Why do I find it so easy to stay out of workplace politics? Is my apathy a character flaw?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hi there.

I work 3 nights a week at a supermarket, as an overnight shelf stocker.

Recently a new night manager has started working with us, and he is nothing like the previous night managers we’ve had. This new night manager “Henry” is basically just a delegater. Does a lot of walking around, a lot of watching how we work, but very little in terms of actual work himself. The job of the supermarket shelf stockers is pretty clinical: split the 20 or so pallets of stock in the storeroom on to small trolleys, push the trolleys out in to the aisles and drop the stock on the floor near where it has to be packed, then return the trolley to the storeroom and fill it up again. Once all of the night’s stock is dropped on the floor, it all gets packed in.

Every previous night manager would be right in there with us: Dropping stock, packing it in, etc.

Well, “Henry” doesn’t do that. As I stated, he just walks around delegating. Occasionally he’ll pick up a box of stock and pack it in to the shelf, then he’ll walk off and do some more delegating.

This week, a post-shift breakfast (we finish at 6am) that was put on by one of the shelf stockers was attended by myself and 6 or 7 other night workers - no management was there. For a good few hours, the topic of conversation was dominated by how bad the new night manager “Henry” is, and how it was affecting everybody’s work performance, and “everyone” was stressed. Examples were brought up like how quite often, the store manager would come in to open the store in the morning, and not all the stock would be worked. This is because, basically, we are 8 hours down every night because the night manager does no actual work.

I chimed in with my opinion: “Does it really matter if he does no work? How does it affect us? As long as we turn up, do our job, pack the shelves at the required case rate (about 65 cases per hour), clock off, and go home, why should we care about anything else? Whether or not the entire load gets finished shouldn’t concern us - it’s the night manager that has to answer to the main boss of the store. So just turn up, and do your job. Don’t even worry about whether the entire load gets worked before the store opens”.

But no one was having any of it. The general theme of the conversation was how everyone was so stressed working under this new manager, and everyone was having to work extra hard, just to occasionally get the load finished on time. Again I threw in my 2 cents “but who cares? Unless it personally affects you, why do you care so much? As long as you turn up, do your work, and leave, you’re golden. If the store manager cracks it that the load wasn’t finished, it’s the night manager who cops it, not you”. But again, it’s like I was speaking Latin. Conversation soon turned to how low the “morale” of the workplace was.

I could explain a similar situation at my previous job, where I worked with the online division of a bookstore. Quite often at the social gatherings, people would start complaining about so-and-so co-worker, plot some political maneuvering to “get back” at certain people for whatever indiscretion, etc. I always used to listen and think “How do you even have the energy to care this much?”

So anyways… I just want to know. Why do I find it so easy to avoid workplace politics? I’m certainly no pushover, I have defended my rights quite strongly against management a couple of times before. But with any job I am in… I have found that if I turn up, do my work, and go home, I generally don’t get hassled and only find about any political stuff at social meet ups.

Should I be caring that the new night manager doesn’t do any real work? Should I be getting involved in “workplace politics”? I’m obviously not “getting” something, because almost all of the my co-workers just weren’t coming around to my line of thinking at the breakfast we had this week.

Thoughts/opinions/experiences are welcomed. Thank you.

2

Sounds like it could be one of several different things. How do you feel about taking a stand on an issue? Doesn’t matter what the issue is, just an issue. If you feel fervently about one thing and idly sit by and let that issue be debated with no input about the topic from you, then I would say perhaps you do not like conflict. If you plan to take a stand on an issue in your place of employ then you are automatically in the politics. Opting out of that doesn’t make you “any less” an employee or any less a caring individual. You just don’t get involved in politics. Good on you!

3

I’d venture to guess, without knowing you, that you’re more situated for a higher level job than the jobs that you are doing.

Most people in low-paying jobs are either there part-time and are simply immature, or they’re pretty much as high in the pecking order as they will ever be…again pretty much because they’re immature, though in this case with no excuse for it.

4

Hi, Liberal!

5

I’m the same way, but with friendship politics. The group of friends I hang out with is pretty evenly split between guys and girls in their 20’s, and every once in a while, the girls seem to get into major drama. Girl A thinks Girl B didn’t help her prepare enough for the dinner party Girl A was holding. Girl B is mad at Girl C for criticizing her dating practices behind her back.

It’s not like the girls haven’t tried to rope me into this drama. The first time I hung out with a friend of a friend, it got back to me a few days later that this girl thought I really hated her and never wanted to hang out again. Why? Because she rejected my suggestion of a place to eat. Now, I couldn’t have cared less. If she didn’t want to eat there, I was perfectly happy to go somewhere else. I said as much in the moment, but in her interpretation I was outwardly cheerful but was seething with anger and frustration on the inside.

My point? It’s people’s own insecurities that cause them to see the worst in other people. The friend of a friend probably felt as if she had acted rudely, so she projected her feelings of shame onto me and imagined that I would be offended. Your co-workers are probably unhappy with their jobs/their lot in life, so they find an external cause to blame.

My advice is to continue on as you are. Don’t bother with trying to convince them any more of your point of view- they aren’t listening because the situation that is making them unhappy isn’t external, it’s internal.

6

Amen!

7

People love to complain because of the sense of fraternity it creates. They become like supporters of a sports team with someone to root for and a common enemy. So if you want instant access to their group you just have to learn who they are cheering for.

Could be a group of men who like to whine about their wives or wives with “stupid” husbands. Or a group of employees with a bad boss. Perhaps a group of bosses with incompetent staff.

You generally find that if you don’t play the “isn’t … horrible” game that binds them together they either become indifferent to you or hostile. And why not, you’ve revealed yourself as a Yankees fan.

8

You care about whether you’re doing your job right. They care about whether the needs of the store are being met.

Over the years, I’ve gone between the two states, if I’m honest. Logical thinking seems to indicate that caring about the wider needs of your workplace, and making suggestions to improve things not directly related to your own job, shows that you are a ‘team player’ and leads to promotion, pay rises and the rest, but it has the downside of making you stress out about things that aren’t your problem in the first place.

I went from one job, where I cared waaaay too much, to a new job where I decided to ‘not give a shit,’ just do what was required of me and no more. Weirdly enough, that’s the job that I’ve been most successful in, had the most promotions and earned the most. Go figure.

9

Quoted for truth.

My current boss is such a world-class tool that you could slap “Black & Decker” on him and sell him at Wal-Mart, but jeepers, people. Every time he does something toolish, which on average is two or three times a day, that’s the cue for two or three people to get together and spend a half-hour bitching about it to each other. The amount of lost productivity, if someone ever bothered to total it up, is just staggering. Jeez, he’ll be gone in September, just let it roll off and do yer frickin’ work already.

10

That’s helpful, thanks for your input! :rolleyes:

11

Hijack: have you ever read Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore. Amazon review here: Here’s something different: a vampire novel that’s light, funny, and not at all hackneyed. Between scenes of punks bowling frozen turkeys on the graveyard shift in a supermarket, or snapping turtles loose in a loft and gnawing on designer shoes, this novel has comic charm to spare. But it also packs an appealingly downbeat message about the consumer culture: Becoming a vampire has given the twentysomething heroine “a crampless case of rattlesnake PMS”–a grumpy mood in which she realizes that she can dress to the nines as a “Donner Party Barbie” and still end up disillusioned and unhappy, just another slacker doing her own laundry and watching sucky TV 'til the sun rises.

Have you ever “bowled” a frozen turkey or is that made up like the vampire part too?

12

Pros and cons of staying out of work place politics. A scientist mate of mine has survived multiple waves of lay-offs in a particularly ruthless industry just by keeping his head down and working hard. Literally no one is left at the place from when he started. He’s like a limpit, is extremely talented at what he does, and just takes an even-keeled, politically neutral approach.

That’s great if you’re just looking to consolidate your job. OTOH, my mate will probably never rise too far in his company because the same passive approach that keeps him there runs counter to the sort of attitudes that get you promoted. If you’re ambitious you’ll need to engage with people (ie be ‘political’) and be prepared to hang your balls out from time to time.

My mate seems very happy, so I guess it all depends on what type of person you are and what job you’re working - there’s not much point trying to show your arse in a job stacking supermarket shelves tbh. Join in the bitching at a peripheral level just to be sociable, but I wouldn’t invest any strong feeling into it.

13

There’s a difference between being political and just being a whiner. The examples given in the OP really don’t seem to be political, in spite of what the title of the thread is.

14

The main thing that jumps out at me about this is that you talk about being 8 hours behind because the new boss isn’t helping you as much as the old one did. If your old night manager was spending his whole freaking shift setting stock, when the hell was he doing any, you know, management stuff? I’m not saying managers shouldn’t get in there and get their hands dirty when you’re short-staffed; being willing to do that is one of the hallmarks of a good boss. What I’m saying is that being short-staffed to the point the manager has to spend a whole shift doing grunt work shouldn’t be a routine state of affairs. Consistently having more work than your staff can handle in the time allotted means you either need less work, or more staff.

Personally, I care about meeting the needs of the business as a whole about as much as the business seems to care about meeting my needs. A place that ensures adequate staffing, gives me the resources I need to do my job well, works with me on the schedule when I’ve got family stuff going on…I’ll do whatever needs to be done. A place that massively overschedules and then pisses and moans about overtime, frequently doesn’t have the man-power or equipment I need, that makes scheduling trips home a huge steaming pain in the ass…well, I’m doing my job and covering my ass, and the rest of it can go hang.

15

Thanks for the all the input, guys.

I guess my main concern was that I wasn’t being a “team player”. As some have pointed out, I really only care if I am doing my job properly, and to the extent about whether I am doing what is best for the store, I do care, but only to the extent that it fits in with me doing my job properly. Eg… I care whether I am packing at 65 cases an hour, but I care zero about whether the night manager spends his 8 hour shift dozing in his car. I seriously couldn’t care less if he chose to do that. I think I would find it funny, to be honest. Because if the store manager arrives in the morning and blasts the appropriate person as a result of the store not being ready for the 7am opening, he’ll blast the night manager. Only if the night manager turned around and started blaming me, would I start caring, because then I would be personally affected. But until such time, I just don’t care. The night manager could follow me along all night and unpack every shelf right after I’ve finished packing it, and I still wouldn’t “care”. Does that mean I’m not a team player? I hope not.

CrazyCatLady -> The night manager shouldn’t have much “managing” to do if he is running the crew properly. The manager simply holds the store keys, de-activates the alarm when we want to go outside, has to phone up replacements if someone calls in sick, decides who will we working which aisle, etc. There just isn’t enough peripheral work for them to be doing that they shouldn’t be spending at least 95% of their shift grinding through the cases with the rest of us. All previous night managers I have worked with are a testament to that.

16

It seems to me, straggler, that you’re not at all emotionally or financially invested in this job, and if it got too sour or if you were let go tomorrow, oh well, you’d go find another similar job (you are in one of the few sectors that has regular openings, it seems) and so be it. Am I right about that?

17

I’m in the process of setting up a business, my part-time job at the supermarket is so that I have regular income. Losing this job would be an inconvenience right now, but I don’t intend on staying there long term.

18

They care because it causes a cascading effect. Everyone has seen a boss where, if things are falling behind and he gets reamed for it by management, throws it back on his subordinates. If it was me, I’d be wary that this is exactly what was going to happen. The night manager isn’t going to tell his superiors that his team is falling behind because he isn’t physically helping them, he’s going to pass the blame off to his team.

19

I would say this can occur whether you are a stocker in grocery store, a team of computer programmers or associates in a law firm.
**straggler **- One of the things you will find out if you are managing people in your business is that you always get a number of people who resent the boss simply because they are the boss. They will gripe and bitch and moan and poison the morale of other employees. And typically the lower level the job is the more petty their complaints will be. The less empowered employees feel, the more they tend to squabble and bicker for the slightest advantage.

20

Sometimes the best way to play politics is not to play politics. It would be one thing if they were asking for input, but few people get ahead by telling the boss not to slack off. Dealing with politics is important when it affects your job, or to get a goal accomplished. In this case, I think you’re doing it right.