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A workplace story by Algernon
As many of the patrons and regular visitors know, I was made redundant from my job and finished work at the beginning of October. At the beginning of this year I’d chosen to leave the organization in July but had not put my notice in. I’d become disillusioned where I worked, my Manager, whilst well regarded in the industry I worked in, was neither a leader nor manager. In a meeting in February with them, I made my feelings plain. Two weeks later a restructure was announced, so I thought let’s see where this leads.
The restructure which should have been done in six to eight weeks with competent handlers, took seven months. In the end all my Managers direct reports were gone bar one, who sports a glowing brown nose most the time. Ironic too that those who were made redundant were amongst the oldest in their team. Participating in the process, I was found to be unsuitable for the position, I guess being 60 went against me, perhaps I didn’t speak the new corporate language well enough.
I moved to the organization eight years ago, from my own business for many reasons. The original organisation, a State Owned Corporation, operated like a badly run consultancy, but made up for it with warm, passionate workers with pride in the assets they looked after. It somehow worked. The government chose to merge this organization with another to form the current organization. I managed teams in the former and merged organization.
The merged organization bought a new CEO who was tasked by the board to build a new one. New positions were created as well as new roles within teams. New people were bought in. I led a team of four in this new organization and answered to a Manager who had seven direct reports with an overall team of 37. They in turn directly reported to the Executive Manager.
I got on with the new Manager fine personally and with some issues external to work they were supportive. However, as far as work and work issues were concerned, have your back in adversity, make a decision, lead or manage well that’s a different story. What they did bring in their words, was a new way of doing business, a new way of thinking, thought leadership. That became apparent very quickly.
One favourite tool was the whiteboard, which was used frequently, somehow to provide clarity to there thinking and often with more spaghetti than Roz Kelly. At the end that was the work instruction, nothing written down, go off and be creative. Wonderful stuff, one would head off down what you thought was the agreed path only to find at the next meeting, no that’s not what I meant. Repeat the same over and over.
So after say four months little is achieved and it’s time to find the next bouncing ball that all of a sudden has become the most important thing to be done. Repeat above and this over and over.
This new world or should I say “paradigm”, was riddled with corporate speak or should I say jargon. Early on a business case was created for all the “teams”. Now we had core responsibilities that need to be achieved in a specific timeframe. We created a business case, why we needed one who knows, it emphasized “best in class” and “one team culture” not to mention the imagery of gold stars. In the end it looked like a year 4 school project.
Group conferences or love ins were always a joy, generally one to two days, the first one bought all the “teams” together. Discussions around how we could become best in class, what we do well now and where we could improve, we needed to look at where the low hanging fruit was and how we could value add what we currently do. How we could become more customer centric, new team members were asked what they could bring to the table, we were encouraged to think outside the box and see where that game changer with what we produced was.
The following clip “The Cart” was used somehow to encourage. There were variations of this used as well, the rocket ship and the boat.
The cart
Our leaders meetings after, we’d take a deep dive into the findings of these love ins, flesh out some of what was discussed, look for the key learnings, encouraged to make sure all our teams were all on the same page. We needed to create the narrative so the take away message was reinforced to our teams. Develop the action plan to seek out those windows of opportunity and become proactive, take ownership and results driven.
That’s of course if our meetings actually happened at the scheduled time, as they were rescheduled regularly. I was amazed how many ended up being rescheduled whilst I was away in the field, meaning I’d have to leave early to drive back or if distant to ensure I was on the scheduled flight, only to watch others knock nine bells out of one another and not get to my part in the agenda.
Disagreements would often happen as they should in these meetings, but often discussions needed to be taken offline were of course they were never discussed.
Training was generally supplied by Human Resources, this was a huge team. They of course were our business partners, who assisted us with onboarding new team members, and with difficulties with our teams or other we could call on them. Well that’s if they’d answer emails or were available. HR of course, is the home of the bull shit jobs. The television show Utopia, is worth a look and Beverley Sadler, I’m sure was the modelled off our HR team.
Perhaps I’m just not good at it, this speaking in jargon I mean. My Manager thrived on it, to the point I think he lost sight of the fact that, what he spoke in the end didn’t make any sense. The thing is that all these new hired Managers spoke the same way, at a workshop earlier this year they were tripping one another up with their use of jargon. They might as well have been speaking in Swahili.
To say that the last three years were an exercise in non achievement and failure to actually complete anything, along with preparing reports that nobody reads, spend endless hours producing monthly task completions only for the system to junked after six months of use, would be an understatement.
On my last day I had an exit interview with one of the newly onboarded HR business partners. What an absolute joy that was. I had plenty I wanted to say but they had their own agenda. They had five questions they wanted to ask about the restructure and the whole offboarding experience, how organization as well as those in the bull shit jobs, could improve that experience. WTF! That was 19 minutes of my life I won’t get back.
I could talk about DISC profiling and 360 reviews, maybe that’s another episode.
Recently, I had lunch with the former colleagues in my team for Christmas. They inform me that the place is falling apart around them. Chaos reigns where there was once order. As they said it’s not a pleasant place to work and they can see little chance of improvement or the enjoyment that was once there returning. I’m glad every day that I’m out of there with a redundancy.
Finally you can have hours of fun with this. These sites are wank word or phrase generators. There’s plenty of them. See what your think.
Window Dresser's Arms, Pig & Whistle 
This sounds like they all went to the Michelle Guthrie school of management.
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What she went to a school. My former boss reads a book on what to do then tries to apply it.
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One of the great things about being older in the workforce is that you don’t cop shit from management. I had a middle manager that tried to run roughshod over me about an entry in the Policy and Procedure manual that was wrong. Anyway after much discussion she had to apologise to me and tell me I was right, which I knew from the beginning however she made it hard for me from then on. Didn’t worry me too much as I was only part time and worked night shift but whenever I could I’d stick the knife in. Trouble for her was she had been heavily over promoted and I had 35 years of experience.
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I find I don’t take shit from anyone anymore. It’s amazing how widespread people promoted above their ability is and making decisions they have little idea about.
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Yes, Hung, people not being aware of clinical procedures or protocols, in spite of them being available in the ward, but also people rewriting or reviewing the same, full of spelling and grammatical, plus anatomical errors, or, worse, describing something that happened thirty years ago. I used to send drafts back with the spelling, etc corrected, then find it’s published on line in it’s uncorrected form. I got into trouble from one of the bosses for refusing to edit protocols. Why would I when I’m ignored and the organisation looks like a group of idiot primary children!!
Likewise in the clinical area where I’m the boss. It’s not a democracy, you follow the orders!!
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Sounds too familiar. A dickhead gets the top job and appoints dickheads under him and the real workers get stuffed around. Began with all that KPI shit and new formats for applying for a job fulfilling a set of up to 100 points comprising a lot of rubbish.
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Ah yes the KPI, problem with mine was the boss kept changing them. A new person is starting next week for the position I missed out on. I’ve good grounds for appeal if that were I wanted to go, I don’t. The failed to meet half the manditories and have no experience in half the criticals. They’re also managing a team having not worked in the discipline before. I mean you can’t make this stuff up.
Their last job was 3 years and in a acting position. I noticed in that 3 years they attended 20 training courses, when did they have time to do their real work. Speaking with the old colleagues I said I give them two months.
One colleague in their recent KPI meeting asked when are you re-employing Algernon, they went as white as a sheet and sat stunned. It’s Peter principle everywhere.
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It’s amazing that anything every gets done. It explains why we have to deal with so much shit in our everyday lives. No one has the guts to say ‘this is wrong’, ‘we can fix it’ – they just blindly go on and fiddle fart about. I sympathise with you Algy – good to unload it too.
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The problem was they held all the cards last year with the restructure. They played a game thinking one would react. In meetings ask questions where yes or no. In the end it was them that reacted not me or my colleagues.
Most my working life is in private industry. Quick decisions, decisive results, no money wasting. With this boss, its a game, wastes money and decisions are difficult to make. Where discipline or moving someone on, they thought that took five years even where instant dismissal was appropriate according to the enterprise agreement.
Like Big M I could write chapters on this.
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Wow, that video was insightful! Similar bullshit here, but they went on about something called ’rounding’ where every patient is ’rounded on’ every hour, every nurse ’rounded on’ every shift by the team leader, every person in the organisation ’rounded on’ at least once a month, every employee having monthly ‘some acronym I forget’ meetings, everyone having ‘ninety day action plans’, etc. That coupled with a boss who was inducted into advanced manager-speak so, if one complained, he would go off on a tangent about what sort of bird you identified yourself as. My usual response was, ‘I’m a human not a fucking bird!’
That coupled with a sociopath with a Sydney phone directory sized pile of complaints in HR being promoted to 2IC (“How did that happen?” I asked. “Oh, we had to promote him.” Was the reply. “Can I meet whoever directed this?” “Oh, no, just higher up.”) Plus the most senior nursing position has been filled by someone with no advanced nursing courses and no management qualifications, who is rude to the who actually do the work. That coupled with the fact that last year I confided in the management that I was having some mental health problems that were probably being exacerbated by working half my shifts as nights. The response was. “Good on you for recognising your problems and seeking help.” Nothing about modifying the roster to make my health better!
Yes, to be honest, Algy, I think we are better off out of it!
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Big, I found out too late that there are only ONE way to deal with a psychopath In the workplace – suck up like crazy – until you see a gap in the traffic, then RUN AWAY.
Too bad I learnt this the hard way.
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Or play them off and pick up the redundancy. Couldn’t wipe the smile off my face when I was made redundant
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Now I feel like I’m the slave who escaped the plantation. Actually I feel like the slave who was emancipated and is being chauffeur driven passed the plantation.
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I can relate to that. Before Christmas had lunch with some. When we’d finished they went back to work and I went home. I felt their pain, then that’s me. For the organisation well, they’re reaping what the sowed.
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lol
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Big M, they thought they were the cat’s pyjamas with that video. We even had variations on it, the boat, the rocket ship. I can tell you of their six direct reports, 4 had some form of professional counselling one should have and the other was too think to notice. Each worked out it was the Manager who was a problem. I might add you could never find them or they’d work off site somewhere.
They also did management by a book then transcribed that at meetings. When I was told why I didn’t get the job, I pointed out 30 years of actual experience, clearly it wasn’t important.
I’m so glad I’m out of there, I’ve never worked somewhere so dysfunctional and toxic as under that boss. It’s a question of have we enough for me to retire at the moment. I’ll probably set up another company and just do a bit of part time consulting. If I don’t enjoy then I’m sure we’ll cope
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The other thing that bothered me towards the end was working with millenials, and I don’t know what your experience has been, but I found that young women spend an extraordinary amount of time not working. They talk, giggle, laugh, look at their phones (which they aren’t supposed to have in a clinical area), and wander off. None of them are up to date with mandatory education, in spite of it all being available on the computer next to each patient. Likewise, very few are motivated enough to look something up for themselves. As one recently retired doctor said. “They don’t just want spoon feeding, they want someone to chew it up and spit it into their mouths, like baby birds.”
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I can relate to that Big M, Manager used to have their favourites, nearly all uncomfortable with this. But there was one towards the end, who was the bosses poodle. They a graduate same age as Junior. Because of the attention they thought they were the 2IC rather than the bottom of the rung. They had certain talents but basically knew stuff all. On top of that had been a graduate for 4 years. Talks to you as though you know nothing, swatted the little shit out the road a few times then it dawned upon them. Junior on the other hand though he can’t quite see it is being groomed for management. The difference is stark between the two. Junior has a mature head on him even though he’s a millennial. The poodle will wake up in a few years and realise how far behind they are, well maybe.
We have a saying among my old work friends. Been hanging around men for too long to be mucked around by boys. Where I left very few adults and plenty of children, ex boss included.
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“Good on you for recognising your problems and seeking help.”. I had a similar response at my exit interview when I pointed out the personal cost of counselling over a period. So thick that when I pointed out workplace injury, they glazed over, useless HR. Me taking responsibility was their response, not the fact that there was a serious problem with the boss and their interactions with direct reports to them.
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Gerard should have a bit to say about this daft work environment. As I read it, I kept thinking “How did anyone get any real work done with this nonsense going on?”
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The thing is I felt I never did. In my meeting last February, I said I could catch the bus home and point out all the projects I’d had input or management to.
Apart from our core work which had to be delivered to a schedule the rest was a trail of unfinished or abandoned projects. Oh and write reports that nobody read.
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Algy apropos of the “nobody reads” comment, I watched an hourlong lecture from a guy at Chicago uni teaching postgrads how to write so that they actually produce competitive grant applications. It was stunning.
He pointed out that all the writing they had done up till then was for people paid to read it and that all they had to do was show they knew his/her shit and had done some work.
As opposed to writing something the readers perceive to be valuable. For those of us pitching for work there are some excellent tips. We must give the reader a role ! Challenge them if possible.
A trite example is in those click bait headers “5 things you must avoid in interviews “ says to me I must check them out even if all but one are bullshit. I have a role and the value for me might be that I learn something rather beneficial (unlikely but not impossible).
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The were read, he’ just get someone else to write his report and extract the important information. Pity that person didn’t have the technical skills to do that.
Could have talked about courses on how to deal with difficult people. WTF Been there done that, just needed the Managers support.
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