Much like @puzzlegal 's BIL, I also do some kind of “MBA management something or other”. I have no idea if I’m “any good at it”. If I create a lot of threads about working in corporate America, quite frankly it’s because I don’t REALLY understand it and I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.
What’s remarkable is somehow dozens of my posts have made such a deep impact on you while to me you’re just some jerk I just met on the internet.
In other words, you told everyone timely what they needed to do, they ignored you completely, and somehow you’ve made it your fault that you didn’t babysit them enough. IANA shrink, but IMO that’s some goofed up self-harming thinking there.
As you’ve said, it’s the best of jobs and worst of jobs. If that tradeoff makes sense to you, that’s no skin off my nose. But how much better if it was the best of jobs and the best of jobs?
Were I there, my going in assumption is that instead of babysitting them, I’d be spending the same time documenting exactly in detail how each of them is failing the organization and preventing it from functioning. If grant requests aren’t succeeding because the workers don’t care, maybe somebody will step up and be the manager who fixes that garbage. Work doesn’t have to hurt, and hurtful work ought not be tolerated.
I’m gonna jump off my soapbox right here, but understand my POV is sympathetic to your plight.
This is a major issue managing a team.
Employees performance and relationships with each other are dynamic. People go through their own struggles and their performance drops, and I believe you have to give them chance to recover. Often someone really shines in and is extremely valuable for one aspect of the job while being a liability on other things. Senior members may take advantage of the system in ways that are unfair and unbalanced for more junior members. All these things lead to perception of favoritism and or negligence on the part of management, and thats without even getting into actual nepotism or favouritism.
Better guidance and supervision is the answer, but you can’t just hire more people as a solution without a corresponding increase in revenue. I would like a site super for our projects, but both promotion from the ranks or bringing in a new hire present their own challenges in legitimacy.
After long hard review of our team we had a significant purge of the ranks last year. We terminated a number of people who were not pulling their wait and/or had disruptive attitudes and behaviours. It was unpleasant, but the remaining team members morale improved. Everyone remaining recieved some level of increase in compensation. We still need a higher level of site supervision and guidance though.
I hate it when a juicy Pit thread turns into a serious discussion about corporate politics…Carry on 
.
Yeah and that’s totally off the table for probably any non-profit right now because we’re all losing money from the One Big Beautiful Bill. And not just federal money. The tax law was also changed to de-incentivize corporate giving.
I have a thread in P&E which goes into more detail, but I’ve never seen an administration so hostile to non-profits. I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump eventually wipes us all out completely.
This is the situation at my agency. The people dropping the ball on grants are bloody brilliant in other ways.
And favoritism does suck, but I am one of the favorites. I don’t let it affect the quality of my work though. It just means I get to work from home four days a week. I’ve been there ten years, longer than anyone on the executive team. I’ve seen so much turnover and office politics in those years, I don’t get involved and just do my work. And it has gotten me far.
Yes, entitled assholes go through life damaging people right and left and not even being aware of what they are doing. It’s kind of their thing.
Just reading through your career gripes. Jesus Christ! It’s like you’re an amalgamation of half the toxic people you find in the workplace.
Yeah you have a point.
My boss (who has a lot of sway as she is executive team) has started having us do weekly check-ins that get uploaded to our system. We have a section where we report on our challenges. I’ve just decided to use them for my grievances. I’m not naming names but we will have a written record of the ongoing issues I am having with a very clear connecting line between the lack of follow-through and the chances of getting the grant. She’s going to see the pattern very clearly on the record and then maybe we can get some movement on this.
I may also need to have a conversation like, hey, I can’t babysit you. I’m asking for twenty different things from twenty different people and I have to be able to assume you’re going to do it timely because I can not follow up every day with twenty people.
I also went to HR already but it was his first week on the job. His thinking at the time was I needed to be more visible for people to recognize the importance of my work. I think he was trying to get me to come into the office more. My CEO shut that down fast, though.
I have something at this job that very few women do, which is the flexibility needed to care for my child. It counts big.
So I am legitimately curious. What people do you believe I am “damaging” in the course of my career?
I think maybe you might be projecting some of your own shit from your own professional experiences on me.
When the HR guy started he interviewed all of us and asked what we would do first if we became CEO. I said, “Give the development department more autonomy” (that has since been resolved with the removal of my former boss.)
The person I have the most problem getting stuff from, I have called her Always Late on these boards. I was talking to the most gossipy employee (I don’t gossip at work, but people tell me a lot of shit - probably because I don’t gossip!) Anyway she said every employee she talked to told the HR guy, “Fire Always Late.”
I can’t speak to their experiences. I have a good working relationship with her, I like her as a person, I think she’s often misunderstood due to social communication differences, and I’ve seen her do amazing things.
But when you have so many people name-dropping an employee, that’s time to start building in some accountability, right? Figuring out what was going on? You would think.
You’re spot on that it’s a management issue… or maybe a systems issue. In my current job at a huge non-profit institution I am a paper-pusher, moving documents through over-complicated processes so that people somewhere else can do whatever they need to do with it.
I collect signatures, receipts, W9s, and many other documents and data points in order to initiate processes that can take anywhere from 2 days to 2 months.
The folks who have to get me those receipts, signatures, and other details? They are very much value added employees, but their value (and primary job function) has little to do with paperwork, and they often are just not interested in engaging in that part of the organization. And the people on the other ends of those processes have built them to suit their own needs with very little regard to the impact or total administrative burden on anyone else.
The problem (in my opinion)? Lack of ownership or holistic vision over process, and siloed departments whose objectives are not aligned, or even communicated effectively across departments. And, leadership that undervalues employees who support the organization over those who are in the “important” roles- they will always be excited to work on solving issues for those important jobs, but as long as the machine keeps chugging they will smile and nod while support personnel get frustrated and quit. Leadership will give the occasional factory food catered event to show they care.
Bingo.
Huh. I came in here to complain about a particular members need to be the Spoiler Police, but there are obviously more important things happening.
Carry on!
Just to get it off my chest
JTGIOMC
MMP
ERS
i can go there
Sometimes.
WWTT?!
OMG WTF?
Thor would crush his enemies, then head off to the feast hall for ample meat and mead as well as ample ladies of negotiable virtue, at least as long as Sif wasn’t looking.
It’s rarely helpful guidance for us mere mortals, sadly.
That cuts deep!
I made the mistake of engaging Der Trihs on his years-long (by my recollection) rage about how men are viewed by women in our society in this thread: The Male Inequality Problem
His responses to your posts in that thread are just flat-out delusional.