For me:
Sometimes it doesn’t matter how hard you work, your going to get laid off either way.
Just showing up can sometimes make the difference.
Your not paid to be a software developer. Your being paid to be a problem solver.
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Just because someone was made a supervisor it doesn’t mean they know what they are doing.
My manager has been the manager of my department for over 7 years and admitted to my face that she has no idea what we do. 💀… And then did not make any effort in the last 8 months to learn what I do.
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Ah yeah, well, it was about 8 months ago when she said it to me, and somehow she’s gotten away with it because my department knows what it’s doing at all times. She’s being investigated and has decided this is the time to retire. Good riddance, absolute piece of shite.
I had worked at a theme park a couple summers. I operated one of the rides during a state inspection. It wasn’t a simple push the button and off it goes kind of thing, you manually controlled it. There were three big hydraulic motors with tires that powered the moving portion. The goal was to never equal the tires and I was good at it.
A new supervisor was promoted only because her sister was a manager already. She didn’t know how to properly operate the ride and was training others. I walked past one day to hear it roaring around one direction then the tires started screeching as it was hammered the other direction. I put in my notice the same day as that was my tipping point of stupidity, I wasn’t going to be there when someone was hurt or worse.
The supervisor who promoted her only did it to kiss ass, she complained she hadn’t had a single day off all summer because the new supervisor couldn’t perform the job.
That’s flat out nepotism, and an impending disaster. Good call on getting out sooner rather than later. The pay 100% was not worth the risk.
Managers aren’t there to do your job. They are there to clear the way so you can do your job. Handle schedules, handle HR requests, filter bullshit coming from above you.
As a manager, my goal is to have people smarter and better than me under me. Give them the space to do what they do best. While I give them the direction on what they should be working on. Half of what I do is make sure they aren’t wasting time focusing on stuff that doesn’t actually push the project forward.
I was once made a boss over this particular employee who was better at their job than me, and much older. I made it clear to her that I had no desire to wield any authority over her and that I considered us peers.
If my bosses knew what I’d done I would have been roasted but I feel like I made the right call. And having her respect was more invaluable than anything my bosses ever did.
Bullies go unpunished by corporate unless it’s overtly sexual or racist in nature. If you stick your neck out to defend someone getting bullied the company and the victim will leave you hanging in the future when the unpunished bully turns on you next. HR are soulless husks.
People are very bad at asking questions.
Some people will take dumb actions that risk their own lives rather than do something which would require a mild explanation later.
Experience and ability are not completely correlated.
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It can take them up to a year to realize that I totally lied on my resume and am incompetent, by which time I am no longer so incompetent.
Learn to code switch if you intend to become any sort of leader. Different folks need different strokes to get them to where you need them to be, and learning how coworkers process information can put you in a better position to communicate with them.
Also helps bridge the gap between coworkers who may be talking past each other because they process information differently.
This works going up the chain too. Get to know your management and how they process information as well. Tailoring your reports/slidework to their needs will go a long way in getting them on your side.
It doesn’t matter how powerful or pertinent the information is if it’s in a undigestable format. I’ve seen game changing information be scoffed and useless information praised wholly based on how it was displayed. Looking at you, MBAs…
In summation, know your audience. Turns out what they teach you in literary classes is actually useful.
When I was young, I thought following the rules and procedures was how you got ahead.
Now I realize that while those are not unimportant, what’s more important is figuring out how things actually get done and use those processes to get things done. To also help out those who need help getting things done where you can so that they’ll help you. It’s always amazed me how much people just get shit done regardless of rules and policies.
Also, document everything to make sure can show what you contributed and show that you did your part. If someone like a boss asks you to do something that’s not according to written procedures, follow up with an email - “Just wanted to confirm we spoke about X and you told me to do Y” type of thing.
Work will drop you like a hot potato if they decide to let you go. All that extra work you put in unpaid - nobody will remember it, even if they remember it, it’s not worth all of that time. You don’t have to totally “act your wage” and do the minimum, but do NOT expend extra energy without tangible reward like overtime pay.
You can be friendl with people from work, but work is not your friend, neither are they your family. It is an arrangement whereby you give them energy, labour et cetera in exchange for pay.
Re: lesson two
Long time ago, one of my teachers showed the class the data from a survey of managers. It asked them to prioritize a list of things that could lead to a firing. Number one was punctuality/attendance. Number four was theft. This suggested to him that you could be stealing from the company, but if you showed up every day on time you’d be less likely to be fired than if you were always MIA but not a thief. Years in the workplace has only served to confirm this for me.
Probably truth in that, but also possible the question was phrased in a way where the managers weren’t prioritizing the things that could lead to firing, but things they were most likely to die someone for, and theft certainly isn’t as common as or attendance.
Personally i always put a person’s attitude above being on time. Someone who regularly showed up late but was willing to help others who were struggling is better, in my opinion, than someone who was on time everyday but was just watching the clock. That said, it definitely depends on the job. If someone else is waiting for you to get there before they can leave, you are definitely on the block if you’re constantly that guy.
That’s a great question and there are so many good answers in this thread.
Don’t expect your superiors to ever back you up. I got burned so many times. I knew I was right, but they didn’t have a backbone and only thought about the budget, their reputation, and the work they’d have to put in for damage control. I wanted to shut restaurants for their filthiness, but “Oh noes, what will the community think”. Well, if someone dies, then it’s on your head. DOCUMENT EVERYTHING.
Even if a conversation or direction was made verbally, always follow up with an email to say “Just to confirm our conversation today, you have directed me to…” Even if it’s about holidays. My old boss was such a prick. Him and all upper management are the reason I am suspicious of everyone and everything.
99% of people don’t wash their hands properly.
same here, so exhausting.
It’s why I ended up quitting that job. I couldn’t get ahead because documenting everything took up so much of my time. In the end, the entire chain up to CEO still sided with my shite in the rain of a manager because she sucked enough under the table 🙄
The number of times I’ve seen people get out of the shitter and just head back to work, is disgustingly too damn high. I used to bring sanitary wipes with to clean every door handle. Now I work from home thankfully.
Now, picture the same people in restaurants preparing your food. It’s exactly the same thing 💀
I threatened to call the fire marshal on an employer once if they didn’t fix an emergency exit. It got fixed that night, but can’t say it ingratiated me with management.
But I had told them about the broken door for almost a month.
People are really fucking stupid. I work in IT. I’m a helpdesk tech at an MSP, and I see profound idiocy all day every day. People have no critical thinking skill and seem proud of the fact they don’t know shit about anything. People young and old say they’re tech illiterate like it’s a good thing.
The informatics nurse took a second to register that I was just gonna give her the IP address to remote in. She had this whole spiel ready ready to walk me through finding the device number (that wore off years before I even started). I was like girl I have the network settings open do you just want the IP address I just need you to make the new EPIC update behave let’s get to it.
I wish every user was as good as you. The best users that I’ve encountered are my immediate family. I’ve trained them up over years and when they need my help, it’s not a nightmare lol
Any sort of thinking, even reading and sharing the fucking error message is a foreign language to these assholes. The error message tells me exactly what to do to help, and you fucking closed it and can’t reproduce the error now!? Good luck.
On the other hand, can you please share an actual error message other than “something went wrong” and requiring me to reproduce the error while on live chat because there are no server logs?
HR protects and represents the company, not you as an employee.
Do NOT let people walk over you. Especially collegues. Especially collegues who have a history
Never try and improve things, specifically things having to do with how your job, group, division, it whatever works. Don’t try and improve efficiency, optimize workflow, or anything like that. Just do what you’re paid to and nothing more. If the company wants things to be more efficient then they can have your boss figure it out on their own. If they don’t punish you for trying them they won’t reward you for success, so don’t bother. Going above and beyond never works out.
Assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups. Always verify to make sure you(and others) got all the necessary information.
You might worry that you’ll come across as inexperienced or unprepared, but people usually appreciate the effort. And it will save you so much headache down the line.
Also, all real assumptions are invisible. The more things you realize were assumptions but are actually questions worth asking the better you actually are at that job or, if not better, the more experienced.
That nobody at work is your friend even if they say so. Got burned pretty bad but now I know.
