MINDLESS MUSINGS

“How the fuck could they make that lazy prick a supervisor/manager?”

Another line I have heard on repeat for many a year. Sometimes I personally witnessed the present boss doing fuck-all during their tenure on the floor with the rest of us. Sometimes the rise took place before my arrival and my coworkers were ever too keen to inform anyone within ear shot of the boss who “was the biggest bludger in the joint” when they were one of us. I even witnessed the almost instant metamorphosis of a work averse union delegate into an asshole supervisor who would not look out of place carrying a whip.

It is extremely irritating to be given a talking to regarding your output from a person who seemed to have a pathological fear of sweat and getting their hands dirty. Hard fact is though; they no longer need to. They took the leap and somehow landed on their feet. Many don’t. Many are out the door within a few months of putting on the deputy badge. If this particular ex-deadshit has been around for a year or more, they must be doing something right.

“Yeah, getting under the big bosses desk!”

I hear many variations on this theme, both hetro and homosexual. I suppose it makes the grunts feel a bit better. They just cannot fathom why their former below average effort coworker could succeed the next one or two levels up. We almost never acknowledge the most obvious reasons:

1. Just because this person was allergic to physical labour doesn’t mean they can’t do something different well, or at least okay.
2. If that thing gets them out of doing grunt work, they are much more motivated to keep the position.
3. They didn’t get sacked when they were work-shy in plain sight, so maybe they possess a certain gift-of-the-gab.

One line that slapped me awake many years ago came from a depot manager during one of his team rants (I mean speeches). Talking specifically about workers being disgruntled with supervisors, this guy said, “at least they stepped up and had a go.” No matter what reason/s we may have to disapprove of a boss’s character or behaviour, management is obliged to back them up simply because they crossed the floor. So, we can add that to the list too, I guess.

It seems to be an odd quirk of human nature to shirk responsibility, while criticizing those who attempt to lead. Like members of the opposition party, we get to ruthlessly find fault with every decision made by the ones charged with making them. So comforting to assert that we would have made the ‘best’ decision after the fact. So easy to throw out hypothetical alternatives, especially when they won’t be tested.

Running the operation to perfection is an impossibility and hardly possible in theory – damn reality! Our ‘idiot’ leaders need only do what is required of them by their boss, not reinvent the wheel. Thus, the supervisor is first and foremost trying to fulfill the requirements handed down to them. To really understand why decisions (no matter how stupid or strange) are made, the best clues can be found in the way a supervisors’ performance is measured.

KPIs (key performance indicators) are the tools used for this. A successful KPI is one that is SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound. Basically, a list of quantifiable measurements that give a description of how well an employee is performing their delegated duties. No matter how well you perform overall, if you do not achieve those KPIs you are not doing your job properly.

It doesn’t matter what you do, it only matters what the bosses think you are doing. Think back to when our supervisor was a lackluster grunt. Were there any bosses observing their lack of performance? Or did they seem to have a sixth sense and become busy moments before any honcho showed up? Did they have a rapport with the higher ups? Or the ultimate superpower of these characters: was a lot of their unproductive time taken up chatting with bosses? Brilliant sleight of hand!

Our ‘stupid’ supervisor is getting cleverer with each paragraph – the bastard! They do not need to solve the companies’ problems; they merely need to absorb stress for their boss. If they successfully take pressure off their superiors, they are gold. Tick the boxes that need ticking, don’t rock the boat and don’t let your boss think you want their job. Oh, and then there’s the toughest part: accept the fact that you may one day be forced to fall on your sword. Every rung on this corporate ladder is a potential scapegoat for the rungs above and you must give the appearance that you will be a loyal little samurai should the time come. Of course, you may not have a choice and under the bus you go. Part of the deal.

So, in the end, we must reluctantly accept that our ‘good for nothing’ foreman possesses a skill set we don’t appreciate, but the company does. They’re not necessarily smarter, but they do seem to have found a better use of their God-given talents.

Many effective workers ‘know’ how to make the place run better. The twist is that their solution usually requires a crew of workers who give as much of a shit as they do. The cold hard truth is that gathering a team of highly motivated and efficient workers is like finding a left-handed screwdriver. Of course, the place would run better if everyone pitched in their fair share, used some common sense and cared about getting the job done right; why not ask for world peace while you’re at it?

A realistic supervisor makes do with what they have. Do the best you can to play people to their strengths and understand that some slugs will not be rushed; which usually results in giving more work to the ones who will. Fair? Absolutely not! Pragmatic? Absolutely. I’ve got a story about a supervisor who planned on ‘getting rid of the dead weight’. I’ll tell it in a later post.

Being a leader does not necessarily require being great at the jobs being done on the floor. It would certainly be a bonus, but it’s not the essential element. To judge a supervisor on their lack of ability or effort to do the hands-on work is to use the wrong criteria.

This was not a treatise on what makes an effective supervisor. It was simply an attempt to understand how a seemingly useless asshole could survive or even thrive in the supervisor/management arena. I just thought of this; see if it helps clarify: “you don’t have to be the best craftsman to know who to delegate the work to. As long as you tick the right boxes and give your boss enough confidence in you to not think they need to ask too many questions – you’re sweet”. You won’t have an efficient team with high morale, but you will have a job.

Oh, and one more thing: the reason a lot of these ex-shirker supervisors are so hypocritical regarding work ethic is because they:

1. Know almost all the tricks in the slacker’s book.
2. They probably expect most workers to be just as shifty as they were, and they definitely don’t want anyone to look as foolish as they made their own supervisor look.