clear, I’m going to stop working on _formerNumberOnePriority_, and start working on _newNumberOnePriority_. Right? B: Right. This is your top priority! c: OK. I just wanted to make sure. To be immediately followed by an e-mail to Boss stating: Per our conversation earlier today, I will immediately cease work on _formerNumberOnePriority_, and begin work on _newNumberOnePriority_. It really didn’t change his behavior at all, but I did get to call him on it a few times when he tried to bitch about _formerNumberOnePriority_ not being finished. One time it was in front of the owner of the company, which was particularly satisfying. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-boss-everything-cant-be-top-priority/286620.md?page=1)