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?

Anything to do with “culture”.

If you need a screensaver to tell you what the culture is, it isn’t really a culture.

great thread.

@Dadmalenotawoman

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.

I am desperate to know what it is you do…

Values, blah blah blah, diversity, blah blah blah, mission statement, blah blah blah, inclusivity, blah blah blah and repeat - it seems that if you are able to constantly talk enthusiastically about this stuff to the people below you and bully them into accepting it, look like you actually believe the crap that some committee has put together you will climb the greasy pole; regardless of how crap you are at your job, whether or not you "live the values", how much shit you talk when not parroting the mission statement (ideally with a snazzy power point) and however obvious it is that you are only interested in diversity as long as it doesn't impact your place on the board/upper management etc.
I wish companies would just let everyone get on with their jobs, stop spending inordinate amounts of time virtue signalling and ditch the mission statements. If they did that they could probably sack the top 10% of the workforce and see no impact on the performance of the company and those left behind would be much more enthusiastic because they are no longer having the soul sucked out of them listening to and smiling at bollocks-speak every day.

Neverending zoom training sessions. Oh my god. Seven hours today and the same tomorrow. Can't even turn my camera off and multitask. It's wretched. We have to fake enthusiasm and brainstorm in numerous breakout groups, so I have to at least try to pay attention.

@ERFFER

Just watched it. Made me laugh.

@DynamoKev I strongly suspect we work at the same place . I think it's all bollocks too.

All of it 🤦🏻‍♀️

'Living our Values', whatever the fuck that means. Endless Microsoft Teams calls all day long meaning I have no time to do any actual work, an overly enthusiastic arse licker colleague who's driving me nuts lately (I smile and nod enthusiastically tho), oh god I could go on all day. As someone else said - just pay me and leave me alone.

Grown ups behaving like children.

It should be an instantly sackable offence IMO.

As for the "Mental health leads" in my workplace.......if I was to make a list of people who I would never choose to be mental health leads, even if that meant having no mental health leads, they would be that list. The biggest bullies/bitches/bastards around - just signed up to tick the box to make sure they could move on up the career ladder.
The huge numbers of men running the "women's network" (that can't be called a women's network because that would not be inclusive).....
The white, middle aged bloke heading up BAME initiatives......
The diversity and inclusion head who groped a load of women one Christmas party......
And yet I have to sit through meetings nodding in agreement with the latest bullshit inclusion/mental health/diversity 'initiative/training' because doing anything else would be career limiting.

Enthusiasm? I barely have the energy for cynicism. Brilliant

I'm involved in a particular project at the moment. It's taken around six weeks of meetings to come up with our SMART objectives. Then we have to work on the KPIs. And every now and then someone will go back to our original strategic objective and try to reword that. It's all wordsmithing and refining and workshopping and everyone is always 'conscious of time'. I hate it.

Trying not to wince every time “pregnant woman” is replaced by “pregnant person”, “women” by “birthing people” and “mums” by “birthing parents”.

Say them in addition, ok, but not instead of.

@AutumnTerm, NHS England by any chance?

Sold software for a company that had the exact problems it professed to resolve. Left as I couldn't stand pretending anymore.

All the corporate crap irritates the shit out of me and over the past 18 months even more so.

What can you do though, if you cant say anything good, say nothing....

I work in the civil service and every single CEO I've worked under has had their own amazing new initiative. We've had 'right first time, 'world class values', 'road map to strategic change' and other such nonsense. None of which changes how I do my job one iota.
I've learned to nod and smile when they unveil these things as I know they are going to spin it for their CV to get their next job with a better organisation.

Someone earlier mentioned never being authentic at work, always putting on an act. That's how I feel. It's exhausting. I'm practising giving myself a rest now and staying more silent where I can and watching everyone in their acting roles.

@Physio32

Sold software for a company that had the exact problems it professed to resolve. Left as I couldn't stand pretending anymore.

I worked for such a company - maybe the same one.

Our systems helped business to automate tasks to free people from drudgery so they could be creative.

Meanwhile, my job in devising new product features was 99% fucking unbelievably labyrinthine manual drudge work using creaking systems and being expected to remember and follow ultra-complex processes that changed regularly and were not written down anywhere - I mean I got told off regularly for not doing stuff I had no idea how to do or where to find out.

The company are the darlings of the niche they cater to and when I worked there people assumed it was the best job in the world - it wasn't.

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

Great stuff!

I run my own online business and sometimes (not often) customers are disappointed because their package is late, doesnt arrive, or arrives damaged. So my customer get a hugely empathic message in which I apologise and express undying sorrow and so on.

Guess what?

I have ready crafted emails for every eventuality which I simply adapt, cut and paste. Im not going to spend any more time on these problems than I have to.

My feedback on the platforms where I sell is 100%

Bullshit is an art.

As of last month my entire team by their own goodwill had taken an average of one full week off plus bank holidays since the first lockdown. One client thinks they are the paragon of wellbeing and allows her staff to ring ours at 3, 4 am when they're not on call. You're not front line key workers Linda, you decided that you were to keep your business open. You prattle on about ethics and mental health without a second thought for my employees. While we were dealing with your petty anomalies the rest of our team were trying to fulfil contracts that were genuine, literal life or death situations. And breathe...

On yes the diversity training. What the actual hell was that about. I learnt absolutely nothing. I did manage to turn my camera off and get some actual work done whilst still giving my vocal input and adding the odd comment into the chat section.

@haggis973 I've done that too, worked for that particular supermarket at that time. Bloody cringe.

Current job has some corporate bollockspeak but largely we are so old fashioned that it isn't as bad as some examples on this thread!

"behaviours" and "values"

noone knows what they mean that you then have to spend ages thinking about examples of where you have demonstrated this "behaviour" or that "value"
Also themed team meetings , cant bare having to remember to dress in a certain colour or find a funny hat etc for some reason manager thinks it is bonding