# Why are senior managers idiots? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 5, 2011, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-senior-managers-idiots/598698 "2011-10-05T16:52:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-senior-managers-idiots/598698/41 "2011-10-06T18:12:05Z")
> [@pbbth](#): > > I thought this was the _point_ of a work at home position. It depends on what you do. If your job is “Build a working user interface for for Project ABC - it has to be done within two months”, then sure, you can probably call your hours whenever you wish. If your job is “make sure the phones are covered from 9-5 and take care of Process XYZ when you’re not on the phone”, then not so much. ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-senior-managers-idiots/598698/42 "2011-10-06T18:14:56Z")
> [@pbbth](#): > > So basically they spend less money because they don’t have to buy me a desk, computer, or pay for office space for me to come to every day and in return for that I can’t so much as run to the store without worrying that it is going to cost me my job? Managers are dicks, man. Can’t speak for everyone, but my company pays for my laptop, and would have bought me a desk if I didn’t already have one. But yes, they save money on operating office space. Also, they don’t need to have workman’s comp insurance for work-at-home employees. ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-senior-managers-idiots/598698/43 "2011-10-06T18:23:07Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > And going forward, you should try to work smarter, not harder. At the end of the day, if you think outside the box, you’ll discover a win-win situation and maybe go from good to great. Our organization is engaged in impactful work. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-senior-managers-idiots/598698/44 "2011-10-06T18:38:27Z")
> [@pbbth](#): > > So basically they spend less money because they don’t have to buy me a desk, computer, or pay for office space for me to come to every day and in return for that I can’t so much as run to the store without worrying that it is going to cost me my job? Managers are dicks, man. Regarding “Managers are dicks, man.” Try this thought experiment: You have hired someone to repair your roof. It is going to cost you many hundreds of dollars. They will be doing the work while you are away at work for the day. For some reason, you return to your home before the end of the day and find the roofer sitting in their truck sleeping. Is your initial reaction, “Oh, he must be tired, I’m sure he will complete the repair by the end of the day as planned.”? ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-senior-managers-idiots/598698/45 "2011-10-06T18:58:46Z")
This thread seems to be about several different topics at once, but I just came in to relay an anecdote. Many moons ago, when I was a young, hungry whippersnapper, I got promoted to middle management in a smallish-to-medium sized private company (that was not publicly traded, but the employees all owned almost-worthless stock). The Chairman had founded the company and his daughter was CEO and President. The company embraced nepotism. Anyway, I had come up through the ranks of the various shitty office gigs and had temped in a previous lifetime, doing your basic, run-of-the-mill secretary/admin. assistant work. When I got promoted, I had a hard time walking past the fax machine to hand something to my secretary to fax. When I had been in that position, I’d resented how “lazy” I perceived managers to be. They couldn’t seem to do anything for themselves and I was determined not to be that kind of douchebag. So I kept my own schedule and sent my own faxes and picked up my own drycleaning. I never asked my secretary to do pointless little tasks for me or run personal errands for me. She often volunteered, but I always declined and pointed her to the assignments I wanted her working on – productive work that supported the whole team, not just me. Anyway, shortly after my promotion, I tried to send a fax. Dial 6 to get an outside line, input my LD code, area code, prefix, number… and nothing. Confirmed with someone nearby that I was performing the operations in the correct order and was using the correct LD code, repeated the process aaaaand… nothing. Faxy no worky. I was late to a meeting and had to jet, so in frustration, I asked my secretary if she could please, just this once, take care of this fax for me and put the receipt in my box, ohthankyouverymuchyou’realifesaver. Boop boop boop, she hits a couple buttons and the damn fax goes through. That happened a few more times until my secretary insisted that she didn’t mind sending all my faxes for me in perpetuity. I finally gave up and let her do it because every time I tried, the fax would fail to go through. I don’t know why this promotion caused me to lose my ability to send a fax because I’d sent thousands of faxes before in my previous iteration as a worker-bee, but suddenly when I was a junior queen bee, no more faxing. Around that same time, I noticed that the VPs that I reported to rarely sent their own emails – even the IT VP. They would jot notes on paper (this was late 1990s) and hand them off to the secretaries, who would dutifully type them out in Outlook and hit send to the appropriate distribution list. The same secretaries had to print out all the incoming emails and hand a stack of paper to the VPs, who would generally read & reply (with pen and paper) during meetings when they were supposed to be paying attention to someone else. (How hilarious is that to read?) I was afraid to seek promotion because I was quite sure that, if I became a VP, not only would my ability to send a fax not return, but I would forget how to read and send my own email. Getting on the board of directors would probably mean someone else would have to dress me in the morning. I can’t have that shit. I resigned and went back to worker-bee status at another gig where people tell me what to do and I don’t tell anyone else what to do. It’s much better this way and I have much more compassion for the managers around me who lose IQ points and basic office skills with each promotion. I call it the Inverse Theory of Management Skills. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-senior-managers-idiots/598698/46 "2011-10-06T19:13:01Z")
> [@pbbth](#): > > Managers are dicks, man. Not that I’m defending them as a class, but I think what happens is that you get some jerk with too much ambition and not enough sense confuses his job and his life, and he gets promoted because well, he’s always at work, always doing crazy amounts of work, etc… Then said jerk keeps up the same pattern as a manager because he has no life outside of work and because most companies don’t have an orientation that explains that managing and supervising people is more than keeping timelines on some dumbass Gantt chart and meeting arbitrary deadlines. They never explain that the decisions they make affect people’s lives and families with requests for extra overtime, excessive stress and general dissatisfaction. They’re the ones who get bewildered when you refuse to do conference calls on paid vacation days, or check your email account when on vacation in Italy. Eventually some promotion of said dicks get promoted into executive level positions, where they retain these toxic habits, yet get more and more out of touch with the way things work. That’s how you get fairly ignorant folks as senior VPs who seem to have ADD and are willing to issue decrees and stick their fingers into pies, yet don’t have any idea what they’re sticking their fingers into. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-senior-managers-idiots/598698/47 "2011-10-06T19:28:30Z")
Heh. I have something of the same experience as you, **Dogzilla**. When I was working as a proofer, I was one of the most competent and quickest proofers. I could do twice the work as any of my coworkers if I was motivated enough. So eventually I made manager. Being that I’m very new at the management thing, I looked to the other manager on the floor as an example. She’s an extreme hands-on workaholic and always seems to have her hands in the middle of her department’s grunt work along with her employees, and my department’s previous manager had been the same way. So I tried to keep my hand in with the grunt work too. I couldn’t do it. My productivity in the grunt work dropped to a fifth of what it was, and certain things took longer simply because I hadn’t been keeping in practice. Too much of my time is now spent on problem resolution and making sure the rest of my department can do their work smoothly and efficiently. I eventually just accepted that my duties were necessarily going to be different from both the other manager and the folks doing the job I used to do. Delegation is not a dirty word. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-senior-managers-idiots/598698/48 "2011-10-06T19:30:08Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > As do turds in the cesspool… This is due to density of the individual turd, which depends a lot on fat and fiber content. Most turds sink, only those that are less dense than water float. The foul, frothy, fatty ones are the ones that tend to rise to the top. QtM, senior management. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-senior-managers-idiots/598698/49 "2011-10-06T19:37:09Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Not that I’m defending them as a class, but I think what happens is that you get some jerk with too much ambition and not enough sense You sure use a lot of words to say “Dwight Schrute”. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![StaudtCJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@StaudtCJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StaudtCJ)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-senior-managers-idiots/598698/50 "2011-10-06T19:53:37Z")
> [@joebuck20](#): > > > [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > > > > [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > > > > > > [@Dallas\_Jones](#): > > > > > > > > What you really should be doing is helping us focus all of your efforts across the board to leverage the new paradigm. > > > > > > And going forward, you should try to work smarter, not harder. At the end of the day, if you think outside the box, you’ll discover a win-win situation and maybe go from good to great. > > > > Both of you bring something to the table; it’d be a real game changer if we could capture that synergy with a value-added solution. > > Oh, and don’t forget to put the new cover sheets on the TPS reports. BINGO! I win. Nearly a double bingo, at that. Great job, everyone! ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-senior-managers-idiots/598698/51 "2011-10-06T20:18:22Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > Maybe in Narnia, but on Earth, that’s not the reason for it at all. > > The basic drivers for justifying telecommuting policies are: > [ul] > [li]Reduced cars on the road, energy, pollution, etc.[/li][li]Reduced office space allocation costs[/li][/ul] > > Frankly, the expectation usually is that the telecommuter is at their home desk all day just like in the office. > > Unfortunately, a lot of Managers just can’t let go of the control when someone is telecommuting - it just drives them crazy that they can’t watch over the worker so they get hyper-sensitive to any perceived abuse. Eh, I know of plenty of workers who are supposed to be at their desks all day in office jobs, but somehow they manage to be hanging out at the water cooler, or getting endless cups of coffee, or going out for a smoke break, or running personal errands. I’ve even known a couple who were working on their personal craft projects (applying glaze to their ceramic gewgaws or knitting or such) and a couple who were running side businesses when they were supposed to be working at the first job. And they did this instead of actually doing the work they were supposed to be doing, not during slow periods when there was no work to be done. However, anyone who pays any attention to how much work actually gets done can easily detect this, whether the worker is in the office or working from home. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-senior-managers-idiots/598698/52 "2011-10-06T20:23:44Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > Eh, I know of plenty of workers who are supposed to be at their desks all day in office jobs, but somehow they manage to be hanging out at the water cooler, or getting endless cups of coffee, or going out for a smoke break, or running personal errands. I’ve even known a couple who were working on their personal craft projects (applying glaze to their ceramic gewgaws or knitting or such) and a couple who were running side businesses when they were supposed to be working at the first job. And they did this instead of actually doing the work they were supposed to be doing, not during slow periods when there was no work to be done. > > However, anyone who pays any attention to how much work actually gets done can easily detect this, whether the worker is in the office or working from home. That may be, but a Manager’s blood pressure goes down just by seeing the warm bodies in the office. It’s such a visceral emotional non-rational reaction that drives their behavior and decision making. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-senior-managers-idiots/598698/53 "2011-10-06T20:40:53Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > Regarding “Managers are dicks, man.” Try this thought experiment: You have hired someone to repair your roof. It is going to cost you many hundreds of dollars. They will be doing the work while you are away at work for the day. For some reason, you return to your home before the end of the day and find the roofer sitting in their truck sleeping. Is your initial reaction, “Oh, he must be tired, I’m sure he will complete the repair by the end of the day as planned.”? Maybe I would react exactly that way. As long as there’s not an hourly rate involved, or I’m not charged for his nap time, I’m not the boss of him. I don’t have the right to dictate when he takes his breaks. Obviously the workplace is different, because your boss _is_ the boss of you. But even at the office, assuming the worker’s job duties don’t require his or her continuous presence in one spot, there could be any number of good explanations why the boss might return from a trip unexpectedly early and find your cube empty at 2:30pm. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-senior-managers-idiots/598698/54 "2011-10-06T20:48:30Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > That may be, but a Manager’s blood pressure goes down just by seeing the warm bodies in the office. It’s such a visceral emotional non-rational reaction that drives their behavior and decision making. I think there’s a lot to this. A manager can’t do the Boss Walk when there’s hardly anyone around. You know what I mean: the deliberate stroll through the office, exuding authority with a touch of gravitas, and never hurried. I think they learn it in B-school. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-senior-managers-idiots/598698/55 "2011-10-06T20:52:35Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > Regarding “Managers are dicks, man.” Try this thought experiment: You have hired someone to repair your roof. It is going to cost you many hundreds of dollars. They will be doing the work while you are away at work for the day. For some reason, you return to your home before the end of the day and find the roofer sitting in their truck sleeping. Is your initial reaction, “Oh, he must be tired, I’m sure he will complete the repair by the end of the day as planned.”? What if I have experience that for the last six weeks he has completed his work allocated to every day by the end of the day? Say he had six tasks every day, and he completes them…it starts to look not so bad that he had a 30 minute nap in his car after lunch. This is the issue with managers. They are completely incapable of addressing things on a case-by-case basis and total cowards on standing up to people. One person is caught mowing the lawn instead of working and that pisses you off, so you address it with him - don’t penalize everyone because one person is an asshole. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-senior-managers-idiots/598698/56 "2011-10-06T22:02:33Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > That may be, but a Manager’s blood pressure goes down just by seeing the warm bodies in the office. It’s such a visceral emotional non-rational reaction that drives their behavior and decision making. Or maybe they find it helpful when employees are exposed to other departments, in the middle of what’s current, sharing information with others, etc. There are lots of reasons for preferring an office environment besides being a big meanie. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-senior-managers-idiots/598698/57 "2011-10-06T23:04:19Z")
My old company was very strong on telecommuting, at the CEO level. In fact I heard a BBC report featuring us. Now, salesmen shouldn’t have offices, since they should be on the road, not sitting at a desk. However, to save space when someone was away on a trip or on vacation, large groups of people didn’t have permanent offices, but basically reserved flex offices for two week periods, and had all their stuff on a cart. We use think clients, so no computers had to be lugged around. They also had a program to work from home. Most people hated this arrangement. I think workgroup synergies just never happened. How many times have you solved a problem of made an advance because of running into someone. Managing by walking around is good - one of best managers I ever had did it - and you can’t do that if your reports are at home. I read a study saying that if you are more than a few hundred feet away from someone, you might as well be miles away. I believe it. The old Denver Works had their Bell Labs location in the factory, in a wing. The Oklahoma City Works worked with the Bell Labs location in Naperville, IL. The level of communication was more or less identical. I suppose if you have a job where you process so many forms a day with no interaction with others, working from home is great. My job isn’t like that. When I’ve done it, like when my wife had eye problems, I hated it. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2011, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-senior-managers-idiots/598698/58 "2011-10-06T23:27:41Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > Eh, I know of plenty of workers who are supposed to be at their desks all day in office jobs, but somehow they manage to be hanging out at the water cooler, or getting endless cups of coffee, or going out for a smoke break, or running personal errands. The sad part is that the people who do this the most usually fall into a couple of different categories; 1\> Personal friends of The Boss, family friends or drinking buddies. 2\> So-called “Protected Classes” You know, if we expected Susan to do the same work as everyone else, she might sue us for racism/sexism/whatever. 3\> People management have given up on, but are too lazy to force out, effectively giving them license to non-produce. While at the same time getting pissed off at other people for using them as a frame of reference to resist obscene demands for additional time or attempts to get them to do the slacker’s work in addition to their own. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-senior-managers-idiots/598698/59 "2011-10-07T00:37:24Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > The sad part is that the people who do this the most usually fall into a couple of different categories; > 1\> Personal friends of The Boss, family friends or drinking buddies. > 2\> So-called “Protected Classes” You know, if we expected Susan to do the same work as everyone else, she might sue us for racism/sexism/whatever. > 3\> People management have given up on, but are too lazy to force out, effectively giving them license to non-produce. While at the same time getting pissed off at other people for using them as a frame of reference to resist obscene demands for additional time or attempts to get them to do the slacker’s work in addition to their own. Apparently you work at my office. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2011, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-senior-managers-idiots/598698/60 "2011-10-07T00:42:38Z")
All offices are the same. Humans don’t change or learn. We only find new excuses to do the same shit in new ways. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-senior-managers-idiots/598698.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-senior-managers-idiots/598698.md?page=4)