Workplace Warfare: How to Survive Incompetent Colleagues, Horrible Bosses and Organizational Theatrics

WORKPLACE WARFARE

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How to Survive Incompetent Colleagues, Horrible Bosses and Organizational Theatrics

Copyright © 2015 by Yasser Mattar

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ISBN: 978-981-09-5666-0

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http://twitter.com/workplacewar

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ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any other information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author.

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Cover illustrations by Dian Lestari & Ivan Danny Handoko

Contents

Preface

Introduction

How to Survive Incompetent Colleagues

Types of Colleagues

The Gossipmonger

The Whisperer

The Keyboard Warrior

The Mouse

The Captains of Incompetence

Caveat Lector

Declaration of War

Making Alliances

The Non-Competitive Ones

Checkpoint One

How to Survive Horrible Bosses

The Managerial Imperative

Types of Managers

The Machiavellian Manager

The Bross

The Simulator

The Artful Dodger

Caveat Lector

Sandwiched Managers

Managing Management

Group Preservation

Fighting Capabilities

Manager-Staffer Alliances

Management as Mediator

Checkpoint Two

How to Survive Organizational Theatrics

The Work Process

Work-Life Balance

One Big Happy Family

Job Interviews

Giving Suggestions

Diversity

Checkpoint 3

Conclusion

About the Author

References

Preface

Every morning when you walk into the workplace, you watch your step for landmines. Every time you pop your head up above your cubicle, you see arrows flying in your direction. You duck, just to avoid them. Fearing for your safety, you dig a foxhole and bury yourself in it for the next nine hours. At the end of the day, when you walk out of the workplace, you thank your lucky stars that you came out alive.

The workplace is a war zone. Which side will you choose?

Do you want to be the likeable colleague who gets along with everyone? Do you want to just put your head down, work hard and maximize your potential? Do you want to be the best team player you can be?

Then this book is NOT for you.

This book is for those of us who have always wondered...

* Why the reward for good work is usually more work... 

* Why good work never really seems to speak for itself...

* Why incompetence seems to be tolerated at the workplace...

* Why some people never really put in their full effort at work...

* Why workplaces are so fond of calling themselves family...

* Why some people just don’t bother with office politics, while others are absolutely in the thick of it...

If this whets your appetite, please read on. I repeat. The workplace is a war zone, and we do what we must to survive. Lock and load.

Introduction

All is fair in love and war. But nothing is quite fair in the workplace. Come on. We all do what we have to do to make a living. We like our jobs to varying degrees. Some of us absolutely love our jobs, while others among us just tolerate them. I mean, we’re all fairly good at our jobs. Not perfect, but fairly good.

Some of us work just because we need the money. If this describes us, then we pretty much love the money, but not so much everything else about the job. We celebrate our monthversaries with the job and fall in love with the job over and over again. On payday, just in case you didn’t get what I was getting at.

But hey, some of us aren’t in it just for the money, and we work because we feel passionately for the profession. Really, I mean some of us are quite comfortable with our material lives and thus don’t need any extra money beyond what we we’re getting. Affluent, yes we are, but more importantly, we evaluate our jobs based on the satisfaction we get from the job. Money to some of us, is a hygiene factor. We will be unhappy and uncomfortable without it, but money in and of itself does not motivate us to give our best at work. As previously argued by Frederick Herzberg, the challenge of the work, the recognition for work well done, the opportunity to do meaningful tasks and such are more important to us because these give us a feeling of satisfaction from our jobs, and consequently, motivation to perform.

And then there are those of us who don’t need the money at all and work for sheer passion. Retirees, for example. Some retirees come out of retirement and assume positions just because they feel passionately for the profession. Young people with rich parents, for example. Their parents might give them some cash to open a small bohemian boutique or a hipster cafe or something. They pretty much work just for passion, not for the money.

Of course, there are the odd hedons who don’t work but would rather choose to surf or ride motorcycles or play acoustic folk songs their whole lives.

Most of us are toggling in between all of these categories mentioned above. On some days, we come to work full of passion and don’t mind not claiming that inconsequential taxi fare. On other days, particularly when we’re frustrated with our jobs, we’re counting the days to payday and continually tell ourselves that we’re just in this job for the money. Yet, on other days, we wish we could just run away and join a hippie commune away from the hustle and bustle of the rat race.

Let’s face it. Work is unnatural. Can we imagine our Paleolithic forefathers being woken up ever so rudely by a blaring alarm clock, then splashing themselves with water, then deliberately putting stinging alcohol on their faces, then rushing off, all at the same time, towards a cave where they would sit and toil for the next nine hours or more? No? But that’s exactly what we do today. Sounds strange when put in that context, doesn’t it? The anthropologist Horace Minor previously painted a similar scenario for us. He described the strange rituals of a tribe he calls as the Nacirema, but as it was revealed to us at the end of his article, he was actually describing Americans (Nacirema spelled backwards).

Why do we do this to ourselves? For the reasons I made above. We seek money and satisfaction from this activity called work. If we were to follow our natural instincts, we’d rise when there is a need to rise. We’d shower when we’re dirty. And we certainly wouldn’t squeeze into an overcrowded train carriage or sit in traffic just to get to somewhere we don’t absolutely have to be anyway.

And yet, when we get to the workplace, which we’ve fought tooth and nail to get to through the unforgiving traffic and irreverent trains, mind you, we find that it ain’t all that fair. We find ourselves thinking, I got out of bed just for this? That was how I began this book anyway. Now, I beg my own question, why not? Why is nothing quite fair in the workplace?

Well, firstly, none of us are clones of each other. We each bring a little something something to the table in the workplace. We each bring along our respective knowledge and skills. Some of this was gained from previous jobs. Some of this was gained from formal education. And so we all try (to varying degrees) to contribute some level of usefulness (debatable, I agree) to the work process. And that little something something that we bring to the table includes a little bit of attitude as well. We all have different attitudes towards the workplace (this is covered in Chapter 2 under Types of Colleagues). Some of us are, well, not so motivated. For many reasons, motivation is kind of lost on some of us. Not that there’s anything wrong with us, you see. As Peter Gibbons said in the cult classic Office Space, It's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care... It's a problem of motivation, alright? Motivation is the result of a variety of different factors, some within our control and some without. Others among us are not that great at our jobs and are just trying to wing it. Don’t lie. You know who you are. I’m guilty of that too. There was once I was asked to teach a class on medical psychology. Come on, I’m an organizational behaviorist. What in the world did I know about medical psychology? But just like a baker, I kneaded (needed, duh) the dough. So I winged it like a winger. 2 words. Wiki. Pedia.

Secondly, our relative ranks, appointments and positions in the workplace imbue us with different imperatives. And our relative ranks in our respective organizations are determined by the issue of trust. New institutional economists like Oliver E. Williamson have looked at organizational cultures, and have argued that organizations often have trust issues with their employees. Organizations do not trust employees to not pilfer company assets. Organizations do not trust employees to not shame the company through their indiscretions. Organizations do not trust employees to deliver deliverables on time. And so how do organizations handle this trust issue? Organizations have chosen to go about it in two ways: Either to market out the tasks that need to be done to subcontractors, or to split the organization into a reporting hierarchical structure. Organizations which choose to market out the tasks that need to be done tend to remain small in employee size. They don’t employ employees to do most of the work. Rather, they pay subcontractors to do most of their work for them. Does this work? For their intents and purposes, very much so! You see, subcontractors are primarily interested in earning money from their client organizations. The client organizations, in turn, are primarily interested in getting tasks done. The relationship between client organizations and subcontractors thus become a reciprocal arm’s length relationship which works for both parties. The trust issue is thus overcome by paying for tasks to be done, while keeping the ones doing those tasks outside of the organization. The other way to address this trust issue would be to split the organization into a reporting hierarchical structure. This suits larger organizations much better. In this instance, the organization will put the least trustworthy fella at the very bottom of the hierarchy. He reports to somebody who reports to somebody who reports to somebody. The least trustworthy fella is of course, the lowest ranking Staffer. The higher up the hierarchy one goes, the more trustworthy the fellas get. Those at the bottom are checked by the ones above them. Those fellas higher up the top are given the title of Management and are vested with the powers of representing the organization. The ones in the middle, well, they’re pretty much sandwiched in between the upper Management and the Staff. I refer to them as Sandwiched Managers in Chapter 2. These fellas often get the short end of the stick both ways. Staffers treat them like Managers, because they hold an official Managerial title. They’re also required to defend the interests of the organization, which I will refer to, also in Chapter 2, as the Managerial Imperative. Yet, their superior Managers think of them as not trustworthy enough to have significant decision-making powers and to effect change in the organization. In effect, these Sandwiched Managers are chimeras that have the worst of each parentage.

The greatest trick Management ever pulled was to convince Staff that rank doesn’t exist. Some Managers are happy to have us recognize their superiority. These are the kind who will correct the way we refer to them. Remember that episode of Seinfeld where George Costanza’s dad insists that George refer to him as Mr Costanza in the place of business? Yes, that’s what I mean. But there are also some Managers who do not want the hierarchy acknowledged. Again, for a variety of reasons. Some want to promote the image that the workplace is a family. The idea here is that workplace family members love one another and help each other out. (Sorry, did you see my eyes rolling there? We’ll discuss the reason why I rolled my eyes in Chapter 3 of the book under One Big Happy Family). Another reason would be that they are of the opinion that hierarchy impedes creative growth and a veneer of equal treatment encourages productivity.

Fact of the matter is, our placement in the hierarchy gives us entitlement and power. That ain’t equal treatment. That’s rank. That’s as much damn rank as there is between Gomer Pyle and Sergeant Carter. That ain’t Hannibal, Face, Murdock and B.A. Baracus. Hannibal, Face, Murdock and B.A. contribute to the A-Team horizontally. That means that they do different but equal parts of the work process. Gomer Pyle and Sergeant Carter are in vertical integration. That means that they do different parts of the work process which are differentiated according to priority, power and value. Sergeant Carter’s work obviously has more priority and value than Pyle’s. Sergeant Carter accordingly has more power than Pyle.

As I mentioned above, our relative ranks, appointments and positions in the workplace imbue us with different imperatives. So, what are these imperatives?

Management is concerned with getting the maximum output from Staff, while giving them the least possible returns. Least possible, without pushing them to quit, of course. I mean, if they start thinking that the amount of work they put in is not worth the returns they get, they will quit. And by returns, I mean salary plus perks plus benefits plus bonus plus commission plus whatever ever. Management is not likely to pay a Staffer more than what they think he’s worth. If he comes in as a fresh graduate, they’ll pay him basic. If he comes in with a Master’s degree and work experience they’ll pay him slightly more. Why? Because to Management, the applicant with Masters and work experience will be more productive. Will they pay a Staffer extra out of good faith? Will they pay a Staffer extra because he seems earnest? Nope. They’ll pay him only as much as they think he’s worth. If that Staffer will work for less pay, even better. They’ll pay him that.

On the flip side, Staffers are concerned with maximizing their returns and satisfaction while minimizing their effort. Returns, again, refers to the same thing mentioned in the paragraph above, which is salary plus perks plus benefits plus bonus plus commission plus whatever ever. By satisfaction here, I am referring to the whole gamut of emotive aspects of the job, such as being given manageable challenges, being involved in decision-making, having a sense of ownership and having the feeling that one is actually doing meaningful work that one enjoys. Also, we all are concerned with minimizing our effort. Effort here refers to the pooled amount of energy we put in to work and work-related tasks. It, of course, includes the amount of work that we put in doing the actual work tasks. We want to perform these tasks quickly, efficiently, and move on to the next. We certainly do not appreciate receiving unclear instructions, causing us to have to redo the work. Ain’t that right? It also includes the amount of work that we do as part of a team. We want to work as equally hard as the other fella. We don’t want to be the workhorse, doing everything that is required in the team, just to have the other members of our team sit idly by. For the same amount of salary per team member, we’d expect the work to be divided