How do you deal with idiots in the work place?

[Parpulous]

As in people who regardless of how many times or how simply you explain concepts or issues, they relentlessly power on on their own path thereby causing stress to everyone around them.

In my case, my issue is my manager who doesn't have any real subject matter expertise in our field. This in itself is not too unmanageable an issue - the problem really lies in her inability to gather stakeholder requirements adequately. Since she doesn't technically know what is feasible, she says yes to everything and then after gathering business requirements it'll become evident that the project is untenable.

Furthermore, she won't stick to business specifications - we end up doing the same task 4/5 times at least just because the manager doesn't know what she wants or is trying to second-guess what others want without following the specifications. So inevitably we end up with a product that doesn't match up to expectations.

It just makes my entire job feel meaningless.

Example from this week: agree template for report with stakeholders, get go ahead to apply template to 95 use cases, manager decides to change template, I then have to reapply new template to 95 use cases manually. Then she decides to "simplify" the process by completely changing it 4 more times. I just feel like I'm wasting my time...

Any advice on how to manage my manager? I'm beyond the point of despair - it's been 7 months of this and there's not many jobs in my field where I am so no real scope to change jobs (and am early career so want to last at least a couple of years in this company!)

So you need to manage up?

This can be tricky and a little dangerous if done too aggressively. You are not trying to manipulate, but finding ways of working with your manager for your own sanity and the business profitability and reputation. You could consider going above and stating the business case for why your manager is not effective but you would need factual evidence based on numbers and it may backfire entirely.

First, start to mirror your manager's communication style, the more you can put your view across in the same way, the more they will actually hear what you are saying.

Talk to your manager about their goals and your goals and priorities, try and get some mutual understanding between the two of you. Consider asking to be involved in the meetings for a concrete business reason, remove your annoyance and feeling like your manager is incompetent. Be factual and unemotional.

Formalise regular interactions, feedback meetings that get put in the diary. Ask your boss I am wondering if until you are happy with the template in its entireity can we hold off implementing it so we are not doing the same work. Something like when doing the template for the report, I noticed it changed a lot, I had to repeat the work manually 5 times for all 95 cases. Is there a way we could test it by only running the first few until we are sure its right? - Note the change from I to we

Ask your manager for feedback, are there some tasks you could take control of?

Give your manager more specific options and communicate precisely, something along the lines of: Here’s the deal with X. I’ve thought about A, B, and C, and I think we should do C because … Does that sound OK to you?

Try not to take things personally, accept that you might just need to grit your teeth and get on with repeating your work, try and reframe it, so you are not wasting your time, you are working and developing the report to ensure greatest customer satisfaction. Sometimes things can't be done once, there may have been meetings with the stakeholders who have said change X or Y. When I design a commision, I accept and allow for up to 3 major changes before I then will charge for any more. I would have done each one to their specification but they then see the reality of how it works and change their mind.

Finally, educate your manager, explain the impact, explain your role and the limitations of the subject matter. Ask if she would mind gathering the client's needs and wants but not saying yes, but that she will go back to the designer and see what can be achieved within these wants and needs. Again, give the factual business case that it will build the reputation and encourage further work.

Fantastic advice, thank you! I've tried a few already (sitting in meetings, offering a set number of options, offering to only do a few use cases before rolling templates out for all use cases) to mixed success.

I think as you suggested I am making this too personal. I've just never had a manager like this before, and this manager is so seemingly oblivious to their limitations and to her team's suggestions that it makes it hard to be more objective. She's a lovely person and that makes it harder as I don't want to upset her.

I don't mind redoing work in order to make it more efficient or functional, but I do slightly resent having to redo vast swathes of work for entirely cosmetic reasons (e.g. "I don't like blue...make it orange...actually blue was better...make it black", "I want the report in Word...no PowerPoint....actually I want it in InDesign...why is it in InDesign I want it in Word and I've made the edits in excel"). We're running behind on our major project and she doesn't seem to feel any pressure to complete it on time. (She's one of those breezy "C'est la vie" types...).

screams into the void

This would drive me nuts. I have an idiot at work (not as bad as yours) and a small thing that helps me as I am wasting my time is to remember I get paid for things that are stupid as well as smart things iyswim

Redcliff haha that's been my only motivation so far!

Which for me is strange because I've always been able to derive satisfaction from all my other jobs and have always been highly motivated and competitive. But recently due to this manager I've lost all real motivation and am just holding up a veneer of being the same old me. Deep down the thought of going to work each day fills me with dread!

I keep saying to myself that this is only temporary and that it's unlikely I'll have to deal with a job this bad again...one can hope!

I know you said theres not many jobs in your field but I would update cv and linked in and maybe set up som job agent emails so you know when there IS a job available.