A-holes who report to you

[globetrotter]

ok, we have a thread about A-hole bosses, now about guys who report to you.

when you are a kid, you think that it would just be easy to fire an A-hole. I have a guy working for me who is extremly high maintanance, to the point where I really have to consider if he is worth keeping or getting rid of. he is a great performer, and a nice enough guy in a lot of ways. but boy he is an A-hole.

this week -

1. I buy tickets to take him and a couple of other guys to a hockey game, but I give him some bad news before hand and he sits the game out in the car, doens't come in

2. I find out that ********* one of the sales girls that works for a distributor of his, and we have had horrible results from this particular market. I can't help but believe that this is connected

3. we are sitting at the same table for a company dinner, with the CEO. the CEO hates to talk work at meals. and, the CEO is very concerned about the safety of our employees traveling internationally. we have somebody going to lebanon in the next few weeks. while I haven't hidden it from the CEO, I didn't go out of my way to bring it to his attention, either. so my guy says to the guy who is traveling to lebanon, who was at the same table "oh, you like cigars? you will find great cigars in lebanon. lebanon has the best cigar stores in the middle east. it is very safe there, you shouldn't worry - it is safe, like all the countries in my territory - lebanon, egypt, syria, libya, all very safe".

4. I take out the girls who do order entry for lunch, with my team. he stis across from one woman who has lost both parents in the past year, and has been falling behind in work pretty badly. I have been working with her boss to improve her performance. he starts saying things like "you know, I forgive you for all the big mistakes and fuckups you made this year!!, I am a very forgiving person, even though you really did a lot of big mistakes, I want to get past that and forgive you. of course, its very hard to fogive all of these huge fuckups you did" etc. I finally grabbed him, dragged him away from the table and told him to shut the **** up.

5. we have a round table to discuss competition, my guys and the domestic sales team. one competitor that only sells domestically is raised - my guys have literally never seen a single piece of this product, and my guy starts talking about it. there are 9 domestic guys, each with 10-30 years experience, my guy is talking more than any of them about this. again, I ahd to physically pull him away from the table and tell him to shut the **** up.


anyway, not asking for advice or anything, just venting.


vent about yourA-hole reports

 

[thekunk07]

i hired a half marsupialed copywriter once to write on the adobe account. some pretty technical copy. i told her it was too techy, make it more conversational.

she kept all the copy as is but made it a conversation between two people.

 

[why]

Originally Posted by thekunk07

i hired a half marsupialed copywriter once to write on the adobe account. some pretty technical copy. i told her it was too techy, make it more conversational.

she kept all the copy as is but made it a conversation between two people.

What a dumb ****.

 

[tor]

Originally Posted by thekunk07

i hired a half marsupialed copywriter once to write on the adobe account. some pretty technical copy. i told her it was too techy, make it more conversational.

she kept all the copy as is but made it a conversation between two people.

What a dumb *****. Where do you find these people?

 

[thekunk07]

was a forced quota hire. no comment.

i have had some doozies over the years. had a guy come in for a portfolio review and had a ton of famous ads. turned out all he did was resize them for different publications.

 

[acidboy]

don't you have power to remove the asshat, GT?

 

[Douglas]

I think I've shared this story before...

I once had a girl working as an inside sales assistant. When she was first hired, I knew she didn't have a lot of experience but she seemed to have a good telephone persona and the administrative skills to get the job done and grow in the position. Of course, one of the basic requirements is familiarity with MS Office, which I was assured she had.

Well, not long into it I asked her to pull some reports for me and data entry them into Excel. It was a pretty easy task. About a week later, I asked where it was and she told me she wasn't finished. I figured she had been busy, then gave her a few more days to finish it.

When she finally gave it to me, it was apparent she had no clue how to use Excel. She had posted multiple data points in cells, using the pipes character to separate them, and using the space bar to try to have everything line up vertically up and down the page. Ugh.

 

[sho'nuff]

Originally Posted by globetrotter

1. I buy tickets to take him and a couple of other guys to a hockey game, but I give him some bad news before hand and he sits the game out in the car, doens't come in

who does this guy think he is ?? your

ing girlfriend??

 

[sho'nuff]

Originally Posted by Douglas

I think I've shared this story before...

I once had a girl working as an inside sales assistant. When she was first hired, I knew she didn't have a lot of experience but she seemed to have a good telephone persona and the administrative skills to get the job done and grow in the position. Of course, one of the basic requirements is familiarity with MS Office, which I was assured she had.

Well, not long into it I asked her to pull some reports for me and data entry them into Excel. It was a pretty easy task. About a week later, I asked where it was and she told me she wasn't finished. I figured she had been busy, then gave her a few more days to finish it.

When she finally gave it to me, it was apparent she had no clue how to use Excel. She had posted multiple data points in cells, using the pipes character to separate them, and using the space bar to try to have everything line up vertically up and down the page. Ugh.

aww.. that is so cute.

 

[DBoon]

Originally Posted by globetrotter

1. I buy tickets to take him and a couple of other guys to a hockey game, but I give him some bad news before hand and he sits the game out in the car, doesn't come in
This is criminal. My 7-year-old nephew once started to pull something like this, I asked him "I thought you were a big boy now?" and he walked into the game and had a blast.

 

[globetrotter]

Originally Posted by acidicboy

don't you have power to remove the asshat, GT?

I do. here is the thing -

1. he is a good performer. he sells. he may be high maintanance, but he sells. and if I have to replace him and if I have to train a new guy, I could loose 6 months of sales.

2. I have fired one guy and had another guy quit in the past 3 years. I don't need to be regarded as so blood thirsty.

 

[earthdragon]

Originally Posted by globetrotter

ok, we have a thread about A-hole bosses, now about guys who report to you.

when you are a kid, you think that it would just be easy to fire an A-hole. I have a guy working for me who is extremly high maintanance, to the point where I really have to consider if he is worth keeping or getting rid of. he is a great performer, and a nice enough guy in a lot of ways. but boy he is an A-hole.

this week -

1. I buy tickets to take him and a couple of other guys to a hockey game, but I give him some bad news before hand and he sits the game out in the car, doens't come in

2. I find out that ********* one of the sales girls that works for a distributor of his, and we have had horrible results from this particular market. I can't help but believe that this is connected

3. we are sitting at the same table for a company dinner, with the CEO. the CEO hates to talk work at meals. and, the CEO is very concerned about the safety of our employees traveling internationally. we have somebody going to lebanon in the next few weeks. while I haven't hidden it from the CEO, I didn't go out of my way to bring it to his attention, either. so my guy says to the guy who is traveling to lebanon, who was at the same table "oh, you like cigars? you will find great cigars in lebanon. lebanon has the best cigar stores in the middle east. it is very safe there, you shouldn't worry - it is safe, like all the countries in my territory - lebanon, egypt, syria, libya, all very safe".

4. I take out the girls who do order entry for lunch, with my team. he stis across from one woman who has lost both parents in the past year, and has been falling behind in work pretty badly. I have been working with her boss to improve her performance. he starts saying things like "you know, I forgive you for all the big mistakes and fuckups you made this year!!, I am a very forgiving person, even though you really did a lot of big mistakes, I want to get past that and forgive you. of course, its very hard to fogive all of these huge fuckups you did" etc. I finally grabbed him, dragged him away from the table and told him to shut the **** up.

5. we have a round table to discuss competition, my guys and the domestic sales team. one competitor that only sells domestically is raised - my guys have literally never seen a single piece of this product, and my guy starts talking about it. there are 9 domestic guys, each with 10-30 years experience, my guy is talking more than any of them about this. again, I ahd to physically pull him away from the table and tell him to shut the **** up.


anyway, not asking for advice or anything, just venting.


vent about yourA-hole reports

86 him or Invite him to a 'Blanket Party'.

 

[Piobaire]

GT,

I know exactly what you're saying. Unless you manage people, you just don't know what this is like. I have a theory, that a good manager is someone that can take imperfect tools, and basically all people are imperfect tools (to one extent or another), and get the job done. I coasted a senior manager along for three years, because I knew what a PITA it was going to be to replace a marginal person. It makes me sick to know I settle for mediocrity, but that's the real world.

 

[montecristo#4]

You've had it easy until you have managed multiple ambitious women, each vying for attention, approval, and recognition at the expense of each other.

 

[Connemara]

Originally Posted by montecristo#4

You've had it easy until you have managed multiple ambitious women, each vying for attention, approval, and recognition at the expense of each other.
In my experience, they tend to wear slutty skirts, so it's not all bad. But they are often really annoying.