What nonsense do you have to do/fake enthusiasm for in your job?

[Whatapalavaa]

I'll go first. Performance manage based on utter nonsense criteria that I don't really care about but have to pretend to be oh so serious about. Pretend to care about our mission statement and our organisational culture. Yawn. I sit in meetings wondering if anyone else is seriously buying this crap or rather putting on a good act like me. Anyone else?

@Topia

My stupid fucking appraisal and performance reports which no-one but myself & my line manager see, we both know they’re a complete waste of time & the fact that I have to fake talk about career development in a role that offers no scope for development is just painful - for both of us.

Add to that the “necessity” to complete a performance conversation once every three months. Why? Just why? Nothing changes that drastically or frequently & the forms are so little by and wanky as well - reflect on your learning examples, how do you envision delivering in the scope & context of your role, operational reflection blah blah blah blah. And No.One.Cares.

I could draw a picture of a cock on there & I think it would make more sense than those fucking forms

Ahem I definitely never invented two unhappy customer accounts for my monthly status report and marked them as in severe danger of becoming lost customers just to see if any fucker ever read the thing that took me hours to do in the evenings on my own time, oh no.

(no-one noticed)

Pretending to be nice to customers who want to smack your face in over 40p, who then say 'I want to speak to a manager' and that manager grovels an apology right in front of you and undermines you in every way

Oh god this!

I guess my habit of supporting my staff is the reason I am no longer a manager!

@Weedsnseeds1

Spend the best part of 90 minutes, of my own time, watching a video about how to wash my hands, wear a face mask and open a door in a Covid secure manner. I've spent the best part of 18 months wandering around factories riddled with COVID without catching it, so I think I've worked it out for myself by now.

Oh yes, all the hours of ridiculous videos followed by badly worded and deliberately ambiguous multiple choice "tests" - all designed to "teach" me it's wrong to be a con artist because it is against the law and could cost the company money. Because that's always been so fucking effective in making Bernie Madoff, Enron, Nick Leeson etc think "hang on, this might be a bit dodgy" and stop it.

DynamoKev
"A client offers to fly you in his private jet for an all expenses paid holiday on a Carribean island, while pressing a Rolex into your sticky palm, do you a) enthusiastically accept and put in a request for 2 week's annual leave, b) ask if they would consider Costa Rica instead, because you have it on your bucket list or c) decline and immediately report the attempted bribe to your manager? "

" oh, that's a tricky one... "

Meeting our Core Values. They are similar to helpful, Cheerful, honest, smart etc, six of them. We’re scored on them twice a year, it’s all bollox.

There are advantages to being retired and disabled. However, I still have to pretend great enthusiasm for the cat's favorite toy several times a day. Somehow, I don't think that quite counts. Does to her, though.

It’s all American nonsense which European companies are now buying into.

*HaveringWavering Wed 30-Jun-21 20:40:33
^LEMtheoriginal

KPIs and targets, selling loyalty schemes and having our performance assessed on how much money we generate.

I. COULD. NOT. GIVE. LESS. FUCKS^

FEWER.*

Fewer or less fucks?

It can be both. If you are looking at the number of them as in - Behold the field in which I grow my fucks. Lay thine eyes upon it and see that it is barren - then it is a question of number of fucks, and would be fewer.

But if we are discussing the levels in a 'fuck bucket' then we are talking about volume of fucks, and then we would need to use the term less.

I guess the important thing about knowing the amount of fucks is to know if your metaphor is numbers or volume and work with the correct units for your specific metaphor. If in doubt? Use either and give no fucks to that either.

Any interactions with my boss. She's inept. Totally ineffective, focuses on the wrong thing, can't manage conflict, doesn't make difficult decisions. I could do a better job. But wouldn't want to, as the CEO (her boss) is just as bad!!

I'm hoping for a internal coup 😂

Explaining how I adhere to our company’s amazing ‘Attributes’.
I don’t ‘seize the future’, I am here because you pay me and anything that might remotely change anything is way above my pay grade.

I fake enthusiasm for my job itself. I’m an accountant and dislike it. But I’m good at it and too senior now retrain or do something else.

Such a funny thread !! Love it !!

I stopped pretending and if they want to tick boxes - then lets tick the boxes. my last 121 took 25 minutes instead of the usual 60 bas I stopped pretending

@Topia
Exactly the same here. So many times I’ve been tempted to do the cock and hairy balls. Far easier to fill in that reflecting on my objectives.

The quarterly 'all hands' is due. Last time it was a full scale senior leadership love-in with in jokes and 'through the keyhole' of their expensively furnished home offices. We all had to have our cameras on - see: and therefore 8 solid hours of "attentive face" and had a specially themed zoom backdrop. After day 1 (it was 3 days) I got myself excused with a creative emergency.

Worked in payroll for 40 years till I retired. Couldn't care less what the company did or what they made, payroll is payroll. Then moved to p/t retail, constant nagging to upsell and targets to issue loyalty cards, managers bonus was based on that, I got diddly squat so did not care or try

Your so right you lot all of the reasons i quit permanent and went freelance could not be arsed with all that bullocks after 30 years of it.

I have a job that makes no sense.

Nobody cares about what I do.

What I do makes no difference to anything for the company; the customers; colleagues... I just move numbers around on reports, mash them around a bit, and then nobody reads or acts on the output.

There is a continual drive for Change, like it's some kind of deity that will save the business from the crap that decades of complacency and inertia have driven it into.

Enthusiasm? I barely have the energy for cynicism. I'd leave tomorrow, but my skills and experience are now so bizarre that I'm going to have a hard road finding another employer who'll give me my current salary.

I do, however, get to WFH forevermore. That's a MASSIVE plus for me.

The Restorative Approach! If both sides really want to settle things it’s fine. If one or both sides are still determined that what they said or did is the only correct thing, then I can spend ages with ghem and get nowhere!

Stupid yearly sound bites
Eg ‘sweat the small stuff’
No Patricia I can’t, I’m too busy doing my job to ponce about sweating about display boarders and missing pencil sharpeners

@SummerHouse

My colleagues are either a) reaching out, or b) pushing back.

I am introducing c) the hokey cokey.

How about this for a mission statement to learn by heart:

"S. LTD" is an intelligent omnichannel marketing cloud platform. Our dynamic technology provides actionable insights that empower companies to deliver more personalized and valuable consumer engagements, resulting in compelling experiences across all channels".

I have changed the company name out of compassion for the poor buggers who work there.

@SherbrookeFosterer

How about this for a mission statement to learn by heart:

"S. LTD" is an intelligent omnichannel marketing cloud platform. Our dynamic technology provides actionable insights that empower companies to deliver more personalized and valuable consumer engagements, resulting in compelling experiences across all channels".

I have changed the company name out of compassion for the poor buggers who work there.

Alas, I understood every word and thought it was pretty reasonable.

It's over for me, isn't it?

Usually they fall out with one another in some sort of proto-Corbynista gender-bending fury.