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I’ve worked for a large insurance company as a sales manager for a little over 2 years now. I’ve stayed busy and have done my best to do a good job. But lately, I’ve begun to feel much malaise and frustration with the company’s incompetence. This has showed itself in terms of proposing over the top member benefits to horrible software programs that repeat themselves year after year. I’ve invested much time in trying to build new relationships with agents to sell our products, but seem to always lose them when the company’s benefits/services blow up in their face of their customers. I now have a “F*ck it” attitude that I will fail or not be my BEST in my customer’s eyes-depressing thought. Anyone else feel this way?
Yes, esp so when you've worked for good management with top quality people and seen how good things can be. How much can be accomplished and fun it is to come to work. And then watched the decline as low quality management took over and watched the spread of incompetence as good people head for the exits and the un-hirable stay behind.
Funny that my wife and I were just discussing this after listening to a radio host arguing with a teacher that by not giving teacher's a pay raise, it would force the bad teachers out. (No, we are not teachers BTW). We discussed how that is a dumb philosophy that what actually happens is the good people, the ones you want to keep, get fed up and leave for other jobs. And you're left with an increasing concentration of poor performers who stay because they know they can't get a good job elsewhere.
Yes, esp so when you've worked for good management with top quality people and seen how good things can be. How much can be accomplished and fun it is to come to work. And then watched the decline as low quality management took over and watched the spread of incompetence as good people head for the exits and the un-hirable stay behind.
Funny that my wife and I were just discussing this after listening to a radio host arguing with a teacher that by not giving teacher's a pay raise, it would force the bad teachers out. (No, we are not teachers BTW). We discussed how that is a dumb philosophy that what actually happens is the good people, the ones you want to keep, get fed up and leave for other jobs. And you're left with an increasing concentration of poor performers who stay because they know they can't get a good job elsewhere.
Yep. That's actually one of the dangers you run into when you see a company with a lot of people who have been there for a very long time. Good people tend to job hop a little, given they don't put up with things like that. If you're interviewing and see a lot of people who have been at a company for decades, it could be a warning sign that they are bad workers, and run by bad management.
That being said, everyone will always work with some incompetent people. Being able to get things done in spite of those people (and to understand them and win them to your way of thinking) is a pretty important skill to develop.
At my current job which I've been for 7 years I am fortunate to work with very skilled, highly educated competent people. Unfortunately I can't say the same for the HR. The parent company gave them a blank check to spend ungodly money on HR quackery software and consulting and then inflict it on the workers. In the meantime our equipment is old and constantly breaking. My coworkers and myself do not appreciate having our time wasted dealing with this new HR "performance management system" we openly mock it and HR, have no confidence we are being assessed on the quality of our work etc.
Management and HR are always worrying about morale, being a best work place etc. However, they would improve that significantly if they would just but HR on a short leash. Yea it distresses me how many companies let HR run wild.
Well, there's worse. I collected my last paycheck from a company that had a good industry position, a fabulous office and plant, and quite a few good people working for it.
It also had complete drone deadweights in a couple of key positions, blocking nearly all progress in those areas, and an owner/CEO who didn't care... because in the end, the business was just a hobby to keep him occupied. Real progress and growth were endlessly talked about, but as long as the company was modestly profitable, it was all just hot air.
They've filled my former position three times in less than a year, and outside observation says those people were seeing the same stalled circle of inaction that drove me out.
I’ve worked for a large insurance company as a sales manager for a little over 2 years now. I’ve stayed busy and have done my best to do a good job. But lately, I’ve begun to feel much malaise and frustration with the company’s incompetence. This has showed itself in terms of proposing over the top member benefits to horrible software programs that repeat themselves year after year. I’ve invested much time in trying to build new relationships with agents to sell our products, but seem to always lose them when the company’s benefits/services blow up in their face of their customers. I now have a “F*ck it” attitude that I will fail or not be my BEST in my customer’s eyes-depressing thought. Anyone else feel this way?
I'm also deeply depressed and disillusioned with the outrageous incompetence of my own company. It's a little different to your own maybe, but still ends up in the same place - people not thinking long term, no belief in structure or planning, just this drive to make things up, dress up the statistics and get quick bucks.
I completely understand the realities of the corporate world and the pressures that organizations face, but it gets exhausting when the performance of others around you is so sloppy, expectations of you are so low, everyone is playing it day by day and nobody really cares about the future. Trying to even get these grown adults to come in on time is a challenge which people seem to have given up on.
Also our middle management doesn't really understand their own industry despite working in it for years. This is especially apparent in their strategy of how we are directed to use our own software. They simply don't understand what they are doing. It's appalling how bad they have destroyed any sense of what the program is there to do, makes my life impossible and not to mention it is embarrassing when communicating with our contractors and our clients. What am I supposed to say? I can't get this info you need because our management is crazy?
I’ve worked for a large insurance company as a sales manager for a little over 2 years now. I’ve stayed busy and have done my best to do a good job. But lately, I’ve begun to feel much malaise and frustration with the company’s incompetence. This has showed itself in terms of proposing over the top member benefits to horrible software programs that repeat themselves year after year. I’ve invested much time in trying to build new relationships with agents to sell our products, but seem to always lose them when the company’s benefits/services blow up in their face of their customers. I now have a “F*ck it” attitude that I will fail or not be my BEST in my customer’s eyes-depressing thought. Anyone else feel this way?
Yes, I’m actually amazed at how poorly big, well known companies are run. When I was in college, I had this mystique about the Fortune 500 being elite like how you would think of NBA players or something in terms of athletics.
But really, they have probably 20 to 30 percent of the work force that is actually exceptional. But there’s an equal amount of people who are absolutely dead wood. Either because they’ve been there so long and are just complacent and financially secure or they’re just off in some useless silo lost in the beuracracy of a big employer. For people who are good, you get piled on with expectations and work. People who suck can skate by with very little responsibility or accountability. Trying to work with other business units as a corporate business unit can be downright disgusting. Emails go off into the void or just get passed around through literally 10 people before someone actually claims “hey I can be responsible for that”.
It seems the only way to get rid of useless people is through mass layoffs. And quite literally I think you could fire 1/5 of the staff in these companies without the company even skipping a beat.
No surprise reading these posts. You'll probably find dozens, maybe hundreds of similar stories as the thread ages.
I had a great job, working with great people and could have stayed with it indefinitely. Then our President retired and the parent company sent in a new President who promptly reorganized the company in his own image, promoted incompetent people to supervisory positions, and installed a middle tier of know-nothings to audit all of our files as part of our performance review.
It came to a head one day when I had a dispute with my incompetent supervisor. It wouldn't get resolved so I gave up and retired.
I realize that not everybody is financially prepared to jump ship like that but if you start hating your job you either figure out how to stick with it or you seek employment elsewhere if retirement is not yet an option.
Yes, I’m actually amazed at how poorly big, well known companies are run. When I was in college, I had this mystique about the Fortune 500 being elite like how you would think of NBA players or something in terms of athletics.
The reality is that you can't run a larger company like a baseball team, demoting or dropping staff for plateauing too long or a period of decline in performance.
It's a bit like pitching in the majors... when there were only 12 teams, it was rare for a team not to have one or two future HoFers on its rotation, if not more. Expand to 32 teams, and the pool of these exquisitely talented players is diluted.
If you have 5,000 employees, they're not going to be the best 5,000 employees on earth.
That this sometimes spreads into whole layers or departments of middling competence is both true and regrettable, but I think a lot of such assessment that "there's a whole middle layer no one needs" is a bit subjective. See the recent laughable thread about how software teams don't need any management.
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