Office politics?

[Goring Gull]

Are they rife in your work place? Are some people untouchable with hides like teflon despite unbelievable incompetance? How do you ride out the daily power struggles when all you really want to do is get the job done and feck off home?

 

[The Peanut Roaster]

I'm self employed.

I've just lost, yesterday, a contract through office politics worth 75% of my turnover.

I've looked after them, ie, the owner, when he started 12 years ago, as a one man band. He's now worth around 20 million sterling.

Wanking, f***ing office poitics has just lost me my job.

I am now officially a Marxist.

 

[1234andcounting]

Love it, office politics. Keeps me amused. I have spent the better part of a working lifetime pissing upwards, ie taking the piss out of senior people who think they are the bees knees; get my knuckles rapped every now and then, but I am too good at my job to sack. It still pisses me off when people seem unsackable, but it just gives me more ammunition.

 

[16bha]

Unfortunately it's all part of the game these days. As well as technical and management skills, you need to learn how to become the political animal.

In my experience, it's always the colleagues who stress how they don't do politics that play the game most!

 

[beorhthelm]

im too lowly to be involved (though of course they affect me), so i do quite enjoy the soap opera of them.

 

[Jack Daniels]

Are they rife in your work place? Are some people untouchable with hides like teflon despite unbelievable incompetance? How do you ride out the daily power struggles when all you really want to do is get the job done and feck off home?

Absolutely. Got told to "f*** off I don't care what you think" by my assistant manager yesterday. After a bit of banter went to far and i asked him to leave it. Difficult one as he is long term friends with the owner MD so it's hard to pull rank.

Told another manager who had a word with him. This was like turning a campfire into an inferno. He lept out the container we were unloading ran after me shouting like a syco with his fists clenched.

Nought will happen, especially the sacking he deserves for threatening/ bullying behaviour.

 

[Beach Hut]

There is a battalion of people of which I have no clue what they do where I work but consider themselves very important and seem to spend all day having meetings and incurring huge expenses.

I suspect come the next cull they may be cut down to size.

 

[bhanutz]

I have just quit my job and set up my own company. I cant believe how some totally inept and incompetent people kiss the right arses and keep their jobs. It happens in every office and it is always the people without the skills to do the job that act like this. There is also a culture of 'I want a flash job tiltle but I actually do f*** all' it makes the working day go quicker just sitting back and watching these ridiculous idiots making fools of themselves.

 

[Deleted member 22389]

I have just quit my job and set up my own company. I cant believe how some totally inept and incompetent people kiss the right arses and keep their jobs. It happens in every office and it is always the people without the skills to do the job that act like this. There is also a culture of 'I want a flash job tiltle but I actually do f*** all' it makes the working day go quicker just sitting back and watching these ridiculous idiots making fools of themselves.

Your so right here. Worked for a company that was turning profit, then they got taken over by an american company. The next 2 years where a complete and utter disaster. New people where employed with super salaries and super job titles.

New processes where implemented. Jobs that used to take me 5 mins, now took me 2 days once it had gone through all the BS, sometimes these jobs never got completed at all. There was no longer any communication.

Most annoyingly all these new people just passed the buck. Nobody admitted to mistakes, or took responsibility. All they where interested in was climbing that ladder to the top. In the end every single email, every single communication you made you noted, this was to cover yourself.

The final straw for me was when I got a call from the states. I got blamed for something I didn't do. I never actioned it. I later found out that some scumbug in marketing made the mistake and passed my name on. I called the bloke in marketing had a massive argument and called him a W**ker lol.

In the end I left, and surprise, suprise a year later I found out that the company closed down.

 

[beorhthelm]

There is a battalion of people of which I have no clue what they do where I work but consider themselves very important and seem to spend all day having meetings and incurring huge expenses.

I suspect come the next cull they may be cut down to size.

your're joking right? they're spending all that time in meetings saying the right things to the right people, so they'll be last on the list. my company is gradually gutting all the actual doers, while those with high meeting to time in office ratio are left behind to (mis)manage the offshore teams.

 

[perseus]

Dog eat Dog

You have to the mindless compulsion to suck up to you superiors.

It does not matter to the Guards. Follow the rules and kiss arse.
ISTJ - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In favour of Lizards

 

[Beach Hut]

your're joking right? they're spending all that time in meetings saying the right things to the right people, so they'll be last on the list. my company is gradually gutting all the actual doers, while those with high meeting to time in office ratio are left behind to (mis)manage the offshore teams.

Sadly not, to say we appear top heavy is an understatement however nothing will be done till after the global sporting event this year.

Once that is over there should be a huge cull

 

[The Merry Prankster]

I cant believe how some totally inept and incompetent people kiss the right arses and keep their jobs. It happens in every office and it is always the people without the skills to do the job that act like this. There is also a culture of 'I want a flash job tiltle but I actually do f*** all' quicker just sitting back and

So, you're not a Greer fan either.

 

[Stumpy Tim]

To get high up you need to play politics to an extent. That's life. The people who are good at it are the ones you don't think are involved at all. But they all are

 

[Stumpy Tim]

1. I am too good at my job to sack.

2. It still pisses me off when people seem unsackable.

How does that work?

 

[tedebear]

Politics happens whether people say they aren't doing or not. We all are. I spend my life working with incompetant people above me across our group (lucky my immediate boss is an absolute diamond), delivering projects and products and day to day BAU despite their inability to make any decisions or when they do the right decision. Recently I've been promoted and as is now needed I attend a lot more Senior Management meetings, where these incompetant fools are now no longer able to talk about what I'm doing and take the credit for it (or diss me for not delivering anything that they want or need) as I'm in the room, giving updates, and letting people know what I (and my teams working for me) have been doing. I've also had to eloquently and calmly correct some blundering errors/oversights and complete lying statements from these blithering idiots. One of these resulting in the "early" retirement of a very senior manager in another division.

I've always been honest and accurate in everything I say and do and I always always always hard code my name into my presentations, my training sessions and my project plans! If its yours - don't sing your own praises but make sure your work is good and your name is on it and your work will sell itself.

My method won't get anyone who is incompetent sacked overnight, but I believe over time people who are bad will sink their own ship.