Do they think the saying is "Don't just do something, stand there" ?

[kranky]

I swear many people have lost the ability to manage their own affairs at work.

Just need to vent a little, feel free to ignore.

Item the first:
My whole team has a meeting every Wednesday from 9-10. Sometimes other people want to schedule regular meetings at the same time, and want someone on my team to attend. Up until a couple years ago, I never had to get involved. They worked something out, and everybody shows up for the team meeting.

Now in the last couple years, newer people will send me emails like "Project Z scheduled regular meetings on Wednesday from 8:30-9:30 that conflict with our other meeting."

So I have to respond "Are you asking me a question? Attendance at the team meeting is still mandatory."

Some people get it and I hear no more. The most recent one responded back "What do you want me to do?" I want you to tell them you have a mandatory meeting from 9-10, and tell them you have to leave their meeting at 9.

Should I need to explain that?

Item the second:
People are responsible for gathering information from project teams and reporting it.

I have to ask newer people “Where is the data for Project X? It was due last week.”
They reply “I asked Tom for the information and he didn’t send it.”
Guess what? It’s YOUR job to get the report done. If you asked for information, and it didn’t come, then take some action.

Should I need to explain that?

Maybe I should try saying “If you asked for your paycheck and the Payroll department didn’t send it, how long would you go without getting paid?”

Item the third:
A newer person was taking a very long time to prepare a report, so when it was a couple days overdue I asked what was going on. She told me it was taking a long time to do the calculations by hand. Half-afraid to hear the answer, I asked why she wasn’t using Excel.

“It’s not working on my PC for some reason.” Huh? Why didn’t you get the IT group to look at it?

“I didn’t know what the problem was and I didn’t want to look stupid if it was my own fault.”

Well, if there’s a choice between possibly looking stupid to an IT person, or getting in trouble for being late with your work, which do you think is worse?

Should I need to explain that?

The problem turned out to be an error in the permissions to a shared folder on the network. I didn’t even ask how long that was going on.

If you read this far, thank you for sharing in my rant.

 

[boomerang]

I hate to tell you but it's not going to get better.

 

[BikeJunkie]

Amen. It is infuriating when people won't own their own responsibilities, outcomes, etc. It amazes me that some people genuinely think "I don't know" is not only an acceptable response to a question, but the end of the line.

How about "I don't know, but I'll find out as soon as possible and get back to you."

That's the spirit!

Total lack of follow through is another problem. Look, when I make someone a promise or commitment, you can bet your butt I'll follow through and be on-time and on-budget. It's scary how holding one's self to that basic standard is enough to stand out from 99% of the rest of the pack. Seriously, that's how I've made a name for myself over the years: keeping my word. That's it. WTF?

 

[angminas]

Reminds me of a conversation I just had with someone close to me. They have an old declawed cat and a clawed young cat. The young cat terrorizes the old one several times a day and she screams and runs from him as best she can. Their typical response is to reason with him. The other day I heard them say something like "one more time and you're going to go in the other room", and I finally let them have it, because they obviously weren't taking it seriously. They talk to their cats like they're children, but they don't do what's necessary to protect the older, weaker cat from being bullied.

People like to say they tried so they don't have to take responsibility and get things done, and they don't learn better when they see other people not doing things that way. Pisses me off.

 

[rcpratt]

The co-ops that I mentor do a better job managing their own work than that.

 

[BikeJunkie]

People like to say they tried so they don't have to take responsibility and get things done

That's because our generation was raised on "just do your best". Guess what champ, sometimes your best SUCKS. Come on, I don't want to hear that crap!!! Your best? If the project isn't done, or the budget is blown, or there are serious quality issues, I really couldn't give two turds about "your best." I don't care about how so-and-so didn't give you what you needed. Hold their feet to the fire just like I'm about to do to yours! Someone blew you off? CC me and their boss and ask them again. We don't have an expert on such-and-such and it's holding you back? Become that expert, then! No one has any initiative these days.

Sometimes my best sucked. So I trained, read, learned, and practiced until my best met the bar necessary to succeed and put me in a position to give the types of answers I wanted to give.

 

[DrPizza]

I hear your pain.

 

[glenn1]

I swear many people have lost the ability to manage their own affairs at work.

Just need to vent a little, feel free to ignore.

Item the first:
My whole team has a meeting every Wednesday from 9-10. Sometimes other people want to schedule regular meetings at the same time, and want someone on my team to attend. Up until a couple years ago, I never had to get involved. They worked something out, and everybody shows up for the team meeting.

Now in the last couple years, newer people will send me emails like "Project Z scheduled regular meetings on Wednesday from 8:30-9:30 that conflict with our other meeting."

So I have to respond "Are you asking me a question? Attendance at the team meeting is still mandatory."

Some people get it and I hear no more. The most recent one responded back "What do you want me to do?" I want you to tell them you have a mandatory meeting from 9-10, and tell them you have to leave their meeting at 9.

Should I need to explain that?

Item the second:
People are responsible for gathering information from project teams and reporting it.

I have to ask newer people “Where is the data for Project X? It was due last week.”
They reply “I asked Tom for the information and he didn’t send it.”
Guess what? It’s YOUR job to get the report done. If you asked for information, and it didn’t come, then take some action.

Should I need to explain that?

Maybe I should try saying “If you asked for your paycheck and the Payroll department didn’t send it, how long would you go without getting paid?”

Item the third:
A newer person was taking a very long time to prepare a report, so when it was a couple days overdue I asked what was going on. She told me it was taking a long time to do the calculations by hand. Half-afraid to hear the answer, I asked why she wasn’t using Excel.

“It’s not working on my PC for some reason.” Huh? Why didn’t you get the IT group to look at it?

“I didn’t know what the problem was and I didn’t want to look stupid if it was my own fault.”

Well, if there’s a choice between possibly looking stupid to an IT person, or getting in trouble for being late with your work, which do you think is worse?

Should I need to explain that?

The problem turned out to be an error in the permissions to a shared folder on the network. I didn’t even ask how long that was going on.

If you read this far, thank you for sharing in my rant.

Pretty much every one of your complaints begins with "a new person." So I daresay you can't put all the blame on them since as a manager one of your jobs is level-setting and clearly explaining expectations for your new hires and not just presume they should know what to do or use what you think is 'common sense.' If I were *your* manager, should I need to explain that?

 

[Puppies04]

I would make some comment about the youth of today but I have witnessed people 10 years older than me turning up to work with these kinds of attitude. It amazes me and I can only put it down to it getting harder and harder to sack people for being idiots.

 

[Vdubchaos]

Entire Corporate America is filled with worthless/useless people that couldn't even hold a McDonalds job for more than a day!!!

A lot of NEW employees are also hired and left with no training or ANYTHING and expected to do work hehe.

Read: So many companies fail their new employees.

 

[slag]

My supervisor questioned me before because a report on how many resources we use(memory, disk space, etc) wasn't available when he wanted it. I sent the system administrator who has this info an email and a voicemail letting them know I need something by X date and did not receive an email back with that information. Usually I will follow up with another email or phone call. It's not my job to track down why the person didn't get me the info and I did due diligence (multiple emails, etc) There's only so much I can and should do to get data for the report and that ends with a phone call and email with read receipt. Getting the report is my job, but I don't get back the information I need, then I can't deliver the report and my alternative is to tell the supervisor why.

I am a professional, not a baby sitter. If people need babysitting, then its a management issue and I'm not in management.

You get the gist of what I'm saying. I request information just like my supervisor requested information from me. I had informed my supervisor a week in advance that I had not received the information back and he chose not to do anything about it.

 

[kranky]

Pretty much every one of your complaints begins with "a new person." So I daresay you can't put all the blame on them since as a manager one of your jobs is level-setting and clearly explaining expectations for your new hires and not just presume they should know what to do or use what you think is 'common sense.' If I were *your* manager, should I need to explain that?

It's not every newer person. Some of them manage to handle things that come up.

I guess I would assume I needed to do a better job of coaching if there was an incident like, say, someone crapped their pants in their office chair because they didn't know if it was OK to use the bathroom.

I will take responsiblity for not making good hiring decisions in these cases, though. These are the same people who described themselves as motivated, self-starters, do not require hand-holding, goal-oriented, etc. AND the same people who were already told that the job requires the ability to complete assignements with little supervision.

One of my interview questions is "what would you do if two different people gave you conflicting directions on how to perform a task?" I'm interested in an answer that indicates doing something to resolve the conflict, and not "I'd follow the directions I got last." All the people I'm talking about gave an answer that said they would take steps to get the contradiction resolved in some way, not just ignore it.

I just need to figure out how to better detect the truly motivated people from the ones who just put on the act.

 

[glenn1]

It's not every newer person. Some of them manage to handle things that come up.

I guess I would assume I needed to do a better job of coaching if there was an incident like, say, someone crapped their pants in their office chair because they didn't know if it was OK to use the bathroom.

I will take responsiblity for not making good hiring decisions in these cases, though. These are the same people who described themselves as motivated, self-starters, do not require hand-holding, goal-oriented, etc. AND the same people who were already told that the job requires the ability to complete assignements with little supervision.

One of my interview questions is "what would you do if two different people gave you conflicting directions on how to perform a task?" I'm interested in an answer that indicates doing something to resolve the conflict, and not "I'd follow the directions I got last." All the people I'm talking about gave an answer that said they would take steps to get the contradiction resolved in some way, not just ignore it.

I just need to figure out how to better detect the truly motivated people from the ones who just put on the act.

Ya know, you really could stand to honestly and objectively quantify your value proposition as a manager of people - your methods of providing direction and feedback to your employees seem to need adjustment because by your own statements they're not working. This isn't a slam against you, it's just a simple recognition that different tactics are required depending on the employee and their personalities. If you can't or won't provide more direct and hands-on guidance to employees who need it then that's your issue as a manager, not theirs. Just trying to only hire "motivated self-starters" is a naive delusion on your part and shows you need additional training yourself on how to manage a diverse workforce.

And just in case this truly is an issue of a poorly-performing employee rather than just your current managerial style being a bad fit, here's some suggested reading for you.

http://hiring.monster.com/hr/hr-bes...e-management/employee-performance-issues.aspx

 

[BikeJunkie]

I guess I would assume I needed to do a better job of coaching if...

While I deeply, DEEPLY share your angst and frustration, Glenn has a point: part of our jobs is to mentor/develop the people we hire. It's also important to remember that people come from all kinds of work/personal cultures. I once worked in a place where, if you asked more than a few questions, you'd get canned. It sounds strange, but everyone's top priority was simply not being hassled by work / other people. In that environment, your "Excel girl" would have been much better off just doing calculations by hand.

My first step would be instilling your expectations and the company culture on your new hires. Tell them they're empowered (and expected) to see problems through start to finish, and that they should have no fear in asking questions. If they still don't catch on and they really do just have an initiative/attitude problem, then deal with them appropriately at that time.

 

[zinfamous]

OP sounds a little cranky.

 

[Puppies04]

It's not every newer person. Some of them manage to handle things that come up.

I guess I would assume I needed to do a better job of coaching if there was an incident like, say, someone crapped their pants in their office chair because they didn't know if it was OK to use the bathroom.

I will take responsiblity for not making good hiring decisions in these cases, though. These are the same people who described themselves as motivated, self-starters, do not require hand-holding, goal-oriented, etc. AND the same people who were already told that the job requires the ability to complete assignements with little supervision.

One of my interview questions is "what would you do if two different people gave you conflicting directions on how to perform a task?" I'm interested in an answer that indicates doing something to resolve the conflict, and not "I'd follow the directions I got last." All the people I'm talking about gave an answer that said they would take steps to get the contradiction resolved in some way, not just ignore it.

I just need to figure out how to better detect the truly motivated people from the ones who just put on the act.

Send them an email telling them the interview is a 11:00 AM on wednesday. Later send them an email from another account making no reference to the original message telling them the interview is at 11:30 AM on wednesday.

Anyone who replies asking for clarification doesn't need their hand holding.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

I run into the email defense from the military a lot. When asked why something wasn't done or, wasn't done on time. The person says, "I sent you an email." I have a lifelong dream of replying to a call for air support, artillery or, supply drop with "I sent you an email."

My other favorite is refusal to take ownership. I once had twenty waitresses hanging around doing nothing while leaving 500 guests without dessert because no one had cut the pie for them.

 

[notposting]

Blame HR. You know they won't hire someone with 20 years of practical experience (and presumably, maturity and the ability to figure these things out) because they only got an Associate's degree back in the day. So they hire a kid with a Bachelor's instead.

 

[Hugo Drax]

I run into the email defense from the military a lot. When asked why something wasn't done or, wasn't done on time. The person says, "I sent you an email." I have a lifelong dream of replying to a call for air support, artillery or, supply drop with "I sent you an email."

My other favorite is refusal to take ownership. I once had twenty waitresses hanging around doing nothing while leaving 500 guests without dessert because no one had cut the pie for them.

What you do is fire two waitresses randomly on the spot.

The warn them them the next time it happens more firings.

 

[BikeJunkie]

What you do is fire two waitresses randomly on the spot.

The warn them them the next time it happens more firings.

No doubt! When you have mass quantities of stupidity/laziness like that, it's time to whip out the machete and start cutting it down with reckless abandon. The only way to do that is to make an example out of a couple of the stupid saps, and take down the names of the rest.

I have zero tolerance for that level of "it's not my job". If I thought I could run the business long enough to replace them all, I'd tell them all to get lost at the end of their shift.... maybe keep one or two behind so they can spread the fear and wisdom to the next crop of geniuses.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

What you do is fire two waitresses randomly on the spot.

The warn them them the next time it happens more firings.

I cursed them all out and then got called to task by the f&b manager for not playing nice. I told him I'd do exactly the same thing if it happened again. Unions are special. They don't belong in food service.

 

[BikeJunkie]

I cursed them all out and then got called to task by the f&b manager for not playing nice. I told him I'd do exactly the same thing if it happened again. Unions are special. They don't belong in food service.

That explains it.

 

[Eug]

In administrative roles I've had, I've found the #1 difficulty I've had is dealing with employees. Not the projects or specific work, but the employees handling the work. Or just the employees and stuff outside work affecting their work. I was actually in the running for a big admin role in another place, but ended up turning it down because I figured I'd be spending half my time dealing with idiotic stuff like that.

And no, this is not a generational thing. Sure, some of the new hires may take some time to get to know the ropes, but there are lots of older idiots out there, and a lot of very competent young people.

But yeah, it goes both ways.

I've been the underling that has taken a project and run with it, and then have gotten scolded for not asking for approval for every stupid little minor decision.

What's worse though is getting scolded for not informing the big boss myself when I've kept the big boss's direct underlings informed all along the way. ie. Eug is level 3 from the top. The big boss is level 1. Eug is given a task, does his work, and keeps level 2 guys informed, and then a month later gets criticized from not telling the big boss at level 1 what's going on, even though the level 2 guys should be doing this on a regular basis.

 

[purbeast0]

meetings at 9am, let alone 8:30am, are way too early.

 

[Eug]

meetings at 9am, let alone 8:30am, are way too early.

I regularly have meetings at 8 am. Yeah they suck, but what's worse are long meetings that start at 5 pm.