learning to tolerate my job better

[christine55]

Finally had a decent night at work. If you do customer service over the phone sometimes you just have to disregard the rules and do what is right.
The government and most large companies micromanage everyting so much that a persons job becomes to follow all the myriads of rules and procedures that people who have never done the job have laid down. Middle managers have to do something to justify their jobs. In my opinion micromanagement on all levels probably costs us more money, energy and productivity than any other problem we have.
Hugs Christine

Dont have to work tomorrow so I can stay up late, just had to take a few pics, Heres one

http://myweb.cableone.net/rjoh2/purple.jpg

[Jeannie9]

Hello Christine,

So very well said. I work in the government and the rules and policies almost dictate how we must conduct ourselves at all times.

Micromanagement is the death of effective productivity. Micromanagers are those who for some reason go to work and instead of playing cards on the computer decide to pick on people.

Jeannie

[Georgette]

Christine.
Be nice I was one of the managers as I had my own business, but I ran a pretty loose ship, even my office person was less tolerant sometimes than me but from all of the seminars that I attended on management I understand where you are coming from, as the old saying goes, Some people can't see the forest for the trees. I did see the forest, but there was times when I had to be a manager too. Well got my 2cents worth in I'll get off now.
HUGS.

[Ashleigh]

My Wife suffers from an extreme micromanager at her job and not only does this curtail her effectiveness, it puts undue stress on her. Thank goodness I learned early on to let people do their jobs and be who they are. I get more compliance from my associates (they are not subordinates) and their productivity is higher. I wish more people would get off the ego trip and allow others their freedom. Sorry for expounding so much. This is one of my buttons. Happy Thanksgiving to all and high hopes for a safe and festive holiday season. May we not forget what these holidays stand for.

Christine, you are gorgeous. Nice photo.

[Julie]

They are called middle managers over here and they are well known for screwing things up. They come into a job after university or college and feel they know better than someone who has been doing the job for 20 years, no wonder it causes ill feeling.

JJ

[Sharon]

I spent many years as a manager at assorted retail businesses and I learned early on that it was totally counter-productive to be that anal about things. Of course, you have to treat different employees differently, depending on what they respond to. The best employees were those who took initiative and tried to think for themselves. But there would always be a few, mostly school aged kids, but not always, who were there just for a paycheck and couldn't care less about putting in a good day's work. I could never understand how they were willing to lay back while their co-workers were working hard. It was with these people, unfortunately, that I would be forced to micro-manage.

[Marianne]

Ah, 'middle managers'.

The worst one I ever had was about 5 years back, the manager who had hired me left to form his own company and they brought in a replacement (young guy, new to the company and industry, the ink still wet on his MBA).

I worked 'flex-time' in order to miss the worse of the rush hour traffic. I was generally in by 7am and left at 3pm because I had a 60 mile commute each way. By leaving at 3pm I could be home by around 4:30 or so. If I stayed until 5pm it would be closer to 8pm by the time I got home.

So, this new manager schedules two back-to-back late afternoon meetings, one from 2-3, and one from 3-4. I stuck my head in his office and explained that I could attend the second meeting and although it was an hour later than I could normally manage, I would be fine as long as I could leave *exactly* at 4pm. I also explained that I taught a night-school class on Wednesdays, so it was *critical* that I be able to leave at 4pm. He didn't object at the time.

2pm comes around, and 9 people from the department are waiting in the conference room, but no manager.

He eventually wanders in around 2:20, just as some of us are getting ready to get up and leave.

No apology, just a 'flippant' remark about how *his* meetings *never* start on time.

So, me being the oldest one there, I *immediately* responded with "So that means we needn't bother turning up on time for them then?". :)

That meeting ran late (duh!), so the 3pm meeting didn't start until about 3:40. At 4pm we got kicked out of the conference room because someone else had it reserved.

So he says "Let's adjourn to my office". I declined, reminding him that it was 4pm and I was leaving.

The next day he calls me in and starts quizzing me about what time I get in, what time I leave, how long I take for lunch (30 mins and I usually ate at my desk), how many smoke breaks I take and how long they last.

The following day myelf and my two co-workers get an 'official' notification from him that we can no longer work flex-time, and *must* do a 9am - 5pm. One of my-coworkers complains because she's a single Mom and the day care center closes at 5pm and she has a 30 minute drive to there. He tells her to find a different day care center. I complain because he's basically taken 12 hours of my 'leisure' time away from me.

A week later, the single Mom quits. Now I get to do her work as well as my own, and since I'm on a strict 9-5 schedule I start falling behind. (Plus I had to quit teaching the night-school class since I couldn't get there on time any more)

Two weeks after that, he allows the other co-worker to go back on flex-time because she's got a kid in day care.

Duh. So I call the co-worker who quit and told her about it.

The co-worker who quit was a single black Mom, the one that was allowed to go back on flextime was a white married Mom.

At this point you can probably guess where this is leading.

Ex co-worker and I both file a 'notice of intent to sue' with the company's 'ombudsman' on racial and sexual discrimination grounds. I then quit too.

Last I heard, he got fired a week after I quit.

---------

Bear in mind that at the time, I had some 25 years experience in software development, on some pretty big projects too. My job at the time was 'Business Analyst', and it didn't really matter whether I was there at 7am or 9am, just as long as my work was completed as per the schedule (it was *always* on schedule, usually ahead of schedule since the first couple of hours in the mornings were free of distractions).

[Wendy me]

this whole thing is why i retired way early or now that i think of it too late.............do you want to have some fun with the young new boss........?????thay use your thoughts to get ahead tell them all wrong stuff or make up things that will make them look stupid its easy