5 Ways to Deal with a Slacker Manager
March 6, 2009 by Phil Gerbyshak
Filed under Business
In 5 Ways to Deal with Slacker Co-Workers, I got some very interesting and insightful comments. I encourage you to read the post and look for ways to deal with those slackers you work with.
But today, I got a new comment, with a question that I felt was worth answering, and seeing what all the smart people who read this blog have to say.
Slim shared: “Our recently new (about 1 year) boss brought 2 people over from his old department with him. There were already 4 of us in the department when he got here and we all 4 have a strong work ethic. The 2 he brought over are, in a word, worthless. One surfs the net and plays with her iPhone all day. Everytime she is giving an assignment, she grabs one or two of us to help. She’s been doing admin setups on our package for over a year and was trained well, but she still does not understand the most basic concepts of it – she asks me the same questions over and over.
The four of us are here by 7:30 – she comes in around 8:10, takes 1:15 – 1:30 lunches (we’re only allowed 45 minutes). They both worked on an AS400 in their old job and still do some. But she refuses to learn VB or SQL and shows absolutely no motivation to improve her knowledge. The other person basically is never at his desk! He must walk for miles a day around the office building in order to not have to sit down and work. No one seems to know where he goes!
They were both brought over ostensibly with the idea of helping but that’s been far from the case. I personally think they would have been let go if he had not brought them over. I have talked to my boss about this, he knows about these issues, but it’s obvious he does not like confrontation – that seems to be his only weakness – he’s really a pretty good manager. These 2 extra employees are affecting our morale….they just show up and collect a pay check and that’s about it.
Plus, they never seem to be held accountable for what they do, while we are. They are probably two of the most anti-tech people I’ve ever seen in a tech job – no interest in technology whatsoever. I don’t even want to think how much these two are getting for doing nothing! I am not sure what to do at this point. Go to my manager’s boss?”
What do you do when you’re dealing with a REAL Slacker Manager? My thoughts:
Mentally prepare yourself to be fired or to quit your job over this. Some managers do not welcome this type of behavior, and if you’re not willing to deal with the worst, you may want to keep your head down and just do your job.
Make absolutely sure you’re doing what you’re getting paid to do. The old saw about people in glass houses not throwing stones is very true here. If you’re not exemplary, it’s time to focus on YOUR performance and YOUR behavior.
Document what you observe, and what the impact of this behavior is. Ultimately, if the works gets done and customers aren’t complaining, then there isn’t a big problem. If this is truly impacting you and your work, then most likely it is impacting your customers. Take some time to gather feedback from your customers and document what you say.
Schedule a one-on-meeting with your manager. Talk to your manager about the documentation you’ve gathered, and explain the impact to you and the feedback from your customers. Focus on the impact to you, and the information you’ve gathered that impacts your customers.
Present solutions on how to improve this situation, don’t just focus on the problems. Whiners present just problems without solutions, and nobody likes a whiner.
When you’re done with these 5 steps, be patient, and let your manager deal with the offensive co-workers. It’s your manager’s job to deal with this situation, not yours. Let the process work itself out, and keep working hard. This slacking didn’t happen overnight, and it won’t get fixed overnight.
What would YOU do with this challenging situation?
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It appears that our management actually encourages such behavior – but that it only reserved to certain individuls. Management also encourages backstabbing and walking over the dead bodies of their victims.
As to the others who actually HAVE work ethics – more is usually piled on to make up for the slack of the privileged few. And that these slackers are ususlly the very ones who are promoted! We have a full-blow “Bozo Explosion” here!
What management doesn’t realize yet is that the only reason people are still working here is becuase of the poor employment environment. I have talked to many people in different departments and they all tell me the same – “As soon as the economy gets better I’m outta here!”
I’d definetly go to your bosses boss. If they react badly or treat you like a tattle tale then thats a reflection of their lacking management skills not a reflection of you. I believe that bosses should “never avoid the yuck” (http://thebossbenchmark.blogspot.com/2009/01/more-reasons-to-not-avoid-yuck.html) they should be very very ready to listen to anything you have to say and do something about it.