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?

We have to do four charity volunteer days per year, we don’t have to do them but if we don’t we can’t say we’ve done them and tick the box on the end of year review and we won’t get a pay rise. They don’t reduce our workload or targets for the week we’re doing the charity days and most of them aren’t particularly helpful to the charities either, they just let us come along because they get cash donations from our company so they want to keep the higher ups sweet.

Earnestly agree that yea, work/life balance is incredibly important, and that I must put personal boundaries in place especially now that we are all working from home and there is less of an obvious divide between work and home. And how important all of this is to preserve good mental health.

But then do all the work I’m given, sometimes at very short notice, whilst keeping everyone happy, on time and to a super high standard.

Pretending to care about giving a 'first class service' when we all know our customers will never be bloody happy.

Yes to nonsense appraisals where you know they don't give a shit and are saying the right things and you are too, but you both put on a merry dance and set 'objectives' to tick the boxes.

A very touchy feely culture when I am more competitive and full on. In my last job you had to use phrases like ‘smash it’ or whatever the buzzword was for beating targets was at the time. You also had to display a level of enthusiasm for work at all times that in a normal environment would get you sectioned.

My job involves fixing things, and I'm good at it.

Yet my work assess me on whether I asked the customer how they're feeling today (I'm not a fucking therapist), whether they would recommend the brand after their experience (anything less than a 9/10 means I get less money - plus if they're speaking to me then they're not happy obviously), I'm also meant to have deep meaningful conversation about crap to build relationships with the customers who I can't speak to for more than 12 minutes whilst simultaneously fixing said broken things, monitoring two PC screens and inputting information.

God that felt good.

@Crimeismymiddlename

Howling

It would be interesting to hear the opinions of all the Mumsnet high earners that you hear about. Are they all sitting at their laptops now knocking out some company values and thinking their staff will give a shit?

I have to pretend I have lived a very dull life and I'm goodness gracious shocked by all sorts of things.
It's easier to dumb down too and pretend I have a bit of a confused view of the world, and purr like a cat when I'm praised.

I hate the work do’s with people I already see too much of.

Having to pretend to be looking forward to it and having a good time when I’m there, when really I want to be at home with my kids who I already feel I have too much time away from for work.

Why can’t the treat be having half a day off to do what you like with?

@DynamoKev

YANBU I don’t even know what we actually do. There isn’t anyone or any place with an explanation written in English. I am also expected to “live our culture and values” but have no idea what they are. Apparently we are doing OK but must “double down” on our initiatives. I have no fucking idea what any of this deliberately exclusionary bollockspeak means and I care even less.

Bahahaha 🤣🤣🤣

@camelfinger

It would be interesting to hear the opinions of all the Mumsnet high earners that you hear about. Are they all sitting at their laptops now knocking out some company values and thinking their staff will give a shit?

Yes - I think they are.

Oh Jesus, anything for “the team”. “The Team” being the entire school. It’s usually centred around an event that the PE department has put on to compete with other schools within the MAT. It’s every couple of months. It’s bloody draining. I couldn’t give a shit if we’ve all ran as far as France.

We also have to smile and brush off the kids poor behaviour, as we are a school all based on their well-being and saving every child from entering a PRU. We can’t bat an eyelid when a kid brings a knife into the class, they just get to isolate for the rest of the lesson and then carry on their day. Wish I was exaggerating here.

Amen to all of this.

We are spared the many, many meetings about our mission statement and objectives as most are working from home, but we still have Teams calls about it. An added bonus is when people are called out as reaching one of the objectives, such as 'passion' and the poor sod is trapped on camera absolutely mortified 🤣.

Also wider team catch ups that no one gives a shit about and most people looking like this 😐 waiting for it to end. Add to that the painful bits when 3/4 people start to speak at once and then it's "no go on", "no you first, hahahahaha" and so on. Ugh.

We have nebulous values that I have to come up with examples for every 6 months in my appraisal. Utter bullshit. In my experience managers want to get through this as quickly as you do (unless you're underperforming and they need a reason to get rid of you) so any old tenuous bullshit answers will do the trick. Oh yes I 'nurtured' my team a few months ago when I brought in a box of leftover quality street from Xmas that had just the 4 flavours I don't like left in.

Just hearing the word 'capacity'. It is all I hear 'Free up your capacity' 'The team capacity' 'I will sign it off when I get capacity' 'Let us plan in reporting capacity'. Fucking teeth grinding to the point my dentist has noticed.

My last job but one. We had a weekly Monday morning interdepartmental meeting where we all had to go in turns to say what we were working on and what we wanted to achive,. it was 9 am - 13.30, which I always thought was a right chunk of the working week.

I went on maternity leave for DS1 and due to very serious issues with his birth and the aftermath I took my full mat leave plus extra leave without pay.

I went back 20 months after DS was born. There was LITERALLY no difference whatsoever to what every department 'aimed to achieve' and was working on. It was like the whole organisation had been on ice while I was gone. Projects were still unfinished.

I new I had to get out then. Did another 3 years and it was like Groundhig day.

In my current job I have a line manager who is desperately out of her depth and tries to cope by micromanaging. We have unlimited 'teams meetings' every single day where she makes us go through our to do list for the day. No concept of letting professionals jsut get on with it. She's meant to be on leave this week and is still talking at us for 2 hours a day on our daily meetings. I feel sorry for her, but it's soul destroying, particualrly when i mentally add up how much all this wasted time in personnel costs is costing the taxpayer.

@MissMogwai
Add to that the painful bits when 3/4 people start to speak at once and then it's "no go on", "no you first, hahahahaha" and so on. Ugh.

@Promap
Oh yes I 'nurtured' my team a few months ago when I brought in a box of leftover quality street from Xmas that had just the 4 flavours I don't like left in.

@Okbye

Sit through a so very painful hour long weekly meeting that has nothing to do with me or my role and is a colossal waste of time. It could quite easily be a few bullet points on a weekly email (which I have suggested but got shot down) but noooo we all have to smile and nod through the weekly bullshit meeting.

Urgh, can you tell I HATE it?!

Are you me??! Do you work on my team?

Our ‘weekly update’ is completely and utterly pointless. We get told the same shit week in, week out. And without fail it runs over by at least 20 minutes because the director spends the last half an hour saying “so does anyone else have anything to share?”

No! Let us get back to fucking work!

Yes mission statements and organisational culture and all those buzz words that mean nothing.

I was genuinely passionate about a lot of aspects of after-school care, but doing activity assessments was NOT one of them.

Do I really have to act like I'm changing a ten-year-old's life by getting them to make a penguin out of clay? Surely all anyone needs to know is "Activity fun. Children enjoyed themselves. No traumatic encounters with the wrong end of a pair of safety scissors...."

The university where I work held a consultation on what our values should be. It took months and they held workshops that we were forced to attend where we were asked things like "what makes you proud to work here/ what makes us unique/ what makes you feel special ". When they finally decided they'd wasted enough time, they printed out booklets announcing the values for all 1400 employees.

Apparently they decided we needed values after the head of communications spoke to his mate the CEO of Barclays/HSBC/some high street bank. The CEO had told him how things had really turned around at the bank when they came up with common values they could all share in the aftermath of a scandal. It's no wonder people think banks and universities squander money 🤦🏻‍♀️

I work in PR and we are always ‘delighted’ to announce that someone has taken a new post, launched a new something, passed a new thing. It’s ridiculous- you are really only ever actually’ delighted’ if you have given birth to a baby, got married to the man of your dreams or won the lottery, not really if someone new is starting as your catering manager. Urrgh - I’m in the wrong job.

Can’t get excited about any of the corporate bullshit, seen that many different continuous improvement slogans over the years, they all die a death. I’m a good worker, know my stuff, I just want to come in, get the job done without someone telling me how to organise my desk, and even my drawer. I’m happy to WFH for as long as possible so I can get some work done during teams meetings, to the person who insists we listen to them and not work, you know I have to sit on my phone to stay awake.

@camelfinger

It would be interesting to hear the opinions of all the Mumsnet high earners that you hear about. Are they all sitting at their laptops now knocking out some company values and thinking their staff will give a shit?

Suspect that quite a lot of them are on this post whining about appraisals and conveniently forgetting the 6 figure sum they are given to put up with corporate nonsense, while skimming over the posts from people having much harder jobs with much less control over their time . I'm well paid - far overpaid compared with my family in a lower income country overseas, and my many relatives in care and healthcare - and in return for a good salary and ability to WFH I am expected put up with some nonsense, and have to create some too, but try to at least use words that my grandmother would recognise.

I do try to care about our values, at least a bit, and get impatient with people in decent jobs complaining about performance reviews and the like. It's well intended or at least not ill intended, and if you don't care, then there are plenty more who'd happily take your space.

Play along with an anti-bullying policy when it’s rife.