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 corporate theme for the year which is supposed to influence our local strategy.
One year it was 'talk and chew gum'.
My job is in no way food, teeth, or gum related. They meant multitask.
I'll say no more.

@HunkyPunk

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

Almost as bad as reading the same story over and over again! Before you know it, someone else has picked it up and wants it read.

I feel like the majority of you all work for the NHS aswell

I work in retail and have to pretend to care about customers lives. Some I do have a chat with but then you get customers who are absolute a-holes and expect you to throw them a bit of sympathy. Also the customer isn’t always right.....whoever made that bullocks up is a grade A dick...

Listen to the latest silver bullet (bullshit) programme dreamed up by someone with no classroom experience, then pretend to implement it.

Listen to parents talk about how their Special Snowflake is the Most Special Snowflake that ever snowflaked and the world is at fault, not them (before someone says it, yes Not All Parents).

@debtadviceflowerofscotland

I'm a debt advisor and often have to listen to people moan about why their finances are in such a state. Its a job where you are taught to be non-judgemental and look for solutions and ways to move forward not blame, however that can be tricky when clients are bemoaning how much they spend on fags or gambling or food or (my fave) having to pay (often paltry) child maintenance for multiple children.

I'd be appalling at that job. I presume that it isn't considered helpful to use phrases such as "pull yourself together", "stop blowing money on shit", or "tie a knot in it".

My manager would probably say she has to have appraisals with an employee has zero desire to do anything above and beyond her actual job. I have taken a step down from a much higher role, higher than hers. We actually get on very well and she realises 80% of the stupid form she has to fill out has no relevance to me and my situation. We just put some bollocks on the space so HR don't get on her back.

Any of it that doesn't involve quality first teaching for the pupils in front of me. There's a lot of bullshit in schools.

@BathshebaKnickerStickers

I have to work out how many under 5 year olds we have in a primary school with an attached preschool. I have a spreadsheet and have to knock each child off on their 5th birthday. I then fill in the number for each day in order for my council to claim back the cost of 183ml of milk for them if they are with us for 3 hours. This takes a lot of skill and time and spreadsheets

That is unbelievable! It’s one of the funniest things I have read on Mumsnet!

I work for the evil company who want to take over the NHS so basically any email from the CEO about how amazing they are when in reality the public perception is that they bodge everything they do.

I work on an HR team and somehow I'm responsible for the company 'Wellness' initiative. I think it's a load of complete bollocks but I have to spend hours on it every week and rave about it to colleagues at every opportunity.

Same! One to ones where you have the same shight every 4 weeks. So what are you proud of? Could have done better? And the rest of the shight….

Piss off and let me get on with my actual job as I’ve got real stuff to get on with instead of this nonsense pointless shight! 😤

In an old job I used to help clients create mission statements, vision statements and culture and values.

I stopped when I realised it was all just word soup. Even though the industry could be healthcare, tobacco, banking, booze or frozen pizza. The missions all blurred together. Sad really.

Our 'Trust values' spell out an acronym
Everyone knows the acronym but literally no-one can say what the values are because they were clearly chosen just because they are vaguely good things that spell a word.

Last time CQC were round there was a big push to get us all to learn the values.
Still no-one can remember them because they are a bit shit and irrelevant.
I am never going to be able to convincingly fake enthusiasm for these marvellous corporate values.
We can win a special badge for embodying these lovely values and I even have one but I still can't remember what it actually stands for.

Team building events and exercises. Sadly I had not only to attend them and be very positive and smiley and socialise within the wider group (so not just my mates) - I had to organise them too!! 🌹

Having to distil a six month intense piece of research/ business modelling/ proposal into a fucking primary school pp, only three slides, not too many numbers ( as that's too confusing) and presenting it all in 4 mins because SMT clearly haven't read the pre-reading, their time management of the meeting where these decisions are made is shit and they have the business acumen of a sausage roll. I'll have to clarify their actual decision about seventy billion times. Then our dev team will say there is no resource to do the work. We put it all on ice and I am sent off to research some other pointless nonsense and so the cycle continues.

Don’t you find mission statements are so much better, more meaningful and honest when printed in a script like font?

@Gnko657v

We have corporate theme for the year which is supposed to influence our local strategy. One year it was 'talk and chew gum'. My job is in no way food, teeth, or gum related. They meant multitask. I'll say no more.

Oh, that's the old one about Gerald Ford. It's probably lost on anyone under 50 though.

"Lyndon B. Johnson said at the time, "Jerry Ford is so dumb he can't fart and chew gum at the same time." The press, used to sanitizing Johnson's salty language, reported this as "Gerald Ford can't walk and chew gum at the same time.""

A previous job, Brexit.

Also a previous job, an enthusiasm for team meetings. We had the big team meeting (everyone), the wider team meeting (everyone, plus people who were loosely connected with the team, like the IT people and HR), team leaders meeting, enhanced team leaders meeting (included deputy team leaders), top team meeting (senior team leaders plus head and deputy head of dept). Some days I did nothing but meetings.

Our head loved showing us a you tube video of a perfect pit stop. In the lead up to the actual stop one of the team picks up a scrap of paper.

( you can tell how many times I watched it!)

Start of every meeting.

I found a similar but disatrous one that circulated amongst friends,

@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?

I hate all this shit too. I don't really understand why companies bother with it. I've never met anyone who says "yes wow I find our company's values really inspirational".

@Lottapianos

I have to listen to team values, mission statement, shared goals bollocks too and it makes me want to climb into a deep hole. Also very serious discussions about 'psychological safety', where we're supposed to pretend we all feel just fine to spill our guts to the whole team about whatever is getting on our tits that particular week

It's really nice to hear that other people spend time in meetings menu planning or day dreaming just to stay sane 😊 and I'm lucky - I actually LIKE most things about my job!

@Lottapianos

'Psychological safety'......you what? A lot of the time businesses use the whole 'we're concerned about you and want you to share' thing in order to suss out the leaders and dissenters of the group who will then be managed so they don't make a peep again.

I am a GP - currently on stress leave
At the risk of being absolutely flamed
My favourites are
? How did I get pregnant - There’s only one way that I know
? Why can’t I loose weight - said person had large full fat caramel something from Starbucks and child with them is stuffing Macdonalds into mouth. In reality weight is complex and obesity is multi factorial - I get that , but when people want me to fix things and are not willing to do anything to help themselves it drives me nuts.
?I want to see a dermatologist/ psychiatrist any other ologist - in reality my ability to refer is absolutely prescribed by forces far above me and we don’t have a system that allows me to refer on patient request. I often refer anyway because I want to help and then when the inevitable decline arrives I have to phone and mop up tears before I can get on with treating their excema or whatever that I am perfectly capable of treating.
? Could little Harry have ADHD. Little Harry is busy destroying my room, climbing onto desk, playing with computer putting smeary hands on my medical equipment and playing with my ( often very expensive) instruments. He has a packet of highly coloured fluorescent sweets in his hand. When I say “No” to Little Harry he looks shocked - he’s never heard that word before. Mum looks fondly on Little Harry and says he”s never been a problem until he went to school/nursery

Just the bit between 8am and 4pm, Monday to Friday...

The above is made of a montage patients and doesn’t reflect
any one person.