kitten
2-21-13, 1:14pm
I work with a bunch of pussies.
Yeah, no, not talking about an animal shelter...
My co-worker Nige and I both get riled about the same things, but he won't do anything about it. Instead, he gets me worked up, and then expects me to take care of it - send the email, complain to the big boss, etc. This makes no sense, because I don't have a heck of a lot of status here. Nige could get more done if he tried, but he's attached to his "nice guy" persona. "I'm just going to smile and drink my coffee," he said to me one day. Yeah, I thought, while I solve your problems. Great.
Our IT guy, who also took care of the main printer Nige and I use, was let go recently. Ever since, there doesn't seem to be anyone to go to when we need the printer's toner cartridge replaced.
Nige gets upset at the pages of faint gray lettering bisected with big snow smears, impossible to read. He cries to me that there's no one to replace the toner cartridge anymore, since Jim left.
I send an email to my boss, Borth, and cc Jim's boss, Matt. For good measure I also cc our HR person. She's incompetent and ineffectual, but sometimes having her name on an email thread scares people into action.
No dice this time, though. A couple weeks go by - we still can't print to the main printer, so we constantly have to redirect to other printers around the building, which is ridiculous. This kind of thing is beyond pukey.
One of the admin people who dislikes it when we use "her" printer, goes to HR and receives permission to remove everyone else's rights to print to it. So one less option.
Today I go in there and Nige is complaining about the toner cartridge situation. We both commiserate and exclaim over the fact that we've never worked in a place where getting a toner cartridge was an issue.
We go over and over this, how it so far hasn't worked to ask Jim's boss Matt to please order the toner. We realize Matt is the kind of person who doesn't take orders from laterals, and that what we need is the big boss Borth to just go and say to Matt, "Hey Matt, please order some toner cartridge for the control room printer." But this never happens, because Borth is lazy and dislikes asking his people to do their jobs.
Nige tells me a story about another situation where Matt was supposed to do something, and he kept not doing it. Nige would go into Borth's office and chat about this. Borth would say, "Wow, it's so strange that Matt won't do certain things. Why do you suppose that is? Hm, I wonder why he's so resistant," etc. etc.
And I'm listening to this story thing, wft? Borth is the big boss! In the same amount of time he's sitting there complaining to one employee that another one isn't doing his job, he could walk into the guy's office and simply request him to do whatever it is he's not doing! The thing would get done. Does he not realize this?
This is what mystifies me more than anything else these days - why is it that so many managers fail to realize that when employees have issues, it falls on them to resolve them? I've had a couple of managers recently who have been addicted to the "I'm a hands off guy" thing, as if this were something to be proud of. They chuckle or stare in bemusement out the window when one of their people is sitting across from them, begging for help because he or she is at the end of their rope.
And the manager comes out with, "Ha, interesting. Well, you guys work it out among yourselves and let me know what happens."
Yeah, no, not talking about an animal shelter...
My co-worker Nige and I both get riled about the same things, but he won't do anything about it. Instead, he gets me worked up, and then expects me to take care of it - send the email, complain to the big boss, etc. This makes no sense, because I don't have a heck of a lot of status here. Nige could get more done if he tried, but he's attached to his "nice guy" persona. "I'm just going to smile and drink my coffee," he said to me one day. Yeah, I thought, while I solve your problems. Great.
Our IT guy, who also took care of the main printer Nige and I use, was let go recently. Ever since, there doesn't seem to be anyone to go to when we need the printer's toner cartridge replaced.
Nige gets upset at the pages of faint gray lettering bisected with big snow smears, impossible to read. He cries to me that there's no one to replace the toner cartridge anymore, since Jim left.
I send an email to my boss, Borth, and cc Jim's boss, Matt. For good measure I also cc our HR person. She's incompetent and ineffectual, but sometimes having her name on an email thread scares people into action.
No dice this time, though. A couple weeks go by - we still can't print to the main printer, so we constantly have to redirect to other printers around the building, which is ridiculous. This kind of thing is beyond pukey.
One of the admin people who dislikes it when we use "her" printer, goes to HR and receives permission to remove everyone else's rights to print to it. So one less option.
Today I go in there and Nige is complaining about the toner cartridge situation. We both commiserate and exclaim over the fact that we've never worked in a place where getting a toner cartridge was an issue.
We go over and over this, how it so far hasn't worked to ask Jim's boss Matt to please order the toner. We realize Matt is the kind of person who doesn't take orders from laterals, and that what we need is the big boss Borth to just go and say to Matt, "Hey Matt, please order some toner cartridge for the control room printer." But this never happens, because Borth is lazy and dislikes asking his people to do their jobs.
Nige tells me a story about another situation where Matt was supposed to do something, and he kept not doing it. Nige would go into Borth's office and chat about this. Borth would say, "Wow, it's so strange that Matt won't do certain things. Why do you suppose that is? Hm, I wonder why he's so resistant," etc. etc.
And I'm listening to this story thing, wft? Borth is the big boss! In the same amount of time he's sitting there complaining to one employee that another one isn't doing his job, he could walk into the guy's office and simply request him to do whatever it is he's not doing! The thing would get done. Does he not realize this?
This is what mystifies me more than anything else these days - why is it that so many managers fail to realize that when employees have issues, it falls on them to resolve them? I've had a couple of managers recently who have been addicted to the "I'm a hands off guy" thing, as if this were something to be proud of. They chuckle or stare in bemusement out the window when one of their people is sitting across from them, begging for help because he or she is at the end of their rope.
And the manager comes out with, "Ha, interesting. Well, you guys work it out among yourselves and let me know what happens."