<p>I don’t want to derail thread but I do want to say that I think the workplace has changed immensely.</p>
<p>It appears the schmoozers and liars ( bonus points for additionally being female and/or an URM) have taken over corporate America. If you can talk a good game and kiss some major a$$ you can position yourself quite nicely. Integrity, hard work and honesty are now for the suckers who have to produce but not get any credit.</p>
<p>old, angry and cynical.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In my experience, that is the norm. I’ve been managed by very very few people I’d consider normal. I can probably count them on one hand.</p>
<p>I worked for a long time in a 3 person firm. That was way too political for me, especially after the boss/owner went after the secretary (17 yrs his jr). He was a complete moron with a mid-life crisis, a wife and 4 kids; she thought he was a yucky old man. She sued him through EEOC, at that time sexual harassment laws didn’t apply if there were under 10 employees. Sigh. Things got worse morale-wise. He was never too fond of the fact I knew all the details.</p>
<p>So…I left 16 years ago, all my clients followed, and I started my own firm. Been mostly happly with my boss and employees since then :)</p>
<p>Every once in a while I say I’m going to get rid of all the stress of ownership and get a “real” job. H tells me there’s no way I’d put up with the BS out there. He might be right.</p>
<p>My boss has suggested that I read Weirdos in the Workplace - since he considers me a “weirdo” . Good thing it takes a lot to offend me. Here’s the blurb from Amazon if you’re interested:</p>
<p>Consultant Putzier begins his foray into the work world of high performers with “There is always a talent shortage.” His point? That corporations today must accept the so-called weirdos for their contributions, after distinguishing whether they’re truly adding value or simply are annoying and irritating. The tools he uses to measure his contention include behavioral and organizational change maps and step-by-step Venn diagrams with a path led by answers to specific questions. Before explaining the techniques, though, he spends good space describing and analyzing 32 different kinds of weirdos, from Circadian Charlie to System Tester Sam. He also delves into the emotional and mental composition of high performers, from their need for workplace flexibility and new technology to their responses to out-of-the-ordinary incentives and to risk and bureaucracy. The bottom line is his fervent belief that, without a good understanding and toleration of the weirdos (aka Albert Einstein, among others), this planet will be a much less productive and innovative place in which to work and live. </p>
<p>Granted I am a little different, but not a liar or spinner like <em>my boss</em>. Since I have the book- it sounded interesting…I might read it this weekend. Who knows, maybe it will help me deal with him a little better.</p>
<p>Oh! almost forgot- I work with another person who when he hears something he doesn’t like or if we disagree with him, he’ll get up and walk out of the meeting. AND he’s not even a person in charge. He told our main boss that he hated his job and didn’t want to do it anymore. </p>
<p>I always have to watch out for him- he’s constantly sending emails outside the chain complaining about how we are doing things “against all regulations” even though our contract went through legal, HQ, and HQ’s HQ. But some lowlife doesn’t agree and so therefore we are in the wrong.</p>
<p>Phew! Yay it’s Friday and I have 2 days off before I see this idiot again.</p>
<p>Happy Friday! :)</p>
<p>Chuckle, I must admit the blurb you just quoted does not make me want to run to my local library and get the book out. I’m interested to know how your reading goes this weekend and if you recommend the book.</p>
<p>Nomination for worst co-worker of all time: close family member and her good friend got a summer job in a chocolate factory in Milwaukee a few decades ago. Several years later her friend called and said, “Quick! Turn on the TV! Remember that weird guy we worked with at *****? He’s just been arrested for murder!” It was Jeffery Dahmer.</p>
<p>“It appears the schmoozers and liars”
-I might be a schmoozer, but never a liar</p>
<p>( bonus points for additionally being female and/or an URM)
check and check! Can I turn in the points for frequent flier miles?</p>
<p>“If you can talk a good game and kiss some major a$$ you can position yourself quite nicely.”
-I think I can talk a good game, but don’t think I’ve had to kiss MAJOR ass…maybe minor ass…buy I’m not a pedophile…</p>
<p>" Integrity, hard work and honesty are now for the suckers who have to produce but not get any credit."</p>
<p>Hmm…I THINK I am getting credit for hard work and honesty, but I am URM and female, so…</p>
<p>"old, angry and cynical. "</p>
<p>Okay, I am just old.</p>
<p>ok, I officially love my job. :)</p>
<p>eastcoascrazy, you win the prize!!!</p>
<p>Eastcoastcrazy-- Game. Set. Match. </p>
<p>Yikes!</p>
<p>Back in the 80’s I was invited to a large golf outing by a firm we did business with, along with about 15 of my co-workers and about 100 people total. I was the first woman who’d ever been invited. When I showed up for the lunch in advance of teeing off, I was told I couldn’t join any of the others because the golf club’s lunch grill was closed to women. So I had to sit in the hall until tee time. </p>
<p>During the dinner after golf, the host took the microphone and was thanking all of us business associates. He started telling jokes. When he told one very unwitty joke about testicles and a soup spoon (I did say unwitty, right?) I managed a weak smile but nothing more. He came over to me with his microphone, in front of everyone, and said loudly Well you’d better learn how to laugh, little girl, because it’s a man’s world . </p>
<p>I was so torn. In any other setting I would have responded strongly, but I’d been raised to never insult my host. What to do. Then one of my male co-workers grabbed the mic and advised him that if he insults one of us, he insulted all of us. </p>
<p>There are good people in the corporate world!</p>
<p>Okay I wanted to laugh and cry reading this thread. I own a business and think I’m a pretty good boss. I’ve never yelled or cursed at anyone, pay well, great benefits, but I have to expect a certain level of performance.</p>
<p>Last week I had a meeting where we were reviewing some procedures that I knew might be a little boring or tedious for some - so I turned it into a game with candy prizes. I actually had someone complain that they didn’t like the candy I picked. </p>
<p>My favorite is some of my interviewing stories. I would never believe what people would do or say in interviews unless I heard it out of their mouths myself.</p>
<p>One of the people I once worked for met with me on his first day leading our dept, and advised that I couldn’t possibly be any good at my job “because you look like the kind of woman who wears pink panties”.</p>
<p>oooohhhhhh hayden…</p>
<p>I actually had this happen: the day before I left one job to go on to another (primarily to get away from the sick sexism and the gal who was sleeping with everyone), I received a phone call from a young female at my next place of work. Her long-time boss had hired me, and I had fought hard to have my own accounts, as I did at the current job, even though I was female. He relented, despite many efforts to get me to work “with” (means “for”) one of the more senior males, as I would just be helping him cover his accounts. Anyway, I had secured an independent position at this new firm, and was the first-ever female to have such a role.
This young woman said to me on the phone, “Hey, do you have a good sense of humor? [hazing] You know what would be very funny?” Meanwhile, I had barely met this woman during the interview process, and was even wondering who else might be listening in, so I could barely answer more than "Uh huh. " She said, “It would be a great joke on XX [her boss, my future boss, the one who had hired me] if you called him to say you decided not to take the job.”</p>
<p>Q, all: what would you do in this situation???</p>
<p>" He’s just been arrested for murder!" It was Jeffery Dahmer."</p>
<p>Wow.</p>
<p>Eyemamom…don’t be shy. This is the place to tell an interview story or two. ;)</p>
<p>Hayden…I just shake my head at these bozos.</p>
<p>When I first started trading on a floor…I was financially backed…somebody else put up the money and we split the profits. So in essence…because somebody else put up the money and could pull the
money at any time…he was the boss. And he was a good boss.</p>
<p>After the first trading day…I go up to his office and open the door.
Inside his office were a few traders…and my boss was sitting behind his desk. And across the width of the desk…was a long thin white line of coke. </p>
<p>The boss asked, “Would you like some?”.</p>
<p>I was more than a little uncomfortable…and I said, “I don’t do drugs”. </p>
<p>And he said, “ok.”
And I left.</p>
<p>And this incident…and the subject of drugs was never brought up again. </p>
<p>And I knew…and he was a good boss…he left me alone…that he wasn’t going to be my boss for long. I knew this really before we made the </p>
<p>deal…but…this episode confirmed it for me.</p>
<p>“Q, all: what would you do in this situation???”</p>
<p>I don’t think the request is funny. I would say, “No”.</p>
<p>performersmom, seems the young woman was trying to set you up for something. There’s no one right answer, but I usually tried to deal with those sorts of things by acting like the other person wasn’t making a serious suggestion. I would have just laughed, and said “oh, that’s pretty funny”, then changed the subject by saying something innocuous. And that’s it - you haven’t criticized them, and more importantly, you haven’t agreed to anything. Most people have a hard time trying to argue they’re being serious when they know that what they’re saying is either inappropriate or malicious. </p>
<p>If someone said anything really nasty, and I couldn’t pretend they were joking, I’d just smile blandly, and say “I beg your pardon?” You’d be amazed at how many people just can’t say a really nasty thing twice, with passion. Plus it allows them to save face, by not repeating it and allowing themselves to think you didn’t understand or hear them.</p>
<p>One job I wasn’t offered and wouldn’t have accepted–was touring the law firm where I would work IF hired and I accepted. Encountered young black male that BEGGED me to work there so he wouldn’t be the only token. Was happy to work at the firm I ended up at, even though there I was the first woman they had ever hired to do more than typing. Must have liked me well enough because they hired 3 other female attorneys to keep me company. One became Lt. Gov & is now one of our congresswomen!</p>
<p>In my first job out of college, I met ‘Connie’ and ‘Joe’ who worked in a different department. I would run into them in the break room, always together, and when my boyfriend would take me to lunch, we would run into them having lunch together on several occasions. It wasn’t until Connie’s husband was found shot to death in his home that I discovered she was married to someone else. Of course, Joe was suspected from the beginning but I guess there was not enough evidence because it never went to trial. I had to give a deposition to the sheriff’s office because I was working the day it happened when Joe was supposed to be at work but did not show up.</p>