There are many snarky responses, are not there?
Amazing how people can build up a picture of me based on my comments here.
I do not want to present myself as a defiant personality.
People make many exaggerations about how bad their work is. My work situation is not an exaggeration.
Our team is very experienced and knowledgeable in our field. Our manager decided to hire a Team Leader. The person she hired has no experience, no knowledge of our job and no people skills. He also has no Team leader experience. Our team members have no time for him. He is just an annoyance because he does not know anything. He is also about 20 years younger than our youngest team member. Noone has any respect for him.
We are not rude to him- we are just going about our job as usual without his involvement.
Now he wants to get involved with his little plans and ideas which we have no use for- we know what we are doing. He does not have a clue.
Now he is trying to ‘put his foot down’. But he is so incompetent that he is just coming out with BS or actual insults.
Last week he said to me that I was not rational. I told him that he was insulting me by saying that. He replied that it was not an insult if he had a reason for calling me not rational.
I know I will get a lot of snarky shite comments. Whatever.
But if there are some intelligent people out there, you can comment also.
Perhaps because of the many, many posts we’ve had from youngsters with attitudes you were initially assumed to be just another one of those.
With all this additional info I think you’ll find a very different response from the crowd here going forward. I think you’ll also agree that your first post and this post paint a very different picture if given to somebody, e.g. us, who have zero of the background.
Practical advice: All of you get together & talk to the grand-boss who hired this guy. Tell her what you told us. In plain English. See what happens next.
The ones who go about with that I don’t take no bullshit attitude don’t need advice on how to appear that way. The ones that do need advice how to appear that way, most likely can‘t pull it off once advice is received.
No disrespect intended, just my observation of the workplace after many years.
What else are we supposed to based our picture of you on?
Could you expand on this?
The context in which your words will be heard is important, as they won’t always be taken literally. Some things cannot be said without implying the opposite, due to existing social constructs. You must be aware of these pitfalls to successfully navigate workplace politics. Think of those you’ve known who say, “I don’t like drama,” yet coincidentally are continually surrounded by it. Because people who *actually *don’t like drama don’t talk about it–they live it. They stay classy, refuse to engage, cut drama llamas out of their lives, and don’t use the word “drama” unless referring to theatre/film.
The same applies to BS in the workplace. There is simply no way that your boss will hear, “I don’t take BS,” as you intend. If you so much as bring up the topic, he/she will rather infer that you are continually surrounded by/engaging in BS. Whether or not this is true of you is irrelevant. In the workplace, the way you’re perceived nearly always outweighs the truth. Not to mention, a new boss hasn’t had the time to establish a baseline opinion of you yet. It’s not a good idea to poison the well early on with fighting words.
So you can’t say you don’t take BS. How, then, to communicate it? Allow your actions to demonstrate it. But be mindful that some roles/bosses/coworkers require a certain amount of bullshittery up with which to put. That your prior boss did not means you were formerly lucky, not that you have an ongoing right to expect your luck to continue. This is just, in a nutshell, life.
An interview-/resume-friendly way to say you don’t take BS would be: “I’m a go-getter with a no-nonsense approach in the workplace.” Unfortunately, this will not work in your current situation. You already have the job, and the BS boss is an unavoidable problem. Your only political options are to 1) suck it up buttercup (while subtly demonstrating through future interactions that you do not take BS); or 2) seek another position.
**TL;DR: **As far as you’re concerned, your boss is the single most powerful person in your organization. He has the ability to fuck with your world. Don’t be an idiot and piss in his face.
I think it’s time to ignore the OP’s first post and really talk about the OP’s post #61 as if it was the first post in the thread. As such, I’d banish “BS” from the thread as a buzzword subject to too much room for interpretation. It’s all emotional noise with no rational content.
He paints a picture of a skilled crew of long-time experienced employees who’ve been saddled with a clueless ineffectual kid for a boss. Obviously there’s room for that picture to be a perfect rendition of reality or for it to be the OP’s totally self-serving fantasy.
IMO if the picture is the latter, the problem will resolve itself. The OP will mouth off to the wrong people and it’ll be game over for him. Not my circus, not my monkeys.
So IMO the interesting topic to discuss is what to do if the picture is accurate. I’ve offered my opener in #62. Get a group together because there’s strength & safety in numbers. And present the problem to the only boss who can fix it: the one just above the newbie.
If that person is a skilled quality manager the issue will get the dispassionate analysis it deserves. If not, they’ll need to hire a whole new department after firing this one in a fit of childish pique.
Any other ideas?
Let’s go with this. It is accurate.
Originally I just wanted a good phrase. But let’s go with the whole situation.
The manager is a nightmare. She wanted a team leader who is just a Yes man- doing all her dirty work. We - my team mates and I -all refused to do her dirty work.
I get the idea of protecting your privacy, but are there details you can provide that help us understand your situation better? What’s an example of a program your leader wants to put in place, why is it bad?
But I agree with others that the additional information is already helpful. There’s a certain school of supervisor who sees their job as territory-marking: they don’t care to find out how systems work, they just want to pee on as many fenceposts as possible so that others can tell they were there. It’s infuriating.
I mentioned some options earlier for dealing with this sort of manager: suck it up, mouth off, or quit. There’s another optino, though: smile, nod, and ignore.
I’m a union rep and I love dealing with folks like you. You practically do my job for me.
Your point is a good one. all offices usally have a bully. If you acquiesce and kowtow to them, it only gets worse. What worked for me:schedule a meeting with the bully’s boss, and tell him something like “You have an employee who cannot control his mouth”
Document everything, and generate a paper trail.
Agree with the document everything advice. But I very much doubt a statement like that would have a positive outcome in this situation - you’d be complaining to the person who just recently made the hiring decision. They are naturally going to want to defend their position.
blueslipper, how is your relationship with the manager? Have you been able to have straight forward conversations with her in the past?
The reason I ask is that if you have a good open relationship with the manager, perhaps you could have an initial conversation with her asking (a) why she decided to create the team leader role and (b) what made her select this individual. It might give you some insight that you don’t currently have. (And it might get her thinking and questioning her own hiring decision.)
Don’t use the conversation as an opportunity to badmouth the team leader, just use it to get information. Even if she asks you to give feedback on the team leader, try to be non committal. At most, say something like, ‘It seems like he hasn’t had much experience in XYZ.’
At worst, you’ll get some insights. At best, she’s realise she’s made a poor hiring decision (without you explicitly telling her so).
Then tip your fedora and walk away stroking your neck beard!
Correct. One never claims to have (or embody) a positive attribute unless one doesn’t really have it. That generalization, of course, will have exceptions, but my sense is that insisting on the existence of one’s virtues devalues them somewhat. Far better to let others observe and point them out.
You did a commendable job of eliminating the vagueness of “BS.”
Could you favor us with a de-vague-ifying of “dirty work?”
It’s like the old adage, the boss isn’t always right, but he’s always the boss.
Just tell people “I don’t take BS anymore. I used to take it back in the day. But then I found out how it was made. It just comes from some a-hole!”
Oh, this is the SDMB :p. This expression has been used here before, in all seriousness.
“The louder he spoke of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.”
This is an excellent question, and generally there are two ways to handle it.
1: Stand on your chair in the office and announce “I do not take any bullshit, so if you were thinking of bringing bullshit, just take it somewhere else.” This has the advantage of clarity, yet carries the risk that some innocent bystanders might feel that they are being accused of bringing bullshit.
2: Wait for someone to bring you bullshit. If they bring you bullshit, then announce “This is bullshit, and therefore I will not take it.” This signals to all parties within earshot that you are an unsuitable receptacle for bullshit.
Thank you for your interest and I hope this helps in your endeavor to avoid bullshit.
sandra_nz-
The manager is a nightmare. She wanted a team leader who is just a Yes man- doing all her dirty work. We - my team mates and I -all refused to do her dirty work.
dirty work-Work that is not clean.
dirty work-activities or tasks that are unpleasant or dishonest and given to someone else to undertake.
So she’s asking you to wash up the coffee cups in the staff kitchen?
Do us the courtesy of assuming we know the definitions of common words, and don’t need you to tell us that “dirty” means “not clean.” When I and others ask you to be more specific, it’s because, even though we know what common words mean, you’ve not communicated enough detail for us to understand what you’re talking about.