Manager is completely incompetent

Kentish_Dave

milkand1sugar wrote: »

This is tricky, because the nature of what they do is kept quite hidden. While they definitely take responsibility for some specific complicated admin tasks, they're nothing that a seasoned clerk or otherwise resourceful person couldn't deal with, and little else is revealed.

So you don’t know what they do, but you are sure that they don’t do it well.

Genius.

Anyway, I’ve given you my perspective as someone who’s in senior management nowadays so will just wish you luck in your career.

Kentish_Dave

milkand1sugar wrote: »

Where do you people get off? I've hurt you. I'm sorry your ego is so fragile and you can't take what you dish out to others. You'd make an excellent authoritarian.

You'd do great in nazi Germany!

These are strangely aggressive responses to people relatively politely disagreeing with you. I don’t think you’ve “hurt” anyone here, amused would be a better description.

Are you this unpleasant in work, or only from behind a keyboard?

Kentish_Dave

milkand1sugar wrote: »

Where do you people get off? I've hurt you. I'm sorry your ego is so fragile and you can't take what you dish out to others. You'd make an excellent authoritarian.

You'd do great in nazi Germany!

These are strangely aggressive responses to people relatively politely disagreeing with you. I don’t think you’ve “hurt” anyone here, amused would be a better description.

Are you this unpleasant in work, or only from behind a keyboard?

Moreover I'm trying to leave my job and discovering that many companies are picking up on the idea of challenging authority.

This bit is so precious, you are quite young aren’t you?

Yes, challenging authority is valuable, but this is not what you are doing, is it? You are not challenging them at all, you are sniggering with your colleagues in your lower level jobs. A challenge would be a coherent argument as to where the firm could do better, presented in front of those whose work you think is in need of improvement, or just to teneur management.

Anyway, I’ll leave you to your next insults, I’m out. Amused, but out.

Ja7188

My team is part of several in our company and we have a particular manager who is quite high-ranking, second from the top

Is the person right at the top happy with this manager's performance? If the answer is yes, then you have little or no chance of anything changing and need to either stick it out or leave...

For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not saying that this is necessarily right or fair - but it's realistic.

HardCoreProgrammer

You don't own the company. If they make money, you do not get extra. If they lose money, you do not have to pay out of your own pocket.

So why act as if you own the company?
If you can put up with it, stay and do your best, but document everything so that when the brown stuff hits the fan, you do not end up as the scapegoat.
If you cannot put up with it, then look for another job.
There is a risk of staying as well. Look at what happened to Jamie's Italian. It was a company with incompetent management and rife nepotism (headed by Jamie's brother in law).

milkand1sugar

gettingtheresometime wrote: »

But what business is it of yours a) how they got the job & b) how they've kept it?

Why wouldn't this be interesting? As for the second question, their actions are so disruptive that they are indeed our business since they are driving out the staff as well. Whatever they're doing isn't working on an effective scale so it's clear there are other reasons for them to be here.

BrassicWoman wrote: »

have you asked them what they do, or for a day job shadowing?

Not really, because I doubt I'd get an honest response, and don't believe that they'd be able to describe it either even if they were. One thing that they insist on doing is keeping things "under wraps" and the amount of secrecy is suspicious.

Kentish_Dave wrote: »

Anyway, I’ve given you my perspective as someone who’s in senior management nowadays so will just wish you luck in your career.

Oh cheers mate thanks ever so much

Ja7188 wrote: »

Is the person right at the top happy with this manager's performance? If the answer is yes, then you have little or no chance of anything changing and need to either stick it out or leave...

For the avoidance of doubt, I'm not saying that this is necessarily right or fair - but it's realistic.

This is hard to know, because there's little opportunity to learn. Their own manager has a much more distant relationship with us, probably because they are in charge of about 200 people and being so busy - we only hear from them occasionally.

So it's not clear what is thought about them. They must be doing something right or at least within the threshold of screwing up to maintain the position, that's just common sense. The lack of transparency is a problem.

Really though it's unlikely that they're tasked with anything much more than high priority but uncomplicated work, or stuff that involves yelling at people. And that can't be impressive to anyone. Their main duty seems to be defending the status quo and I suspect they're heavily resented by a lot of people, though it's an efficient move to protect the higher ups, if that's what is going on.

milkand1sugar

HardCoreProgrammer wrote: »

There is a risk of staying as well. Look at what happened to Jamie's Italian. It was a company with incompetent management and rife nepotism (headed by Jamie's brother in law).

Oh I didn't know that. Well yes they've also tried to insert family members within the department. People got really upset at that and it didn't last long.

getmore4less

milkand1sugar wrote: »

Not really, because I doubt I'd get an honest response, and don't believe that they'd be able to describe it either even if they were. One thing that they insist on doing is keeping things "under wraps" and the amount of secrecy is suspicious.

.

This is actually a key part of running a business, managing who knows what so they don't get distracted by stuff not needed to do the job you want them to do.

Marvel1

A few months back my manager was moaning about their manager to me.

Was my manager right or wrong to moan? :huh:

My opinion is I could never be a manager, just can't be hassled with the all that entails with it (money is not worth it), but fair play to someone who does but at least do it right like I have to at my level!

milkand1sugar

getmore4less wrote: »

This is actually a key part of running a business, managing who knows what so they don't get distracted by stuff not needed to do the job you want them to do.

Well for sure, except when it would be helpful not to mention respectful for us to know who is directing what instead of being left to go on fact-finding missions and calling around when we're inevitably questioned by another party for basic information. It can be frustrating if you're tasked to do something yet need to try and work out what it fully means in order to do anything.

There's also issues we face where we're so surprised at the lack of foresight that leads to their development. These things aren't rocket science; they could be handled, and increasingly it just looks like major things are left up in the air for someone else to deal with. Again it becomes our problem eventually when a different manager may task us with something and we find out later it hadn't been "agreed" to do things that way. This happens a fair amount.