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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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

430 replies

Whatapalavaa · 30/06/2021 19:03

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?

OP posts:
HangingOver · 30/06/2021 21:39

I used to work with celebrities and had to pretend to take their utter bullshit seriously Grin

Abitlikeabiscuit · 30/06/2021 21:39

Flow charts. Oh god the flow charts. Somebody has produced a new boxes-and-arrows sheet of A4 and screenshares it, then proceeds to explain each box in detail for the next 45 minutes. My brain doesn't do flowcharts and I don't need to know how this part of the service works as I'm not involved in it.
Also "let's discuss that" sessions during our meetings which bring up a load of vague ideas that the team lead takes away to "summarise" or "consider further" and nothing ever comes back from it and no decisions are made. Last time it was 3 hours of discussion with no outcome. Drives me insane!

gildalily · 30/06/2021 21:40

This is the thread I needed today.

My team was told today that we would now have a monthly team meeting where we discuss our personal development plans and the whole team pow wows to see we can all help one another to achieve our KPI's. What a load of old bollocks.

And don't get me started on meetings to discuss how we're going to prepare for other meetings. I dunno, how about we just fecking we'll get on and do it. It's not brain surgery it's sales figures ffs.

plominoagain · 30/06/2021 21:40

Being in focus groups for the strategical business workplace empowerment community stakeholder engagement team. Or something.

Why ? Why on earth are you bothering ? We tell you the problems , which have not changed since 20 fucking 10. They are the same problems but now on steroids . I have been selected for a sodding focus group almost every year , and all it means is wasting two days every three months when I would be far more use to my team , listening to some arsehole who’s being paid £500 a day to nod sagely , play with his Apple watch , pretend to write notes and improve SOD ALL.

andyindurham · 30/06/2021 21:40

Team-building exercises. I worked for a software company that was obsessed with them, usually in inconvenient locations and built around tasks that were 'fun' (if you think mildly embarrassing yourself in front of people you don't really know and don't wish to know is 'fun'). Hated all of them, except the one that proved our gnarly little corner of corporate communications was the most united team in the organisation (albeit, largely united against the organisation).

I've never been prouder of a 'team' when our translation and localization crew was invited to a voluntary activity that would involve going to a local park to devise, script and shoot a short film. This was to take place on a working day, and it just so happened that it was raining heavily when the big day dawned. With no communication between us, 12 different people independently looked out of their homes, saw the weather, guessed what kind of mud bowl the park would be, and concluded that they could log on to work from home (entirely permissible, just mail your line manager) or go to the office rather than the park on the grounds that it would be dry and there would be coffee. After all, the whole thing was voluntary and we could hardly be disciplined for turning up to work.

It got better. Most people went to the team building, so we didn't have a long task list that day. So we could tidy up a few loose ends and be done by lunchtime, while a bunch of corporate 'true believers' spent a miserable wet day shooting crappy videos of each other in a landscape resembling Ypres in 1917.

And, best of all, three days later we got snotty emails from the team-building coordinator to say how disappointed she was that nobody from our team thought it was important to attend the event and, as a result, we wouldn't be invited to the follow-up meeting (sorry, 'premiere screening') where everyone would watch these films and provide positive feedback. I suspect one person in the entire organisation thought this would be a punishment rather than a perk.

TaraR2020 · 30/06/2021 21:41

When senior management freak out about some problem to which they don't have a problem, and then get annoyed that I'm not also freaking out...I get it, but the world isn't ending, people aren't going to die and we will figure out a solution, we always do.

TaraR2020 · 30/06/2021 21:41

*dont have a solution

TheRebelle · 30/06/2021 21:47

One of our values is “always be yourself” which is always swiftly followed with “but don’t be your angry/pissed off/hungover self if you’re in a bad mood or whatever, [nervous laugh] just be authentic, but not authentic in a bad way…anyway you know what I mean, erm well, anyway….”

HulaHoop2012 · 30/06/2021 21:47

Anything that mentions PDP and involes extra bullshitting on my part…. Why????
It just takes time away from my actual job.

Can I ask those of you that have also endured these daily catch-ups during the pandemic, has it been suggested that they continue once back in the office?
It’s currently my biggest fear, I just want my first coffee in peace.

DoItAfraid · 30/06/2021 21:48

@TheYearOfSmallThings

Every time I have a new director I have to fake enthusiasm for whatever New Broom nonsense they are planning - usually just introducing the system they had in their previous organisation and are therefore more comfortable with, but we must pretend is fresh and progressive.

Even if we are looking at a painful cycle of change that literally brings us back to where we were 2 directors ago, I just bite my tongue and put my brain in neutral.

This x 1 billion
Congressdingo · 30/06/2021 21:50

I haven't worked in an office for years, deliberately. It seems I wont ever work in one again if the same shite still goes on.

I remember one very micromanagy boss who kept saying "work smarter not harder" she never actually said how to do this. I well remember the bloody awful appraisals, I always saw them as a way for the company to give you yet more work. So I see you've done this spreadsheet for 8 months now, so hows about you also take on this project- means you must have got faster on this utterly useless spreadsheet that takes hours of your week so here have something else to waste time on.

Do not miss office life/gossip/clothes.

DoItAfraid · 30/06/2021 21:52

@TaraR2020

When senior management freak out about some problem to which they don't have a problem, and then get annoyed that I'm not also freaking out...I get it, but the world isn't ending, people aren't going to die and we will figure out a solution, we always do.
Loved the way you described this!
disappear · 30/06/2021 21:55

I’m a teacher of small children. When asked, “Can I tell you something?” I always answer, “Yes.”

Please tell me about your wobbly teeth, stick your fingers in your mouth and wobble them. (At least your hands are clean as we wash them a gazillion times a day.)

Daphnise · 30/06/2021 21:55

To pretend to believe senior management and their crappy spoutings.

To even try to pretend to appreciate "Corporate Values".

To restrain oneself from decapitating managers and boiling their brainless heads.

DaphneDeloresMoorhead · 30/06/2021 22:03

I have to fake views on transgender issues which are completely against my personal, religious and feminist opinions. If I aired opposition to things like gender neutral bathrooms I would very likely face losing my job.

RaginaFalangi · 30/06/2021 22:04

I work in a nursery so pretty much everything.
Most of all, when you see the child that either cries all day or the one that is a handful and then to tell the parents they've been amazing all day.
I've been doing it far to long and with kids of my own now I've lost my patience for it most days.

Tirediam · 30/06/2021 22:07

This is epic. I have found my people.
God.. KPIs , they’ve stayed the same for about 15 years even though so much in the business has changed but we’ve got to hit the KPIs.. as someone said above, completely arbitrary shit.
A manager who only is in the job as his own boss has a strop and quit so he had to step in.. and I remember him as a team manager when he buzzed of vodka coz he would just be out all night and his constant sick days with ridiculous reasons.. but now “WE must lead by example”

Feck off

IcedSpice · 30/06/2021 22:09

i've recently moved from a very corporate job (think banking) to a much smaller company....

No monthly 121s! No kpis! No annual appraisal to write up (and your bonus/pay rise depends on this, so it needs to be good) none of that shit!!

NoProblem123 · 30/06/2021 22:18

*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

⬆️⬆️⬆️This

I sat in a Teams meeting today for a whole 12 minutes with everyone on mute and a face like 😐😐😐😐😐 because no one knew who was chairing Confused

TheSunShinesBrighter · 30/06/2021 22:19

Oh I’m going to upset a few people here...

Parents who spend most of their child’s progress meeting (parents eve) reminiscing about their own favourite subject, exam results, teachers they remember, teachers/ subjects they disliked...

We’ve only got 5 mins to talk about young Florence/Percy but never you mind... I’d love to know what your favourite subject was in 1987! 🤣

TheSunShinesBrighter · 30/06/2021 22:26

I know my example doesn’t fit in very well but it just goes to show that the stuff we have to grin and put up with doesn’t always come from management!

funnelfanjo · 30/06/2021 22:37

Like previous posters, dealing with all the values and culture guff. After 30+ years in corporations large and small I’ve seen it all. I’ve perfected the smile and nod, with the occasional meaningless remark slipped into team meeting discussions to keep upper management happy that I’m on board. All a game we have to play.

It’s all bollocks used by management to beat up the staff but not follow themselves. If they really did treat people with respect and value diversity we wouldn’t have people leaving in droves, and if they really did want people to work smarter not harder then we wouldn’t have people working 60 hour weeks and weekends as a matter of routine.

Smile and nod, play the game, collect salary. Every month work out how much closer to being able to afford to retire.

kindaclassy · 30/06/2021 22:37

People.

HunkyPunk · 30/06/2021 22:37

Sing 'The Wheels on the Bus' for the three zillionth time, and look like you mean it Grin

Susannahmoody · 30/06/2021 22:40

Change management
Adding value
Inclusion and diversity

#utterbollocks

Last job was in HSE and involved managing an app that was used for safety reporting. NO-ONE used it, wanted to use it or understood how it worked. But management loved it. Kept promoting it. Pure sunk cost fallacy.

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