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Why do you guys think this only started in the last few years? It's always been that way.
Back to the original question. There are bosses who are collaborative and encourage input and bosses who only want yes men to validate them. If you have the former then questions or advice is usually welcomed or an explanation why not is forthcoming. If the latter you upset that person's internal harmony by not going along and agreeing with everything.
I've worked for both types.
The ones who want a "yes men" are the worst types. They call meetings and bring people in to hear what they have to say, and don't end the meeting until everyone agrees with them no matter how convoluted or misguided their approach and explanation is. With those types, we found it was best to agree with him in the meeting and then return to work and continue as we were doing before. It shorten the meeting and it made it less frustrating for the rest of us. Just to show there is some justice, when they spun-off the company that supervisor's job was posted and he wasn't asked to join the new company.
The ones who want a "yes men" are the worst types. They call meetings and bring people in to hear what they have to say, and don't end the meeting until everyone agrees with them no matter how convoluted or misguided their approach and explanation is. With those types, we found it was best to agree with him in the meeting and then return to work and continue as we were doing before. It shorten the meeting and it made it less frustrating for the rest of us. Just to show there is some justice, when they spun-off the company that supervisor's job was posted and he wasn't asked to join thenew company.
I'm not scared of my manager per se. I'm scared that I might tell him off when he approaches me because I have a little problem with authority figures. My manager makes over 6 times what I make and does very little. He delegates all his tasks to others to ensure that. I get offended when he has time to watch me work, chit chat, and joke around with a very bad sense of humor. I'm thinking to myself "why doesn't he do anything?" or "doesn't he have something better to do?"
It takes all my power to bite my tongue when he's around me, and I haven't always been successful in the past. I want him to leave me alone. There are enough other brownnosers that I work with who are more than happy to kiss his butt. So yeah, I'm scared I'm going to lose it one day and tell him off and lose my job. That scares me since I have no other job prospects or any skills to speak of.
I'm not afraid of my manager, but I am in debt so losing my job would put me in a bad position financially speaking. Fortunately, I have been living frugally since graduating college last year and getting this job in April. I knocked out 3 debts with 3 more to go plus student loans. I don't worry about the loans because they are under the pay-as-you-go Obama plan. It's not ideal, but if I lose my job, my monthly payment goes down to $0. Once I pay the 3 debts off, I'm out of here and off to another industry.
I suspect that most people are living paycheck-to-paycheck and are afraid of rocking the boat due to financial obligations.
Not if you are smart. I have been very frugal, so I can go several years without a job if I have to. Also, if your manager gets a hemmorhoid and fires you for pissing him off one day, you can collect unemployment while you look for a new job. Living well below your means, having a nice nest egg, and knowing you will get unemployment if your boss fires you really does take a lot of power away from him.
Do your job well but don't be afraid of shirking BS duties or speaking up if company policies, politics, or strategy bothers you assuming you can financially handle being fired.
Do your job well but don't be afraid of shirking BS duties or speaking up if company policies, politics, or strategy bothers you assuming you can financially handle being fired.
It's not really getting fired I'm afraid of, it's not being able to get another job after getting fired that I'm personally afraid of. But who am I kidding, it's hard to get another job anyway.
Thank you for the responses. Clearly there are a lot of different work environments. I see some places on a regular basis in my life where lack of confidence in approaching management creates a major roadblock to getting work done effectively.
And yes, I've seen some bad managers that weren't approached because they weren't in much of a position to truly help. Either they didn't have the technical skill, the power to really change anything, or frankly the desire to do anything beyond the schedule. (That's gotta be a sad way to work).
I worked retail a good deal of my life and the managers generally had no ability to fire anyone. Even the write-ups had to go through HR and the store manager. Luckily my managers were usually too drunk or stoned to care.
-- Because they can get fired by the managers, period.
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