Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Work

Chat with other users about all things related to working life on our Work forum.

Blaggers

6 replies

flack · 28/10/2021 21:12

By blagger I mean people who do no or little work but keenly take credit for any good results. Not necessarily pushing someone else aside, but still acting like they made an important contribution. It's obviously a very successful strategy for them (much in demand and widely highly regarded).

When actually they did Feck All to get the project / report / objectives done. Maybe a few "director" type sentences (probably useless ideas, too) about what should be done, but no actual work or thinking or planning or doing. They are usually senior to me or invited to contribute by my seniors, so not my place to say "You Useless Idiot."

I would love to hear your stories about blaggers at your workplace to help me feel better about my blagger colleagues. I'm feeling mini-rage at their CFery right now.

One of my colleague-blaggers has this MO he signs up to be a project leader on some exciting initiative this looks good on his performance reviews. Having waffled & waved his hands at others in planning meetings about what they need to do just before he needs to put some real time into making project happen he literally gets someone else to do it because he's "too busy" or "forgot" he had booked to go on holiday.

Another Blagger recently sent comments what to do to improve an interim progress report I wrote. He cc'd this to another colleague who hasn't read the report (either) so looks like Blagger made astute useful observations I can act on. In reality his comments were like this... (with my thoughts )

"This report would really benefit from sub-category costings"
Like the ones already on page 20?

".. and detailed clear deliverables"
Already on page 16-19.

"Plus I really think this needs a GANTT chart"
Already on page 23.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....

OP posts:
flack · 28/10/2021 21:45

I'm very pleased for all of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, lol. :)

OP posts:
WingBingo · 28/10/2021 21:50

I do! They are called project managers.

It’s their job to make sure everyone else is doing theirs.

mum2jakie · 28/10/2021 21:54

I know exactly the type of person you mean, OP! Like my own line manager who will happily take glory for my work with very little/no actual input.

In your example I would have replied to the comments and copied the other party I to say : this is already included on p.x paragraph x etc so it's clear that he hasn't actually read the report!

Hairstylisttoboris · 28/10/2021 21:54

I only know one blagger really. He’s very smart but even still out of his depth. He blusters through life when he’s not sure and uses long words and sentences to bamboozle people into submission. He’s been know to stab his friends in the back when useful to him. Good thing his not in a senior position, oh wait, he is still PM.

LawnFever · 28/10/2021 21:58

I hope you replied to his ‘feedback’ pointing to exactly where in your report those things already exist? I definitely would’ve done!

flack · 29/10/2021 18:43

I'm still composing a reply, LawnFever !

My job is part Project Management, I have no truck with actively-involved Project Managers.

I have another Blagger story, this time about a woman.
I had to write up the results of a technical study in a super engaging way for lay-audience that truly 'sold' our company and efforts. We have a standard industry template for the technical reports. Imagine standard sections like "Problem", "Resources Available", "Strategy", "Implementation Results", "Next Steps".

But I was puzzling how to write the public-engagement document. So i asked suspected-Blagger to devise a template & structure for the public engagement version. After 3 weeks and some nagging, Blagger came back with 6 blank pages, each one with a heading that said in turn...
"Problem"
"Resources Available"
"Strategy"
etc.!
WTF.
So that was zero progress.

Blurk.

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page