Manager is completely incompetent

getmore4less

milkand1sugar wrote: »

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.

What are you doing to stop this happening?

Manxman_in_exile

When I worked in the NHS there was a director of a different department who had a bad reputation within the trust. I ended up working for him and discovered he was probably the best manager in the place!


He also had a knack of identifying people in other departments whose talents were underutilised, and he poached them - not that I'm implying that was true in my case, although I'd like to think so.

getmore4less

Manxman_in_exile wrote: »

When I worked in the NHS there was a director of a different department who had a bad reputation within the trust. I ended up working for him and discovered he was probably the best manager in the place!


He also had a knack of identifying people in other departments whose talents were underutilised, and he poached them - not that I'm implying that was true in my case, although I'd like to think so.

You have to wonder how many let wanting to be liked get in the way of doing a decent job.

milkand1sugar

getmore4less wrote: »

You have to wonder how many let wanting to be liked get in the way of doing a decent job.

If you're applying it to this manager, I think if you manipulate people and lie to them, there's a reason that others stop liking you. They've left a solid trail of people who simply despise them. Strangely though they seem untouchable.

getmore4less wrote: »

What are you doing to stop this happening?

You mean what are we all doing to stop this? We can't do much - they drop us in the middle of it and we have to deal. You're not allowed to try and negotiate your tasks with that kind of rank. Again, the lack of transparency makes it very difficult to predict issues. And we don't have the authority to handle them even when they can be so. Most of everything arranged is done in special secret meetings where plans and coordination aren't shared fully with the people employed to implement them.

Manxman_in_exile wrote: »

OP - I used to challenge management above me frequently. When we merged with another trust I was one of the first to be dispensed with. Surprisingly (or not surprisingly according to my colleagues) the trust could find no suitable alternative employment for me - but then nobody knew what I did and I wasn't telling...

I've found it's not good to repeatedly challenge management when it's so unstable. We even have this corporate ethic along the lines of "challenge management" (to inspire innovation and such) and it's an unsaid rule to overlook it. The business is fairly tough though and they'd survive without us, it would just be messy - their standards aren't high. If they were this particular manager would definitely not be employed, that's one thing everyone here is unanimous on.

Manxman_in_exile wrote: »

But then I got scared when I read #65 and realised that in the eyes of the OP we are really stupid people - even stupider than their middle managers.

If you're going to have your take then I have to have mine, and you might not like to hear it, though a lot of people here seem to come across as not being stupid at all, but having poor self-esteem. There's a lot of stones being thrown from glass houses, the instances of people loudly declaring their departure from the thread (in one instance three times in a row) as an example, and it's frustrating how the topic so quickly deviates from my subject into others directly insulting me then acting outraged when they're responded to in kind. Possibly my favourite character so far is Kentish Dave whose gloating and self-congratulatory personality is swiftly described merely by swapping the E in the first word with a U.

Manxman_in_exile

On the contrary, I like reading your posts.