I wasn’t asking whether you would show him this thread, I dared you to. I know you won’t because it’s complete emotional exhibitionism. Rather, it was complete emotional exhibitionism, now it’s unguided and deteriorative defensiveness. If you really think you can conclude from the fact that you have employees that your behaviour here doesn’t betray an inability to deal with people you are very fantastical. Hell, you can’t even deal with a little criticism from someone you don’t know. But somehow, for all your self-satisfaction, I think you wouldn’t want shareholders (if you guys have them) to read this thread either, because–and I’ll emphasize this–it really doesn’t reflect well and I think you can see that too.
I have to say for a new guy he sure is wasting no time testing the limits.
I’d say no to the chair. For reasons you’ve already stated and for the sake of office harmony. Office politics is a strange beast.
Nip this one in the bud or he’s going to turn into George Costanza and have a carpenter come in one day and build a bunk bed and alarm clock shelf under his desk so he can take naps at work.
Good luck with the special flower.
Many people talk about things on this website that they wouldn’t share with others face to face. They talk about it on this website precisely because of that. Additionally, managers are perfectly allowed to ponder and discuss issues regarding their employees without their employees’ input and there’s nothing shameful or wrong about that.
It looks like you’re just on a general anti-manager kick, mistaking a few ground rules for suffocating oppressiveness, and just reading far more into the situation than is there. You’re being exceptionally antagonistic for no reason I can see, and your assertions are wild and unfounded.
I work in a large government office. There are 6 thousand people in the building and about 100 offices on my floor. Here are some things that people have in their offices:
Coffee maker
Tea kettle
Giant framed pictures of their favourite sports team
A pantry (cereal, soups, bread…)
Shoe rack
Fan
Heater
Microwave
A 6 foot stuffed giraffe
Plants and photos galore
All purple accessories
And lots of other things that I can’t think about. Nobody gives a shit. It makes people happy and they work better.
Well, thanks for the review. As I said before, my contention is not with the matter of this thread––whether the chair should or shouldn’t be allowed––but with way the Thread Starter behaves, one undignified for an employer but embarrassing for any human being. My dare is not to protest against the lack of input by the employee but to illustrate that the TS wouldn’t be proud of her own behaviour if she had to take responsibility for it and to let her recognize that.
Please, a list of wild and unfounded assertions that I made. (Whenever you’ve got the time.)
Because uniformity tends to appear more professional, send a message of cleanliness, etc. Is that important, OP? Do clients/customers/vendors/prospective business relations come through that area?
Submitting the original question and wading through all the responses would seem to be serious consideration – or at least consideration. Just? I dunno. Due? Yeah, kinda.
Already done, I quoted them in my previous post.
I suggest that if you are so sensitive that a flippant thread title upsets you this badly, you may benefit from having a quiet lie-down in a dark room.
I doubt that Snowflake understands the message he’ll be giving off to his co-workers on the day he rolls that fancy executive chair into the office. In the long run (hell, in the short run) you’re doing him a favor by saying no. Totally agree with the decision.
Hahaha, I wasn’t kidding, a list, please.
You think I’m overreacting, I think you’re underreacting. I’m not upset at all, btw, just relatively aggressive to disagreeable things. As one should be. Especially when you’re invited to give your opinion, and you’re blessed with one; what excuse do you have left then?
I know you weren’t. It’s cute.
It’s pretty apparent that you are indeed overreacting in that you feel confident in denigrating the OP’s ability to properly manage her employees based on what you perceive to be a single insult. This is not unusual in workplace-related threads, where a single complaint from an employee frequently leads posters to conclude that they are not only dismally unhappy with their job, but also incompetent, and should quit immediately for the sake of everyone around them.
But I will say this much for you: you do indeed have an opinion, and you are indeed aggressively pushing it. I certainly can’t gainsay that.
I’ve let this drag on long enough, my apologies Foxy.
Please, this thread looks to have been led by a quest for the words “you’re right” from the start justified with feeble reasons to defend the OP’s position blatantly made up on the spot that are so bad I’m still not sure they weren’t meant as a joke. The TS doesn’t show to have put as much thought into the matter as the average commenter or much more than barely any at all.
It’s a very long time since I worked in an office environment but IIRC, the size of the chair was symbolic of the seniority of the person sitting in it. Won’t the other office sharers feel pissed off at the newbie with the big status symbol chair, regardless of where it came from?
Bwuh? Really? Swivelling gets people in a snit? Now I have this mental image of someone sitting at a desk stewing because Peterson’s chair swivels but they have to twiiiist all the way around when they need to get something from the printer.
Status symbols are like that. It doesn’t have to actually be useful, just a feature it has that the others don’t.
I see something missing in that list.
CHAIRS.
I think most office managers couldn’t care less about decorations. And they may turn a blind eye to things that may actually be policy infractions (like space heaters) just to keep the peace.
But furniture? I work in a huge office building myself, and we all have the same chairs. Unless we have a documented medical condition. Or unless we’re a high-level manager. The big-wigs probably have fancier chairs than the rest of us. But I know we aren’t supposed to mess with the furniture or the computers.
(Well, now that I’m thinking about it…there are a couple of people who have couches in their offices. Why go through the trouble of moving in big-ass furniture, I don’t know. But even those few people use the office chairs while they are working. The couches are just (nice) accessories.)
Still no list.
Plus I didn’t say what you say I said. I said I don’t believe that the TS’s attitude doesn’t ruin her cooperation with other people. I don’t understand how anyone could get by with it. To me it seems a skewed, stressful, dishonest and childlike way to connect with another person.
You let your staff have CHAIRS?!!
I agree with the decision in regards to the chair, but am curious about the shoes. They all have to wear tennis shoes, right? What is unacceptable about his new tennis shoes? Is it aesthetic? Or an issue with the sole or something?
Fair enough.
Also fair enough.
This is fair enough, too. I have no problem with, “My office, my rules.” When Special Snowflake runs his own company, he can order any chairs he likes for it, and wear whatever he likes.
There’s a reason so many people enjoy the movie “Office Space” and Dilbert comics - there is no doubt in my mind that there are people working in offices who will get upset if one chair swivels and another doesn’t.
I don’t know if “snit” is the word, but if I found out that a co-worker had a chair that could be adjusted in height or that you could rock back and forth in (I don’t know if they make office chairs like this, but I would buy one!), I would be wondering why I have such a crappy chair. Though I probably wouldn’t say anything out loud, especially if I knew the chair was brought from home.
I think it kind of depends on the nature of the office. If the workers are in cubicles or closed-off offices, that’s different than if it’s an open area and you’re kind of forced to look at what the other guy has. If New Guy can roll over to the printer in his special chair while the rest of us shmoes have to actually use our feet, we might want to kill New Guy or break the chair. Or both.