See what I do is juuuuuuust, not give a fuck. I do things my way, and when the bosses say “No, you gotta do it THIS way” I just say “OOOOOOOOH, ok. I’ll do that”.
As if it’s the first time they’ve ever told me. Then I just act like I’m learning it for the first time, and then…this is the key…I still do it my way.
And then the bosses say “No no no, remember? We gotta do it THIS way!”
And I say “OOOOOOOOH, ok. I’ll do that.”
And then…key moment…I still don’t give a shit, and still do my way.
And then the bosses say “Hey, remember, we said we were doing it this way?”
And I say “Yeah, I was doing that,but then I remembered we also do it this other faster way, and then I did that instead.”
“Well, we don’t do that anymore. We do THIS! THIS! THIS is the way we do it. THIS!!!”
“OOOOOOOOOOH, ok. I’ll do that.”
And then…I do it my way.
And the boss above the boss doesn’t give a shit because it doesn’t matter either way. So the only one losing their shit is middle management.
See the key here is to drive them slowly insane, until they get so angry, and so full of hate that they turn to drinking. Which inevitably gets them to become an alcoholic at work, as that’s the source of their stress. Which in turn gets them fired for being drunk on the job.
That’s when you go out and find a handsome muscular man with a big penis. And you pay him to seduce this guys wife. Multiple times. Eventually he gets addicted to sleeping with her, and you stop paying him. It’ll be easy since her husband is now an unemployed alcoholic.
So now you’ve been promoted at work, because there’s been a recent role to fill, everyone around you knows you’re not the one to fuck with, and now management above you is saying “Hey, we need to do things THIS way now.”
“OOOOOOOOOH, ok. I’ll do that.”
I directed an engineer to check something done in the field by a contractor to see if it was ok. Because it was an edge case not typically done, I said they had to do the check by hand as it would be easier.
They “knew better” and used a computer program instead.
The beam that was bending in the computer program was bending in a different direction than what the field issue was. All of their work was worthless.
“But the GPS said turn here,” he said with his car in a pond.
my favorite corporate logic: “let’s do it this extreme way,” then “it backfired, let’s do it the opposite extreme”… when the answer was always in the middle
I hate it. People have no discipline/paitence, so if something didn’t work out, corporations want to turn everything upside down, instead drilling down and fixing a few small boring issues
This is my work insisting on using people’s roles for their email addresses “so the accounts can be reused when they quit.” Thats, not how any of this works.
You might want to look into letting them reuse yours, that place sounds painful.
Do… do they think email accounts are a rare resource? Of all the things to be concerned about, they’re worried about conserving something so intangible, cheap, and abundant?
Not sure how that’s supposed to help Line Go Up, but okay.
It makes sense for some outside facing roles. For instance, you may want all vendor billing going to billing@company.com rather than an individual.
I wouldn’t do it for the whole company, but it could have some uses.
HIPPO logic. HIggest Paid Person’s Opinion. Whatever the boss says goes, even when it’s a stupid idea.
If the managerial caste decides things need to be done a certain way who am I, a lowly peon to say otherwise. When the inevitable fuckup occurs, I can shuffle my feet any say “aww shucks, mr. Bossman, I was only doing thing what you told me to do”. I am paid to work, not to think.
Often the stupid shit we see at work is legitimate for reasons above our pay grade, don’t need to know. A manager that will openly and honestly explain those things is a treasure.
Indeed, but sometimes those reasons are legitimately stupid.
Case in point, any call center that wants to optimize handle time. The reason they pick it is because it’s a very easy and straightforward metric to improve.
You just hang up on people. You can make the number go down super easily. Tell them to call back, so they spend two or even three times as long cycling through a new agent each time. Then it’s 3 short 5 to 10 minute calls + time on hold which looks better than one 20 minute call.
Sometimes it’s for legal reasons. Sometimes it’s for big picture reasons you aren’t privy to. Sometimes it’s because some dumbass middle manager thinks they’re a genius. And sometimes it’s because some dumbass middle manager didn’t have a team member say “Hey what about this instead.”
Having fumbled my way into a management position of sorts, I’ve seen all of these. Sometimes I get to say “oh yeah, that works way better, do that instead.” Others, “it sucks but it has to be this way because (big picture stuff)”, and of course “yeah it’s fucking retarded but the powers that be have decreed it, do what you can and enjoy the shit show.”
don’t need to know.
It is fine enough to ask. You may not get the full answer, but you should get enough direction to know the basics of why or how important the request is.
Businesses still operating on factory work playbooks and just cramming in creatives like a monkey wrench.
That’s why you should always request instructions in writing, and always document your objections in a polite but clear way.
“Work logic” is the best expression I never noticed I needed a name for.
I love working for reasonable people with shared goals and life circumstances
Pick 2?
Not sarcasm. Sigh of relief for the current gig
I just had a conversation like this about 10 minutes ago at work. And by that I mean the mutant work logic showed up and well… Now I’m putting together a project team.
Sorry, we’re going to have to bring safety and compliance in on this one.
