Stupid managers and team leaders

I work for a firm which has gone mad. It is introducing new procedures one after another. I can see that none of these new procedures really improves the way we work, nor adds any benfits to our customers whatsoever. Nor makes any money. They are simply there because they seem to justify the managers who think these up, their jobs and positions. These procedures are driving me personally mad, and others too. We all see they are wrong, but most of my colleagues are too feeble to challenge the authority above us. I am too old to change my job. I must keep working at it for the next 4 years before I retire. What can be done? What should I do? It is making me ill with concern. If I was younger I would have left this firm years ago, but the economic situation necessitates staying at it.

If I worked for Waitrose as a Nightshift Manager I'd keep it bloody quiet. You have the staff you deserve as your scum company are no doubt, like others, clearly into the current trend of paying people the minimum they can get away with and demeaning them as much as possible in the process.
I'm absolutely certain that you enjoy making their workshifts as miserable as possible whilst feeding your ego.
I bet you used to bully other kids in school and sucked up to the PE teacher so you could be on the 'team'. F*** Off.

I work as a Nightshift manager for Waitrose In Kingston surrey. I have twenty three full-time and part-time staff under me.

I have just read the above gripe about "Stupid Managers" etc. Well of the twenty three staff I have I would say about four or five of them can work without any supervision at all. As for the rest? Well some of them are not capable of wiping their own backsides without some sort of help. Half of them cannot manage to perform the simple function of opening boxes and placing the contents on a shelf without constant supervision. Most of them are always Losing their case-cutters or gloves and moaning their heads off to have them replaced. When I cannot replace the items it"s always my fault, never theirs.

So if anyone starts off about "stupid managers" or "stupid supervisors" they should first think about two things.
1. Have they ever had the courage to take on a role of higher responsibility?

2. Can they work effectively and independently without supervision?

I used to work for a large multinational corporation and they had these absurd bullsh1t appraisals, usually conducted by much younger people who had no command of English, no interpersonal skills, and very often no real knowledge of the industry in which we worked nor the jobs we performed. All they had was faces that fitted, tongues that had licked the right backsides, and a Master Bullsh1t Artist degree from some shonky university somewhere.

They used to turn out the type of drivel that you have been kind enough to share with us. It would be laughable if it weren't for the fact that people like these had the power to determine the professional development and remuneration of people who were in every way their superiors.

If this smacks of jealousy (no doubt my lovely new friend Chloe if she reads this will tell me I have 'anger management issues') then I can assure you there is no jealousy at all. I left the company with an excellent package and am now master of my own time, destiny, and income. Who's jealous now? ..... the managers and directors I left behind who are still trapped on the treadmill!

Mud Grinder, you have my sympathy, I've been there, and I hope you can get out. On the other hand you only have 3 years or so to go to retirement, I had a lot more.

Mud Grinder

You say the manager is a "remote one working in another country".

Is English his second language? The appaling drivel he writes certainly suggests this.

It's Annual Appraisal Time. I'm 62 with 40 years of work experience in many organisations. I have had my fair share of redundancies. I am a graduate. Now I get an annual appraisal from my manager who comments:

Jim needs to improve regarding associating and correctly
categorizing knowledge items to customer problems. My
expectation would be that at least 50% of the problems closed
with solution would have provided an associated knowledge item
attached which is categorized as ...

If there's anyone aged 62 out there who needs to "improve" please let me know. Otherwise this is the kind of claptrap I got in school reports 50 years ago.

My manager, a remote one working in another country, did not know I was a graduate.

You can try and foolproof everything. But someone will build a better (worse?) fool!

Companies are blackmailing you and you know it ! They are private and untouchable and outside firms responsible for investigating them are incompetent !!! They can migrate to foreign countries and wind you up with foreign accents and then come back to the UK to make you appreciative of a fluent English speaker! If you become complacent and overdemanding they will migrate again !!! Its a globalised and capitalistic world. You get away with alot. You get what you pay for. At the same time it would not cost alot to improve call centre work practices. Doing this will be the only way to improve the customer experience of a caller. Unhappy call centre staff warrants unhappy customers. Call centre staff are blank canvases and you make out of them what you will, as with any new reqruits to any other job so dont be so silly as to consider 'thick' workers as the problem.

So many people just do not get it. A call centre fails a customer and staff because inefficient opperation. Most are opperated by the same system. A new person is unskilled and so is told to learn as they go along. They learn how, what, where and when and become efficient and a beneficiary to the customer experience of the caller. The factory like poor working quality standards take a toll on the full time worker. They take call after call in over demanding call quantity and are often short staffed, they multitask and have to fend from overdemanding customers whilst logging calls exactly and all the time being overmonitored and overworked into target meeting and hoop jumping. Quality monitors blackmail workers with underscore tactics in fortnightly evaluations and pick one call out of five hundred to tear apart, for small insignificant details. Reports are kept and you must obtain the average score level and not drop below it. Quality monitors do not pay attention to the things that do matter to the customer. Customer's dont care how a call is logged as long as it says everything !!! Nobody cares about the callers or the workers alike.

Edgar, the description I have provided is an entirely accurate description of our situation. Unfortunately I am at that time of age where it is difficult to find alternative employment, and I have several years to go before I can afford to retire, if ever. Moreover my pension fund has been wiped out by the recession. And the little matter of the credit crunch makes it impossible to get another job in a like field. Also the whole field I work in has become this way across the whole employment scene. All employers in my industry follow this kind of practice. It's a disease of the industry. Just like soldiers can expect to get killed, technical support staff can expect to be treated like dirt.

Edgar, the description I have provided is an entirely accurate description of our situation. Unfortunately I am at that time of age where it is difficult to find alternative employment, and I have several years to go before I can afford to retire, if ever. Moreover my pension fund has been wiped out by the recession. And the little matter of the credit crunch makes it impossible to get another job in a like field. Also the whole field I work in has become this way across the whole employment scene. All employers in my industry follow this kind of practice. It's a disease of the industry. Just like soldiers can expect to get killed, technical support staff can expect to be treated like dirt.

Brunt-Bearer, if what you write is an accurate reflection of your work situation, your manager and employer are heading for trouble. Success in any occupation involving a team needs co-operation of all team members, and that is not achieved by browbeating the "lower ranks". I've seen this from both ends of the spectrum. I hope that you can find a better future employer.