Pointless rant at stupidity at work

[asmit127]

At this moment (would have better last week, actually, but has to be done by tomorrow) I should be writing a letter to my boss to apply for the job I'm currently doing. It's expected to be 2 sides of crap, basically listing all the things he see's me do on a daily basis and why this makes me good for the post. And the best bit? The job I get is highly unlikely to be the one I'm doing, and could be completely different. The alternative to doing a good letter (and even a pointless interview to expand on it - which is guaranteed as long as I write something) is to get paid less also to do a different job than I'm currently doing.

They can't say what jobs or even how many jobs are available, they "haven't worked it out". They wont even say which department or manager I could get. So do I want job A under supervisor F doing X or job B under supervisor S doing Y, which just happens to pay less?

Not one person either supervisor, colleague in the same situation or my boss understands that money isn't everything - I should apply for a supervisor role and everyone will be surprised when I don't. Having not got that I should happily take the higher paid job (same level as current) regardless of if it's under a supervisor I don't get on with and sitting in a physical location that I hate for 3 month's of the year (summer!)

Putting my effort into this is impossible. They know me, they know what I can do and they know I will suck in the interview. Yet they can't look at your work to decides who does what as that "isn't fair". Performance over a year vs. a letter and a half hour chat, which gets you the best idea who should do what? I know we are more logical than most but this is hardly rocket science?

How tempting it is to book a flight to anywhere just to get away from the insanity of civilisation for a while...

 

[intuitivet]

I get what you mean. In my college so many jobs are being cut and they're saving money in the stupidest ways ("lets deny new equipment, get rid of the few decent teachers we have and even stop supplying paper but still pay the head of the college tons and tons! That'll work!") Civilisation sucks sometimes.
(Don't even get me started on certain exams that are ridiculous)

 

[AlisaD]

What I've found always gets me to a pretty high, pretty comfortable position in the company leader is following 3 simple principles

1. Accept the fact that people who make decisions are often simply dumb, when talking to them adopt the attitude of a grown-up talking to an 8-year old who's telling them they want to be an astronaut (smile, nod your head, say that's an amazing idea, even suggest a few ways to get there while thinking - if this ever works I'll be king of the moon)
2. Do what they ask you to, no mater how pointless it might be (writing a stupid letter, a useless and inaccurate report, wasting your time on charts that look pretty-pretty while proving nothing) Laugh while doing it and once you're done proceed doing what ever you think is best.
3. Crucial - stop caring

For some reason, no matter how dead-end a job looks like when I apply for it (I tend to prefer those) in a few months time I get promoted using this strategy. Then I get promoted again and again, I get higher and higher positions, more and more money, then eventually get bored and quit.

If you actually like your job then you can simply skip the quitting part and work happily ever after.

 

[warryer]

What I've found always gets me to a pretty high, pretty comfortable position in the company leader is following 3 simple principles

1. Accept the fact that people who make decisions are often simply dumb, when talking to them adopt the attitude of a grown-up talking to an 8-year old who's telling them they want to be an astronaut (smile, nod your head, say that's an amazing idea, even suggest a few ways to get there while thinking - if this ever works I'll be king of the moon)
2. Do what they ask you to, no mater how pointless it might be (writing a stupid letter, a useless and inaccurate report, wasting your time on charts that look pretty-pretty while proving nothing) Laugh while doing it and once you're done proceed doing what ever you think is best.
3. Crucial - stop caring

For some reason, no matter how dead-end a job looks like when I apply for it (I tend to prefer those) in a few months time I get promoted using this strategy. Then I get promoted again and again, I get higher and higher positions, more and more money, then eventually get bored and quit.

If you actually like your job then you can simply skip the quitting part and work happily ever after.

I fucking love this. I have to wonder is there some sort of grand finale? Or is the self satisfaction enough for you?

 

[AlisaD]

^ No grand finale really, unless if riding off into the sunset counts

I get satisfaction out of being able to save up enough money to travel for a few months or just do nothing for a while.

I do wish I could one day find a job I actually enjoy, though. Unfortunately, being lazy, easily bored, and having huge issues with authority figures doesn't make it likely to happen.

 

[asmit127]

There is actually a reason behind the reshuffle so I can understand the demoting of some people, it's just the complete lack of organisation that gets me. Anyone who manages 100+ people should be able to work out what needs to be done by said people!

Luckily I got the date wrong and the letter isn't actually due till Friday - 21 looks alot like 23 in an e-mail when you're laughing, maybe?

I quite like my current job as there isn't enough to do so I get to help all the other teams or make complicated spreadsheets to automate stuff to free up even more time. Or if I'm feeling lazy I just pretend to be busy and no-one notices. I couldn't care less about the company's success, and often tell my boss his idea wont work because ... and he actually listens and accepts it so no problems there. Authority figures have to be put in their place sometimes and there is nowhere to get promoted that I want to go. Promotion = expected to work weekends when required - no thanks!

I've decided to write a great letter, get a random job and leave ASAP, to ensure maximum time wastage on the part of the management. Doing nothing makes them look like they're doing a good job...

Maybe in the next company I'll follow AlisaD's plan to getting month's off between jobs - it is a great plan and equates money with time off rather than social standing or excess material possessions, something I'd never thought of

 

[LAM]

This kind of ridiculous shit, especially the money is everything attitude could be avoided by using social democratic laws. The kind that the netherlands use and most of the baltic countries. Basically it limits the amount of money anyone can get over someone else in an organisation, company, government, etc.

Simplified example: a CEO can't get paid more than 4 times the janitors salary.

This simple idea changed Sweden around in the 1970s to the peaceful, fair and extremely well-educated country it is today. The government even has the money to keep an extremely high-tech navy making (sweden developed the first working combat stealthship line before the U.S even made their first unarmed prototype...)

I mean look at Sweden's economy's description in wikipedia "a highly developed economy. It ranks first in the world in The Economist's Democracy Index and seventh in the United Nations' Human Development Index."

All becaused they were able to balance out social equality and the free market. This even allowed the swedish government to have a flat tax rate of 50%. If you did that in the U.S or Aus which are the main anglophone type free market countries, you would get something like a 30% minimum amount of people below the poverty line. My estimates are at 40% for the U.S though.

"Sweden is currently leading the EU in statistics measuring equality in the political system and equality in the education system."

"Sweden has always provided solid support for free trade (except agriculture) and strong property rights. After World War II a succession of governments increased the welfare state and the tax burden, and Sweden's GDP per capita ranking fell from the 4th to 14th place in a few decades. However during this time Sweden radically changed from a divided and often extremely unequal society into one of the most equal and developed on earth. The consistent growth of the welfare state led to Swedes achieving unprecedented levels of social mobility and quality of life—to this day Sweden consistently ranks at the topof league tables for health, literacy and Human Development—far ahead of some much wealthier countries (for example the United States)."

 

[asmit127]

The idea of social democracy seems great, I'm nowhere near the bottom of the company but the woman at the top (politcal correctnes FTW - alternates male-female every time it changes) still earns 10x what I do. It's ridiculous!

Sweden is cold and has good music too... I'd always planned on moving to Iceland at some point but finding anything on learning the Icelandic language is proving to be quite hard. I might have to move my target! How is unemployment in these seemingly sane countries?

 

[LAM]

The idea of social democracy seems great, I'm nowhere near the bottom of the company but the woman at the top (politcal correctnes FTW - alternates male-female every time it changes) still earns 10x what I do. It's ridiculous!

Sweden is cold and has good music too... I'd always planned on moving to Iceland at some point but finding anything on learning the Icelandic language is proving to be quite hard. I might have to move my target! How is unemployment in these seemingly sane countries?

Sweden is well off now, even though its very bad off compared to 1970. Ever since a recession in the 1970s, they had tried to save the economy by becoming increasingly free market and vastly reducing welfare and healthcare. They managed to do it after 25 years in the mid-90s when they arrived at the same level as other free market countries. They used to have a less than 1% unemployment rate in 1970 and the third highest gdp per capita. This was a few years before the recession happened and sweden went down, along with the Svenska modellen.

Today it has either 9.5%, 13% or 17% unemployment according to different sources (the higher ones are the U.S estimates and some other international entity I forgot.) However, Sweden has managed to combine its unbelievably good welfare with a global free market economy. so basically, its a lot better than non-social democracies. It might even be better than other social democracies such as the netherlands and other baltic countries, but I don't know.