If your boss is a dummy, you are not the only one

Austin-American Statesman ^ | November 25, 2001 | Eve Tahminciolgu, The New York Times

[redbaiter]

Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments

[stubernx98]

The private sectdor may be bad, but take a look at all levels of government. The trouble is it is almost a requirment to be incompentemt to be promoted. I know, I have consulted in all levels of government for ten years.

It's not the fault of the people so much as it's the system. Once you reach mid managment and up you are generally below what the private sector pays for equal level of responsibilityl, sometimes by a factor of 5 or more. So who stays, the insecure and the incompetent, and they can't be fired(unless the rape a commisioners daughter, and then it will cost $150,000).

One last thing, the private sector is 15 to 25% more efficient. The private sector lives on providing service and products(or the're out of biz), the government thrives on creating new problems and not solving the old ones(job security).

I bet the terrorist are chuckling over the thought of government screeners at the airports!

[DWSUWF]

It's as true today as it was 30 years ago (or, for that matter, 300 or 3000 years ago):

"It's not what you know... It's who you blow"

[Mulder]

A colleague was unable to master the basics of the office's phone system, and had the annoying habit of sending the same e-mail messages over and over again by mistake, prompting four of the 20 people in the department to file formal complaints about him. He was promoted shortly thereafter.

Stuff like this is why the Dilbert cartoons are so popular and funny. It's because they are rooted in reality.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Office Politics

The readers really panned this book. Only a reader in China liked it.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

The private sectdor may be bad, but take a look at all levels of government. The trouble is it is almost a requirment to be incompentemt to be promoted. I know, I have consulted in all levels of government for ten years.

Many cry "victim" status for one thing or another and have lawyers waiting in the wings so management folds
or stalls and sends problem employees to programs like "anger management," "sensitivity training" or buys them off.
Co-workers are usually the ones left to deal with them and pick up the slack.

[No Truce With Kings]

My late boss single-handedly drove the center where I was last employed into the toilet. Drove off those capable of bringing in business, promoted incompetents, so that no one could replace him, alienated everyone -- including upper management.

The home office laid off all but four of us on Oct 1. Those four, including the incompetent boss are shutting everything down. Three of the four, get laid off on Nov 30.

The fourth? He is the incompetant boss. He is being transfered to San Antonio, to work his magic there.

Go figure.

[eastforker]

Very good salemen/women are often promoted to managerial spots. Why are they good,lets see here,getting their clients hard to find tickets to some sporting event,getting his client layed,getting his client drugs and the list is endless.Doesn't matter what you know as the saying goes,it's who ya blow.

[Captain Shady]

Sounds like Dilbert's life

[Cincinatus' Wife]

The fourth? He is the incompetant boss. He is being transfered to San Antonio, to work his magic there.

That sounds like Lee Brown. He's in a run-off in the Houston mayoral race, December 1.

The only place his incompetence was rewarded was in the Clinton White House and that stint in Houston when crime shot through the roof.

LEE BROWN

Political offices sought or held: Mayor of Houston, since 1998.

Education: BS, Fresno State University, 1961; MS, San Jose State University, 1964; MS, University of California-Berkeley, 1968; PhD, UC-Berkeley, 1970.

Background: Native of Wewoka, Okla.; Texas resident nine years; professor of public affairs, Rice University, 1996-97; professor of criminal justice, Texas Southern University, 1992-93; director, White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, 1993-96; Houston police chief, 1982-90; New York City police commissioner, 1990-92; sheriff, Multnomah County, Ore., 1975-76; public safety commissioner, Atlanta, 1978-82.

[lelio]

bump for later reading

[JoeSchem]

I suspect that incompetent people get promoted because of a human tendency not to surround oneself with people better than you are. It has to do with human pride.

In the Bible, King Saul was praised by the people for killing thousands of enemy soldiers in battle. Then David came along, and was praised by the people for killing 'tens of thousands.' It didn't matter that David was unswervingly loyal to Saul; Saul got so angry, he threw a spear at David, then chased him all over Israel, trying to kill him.

[RLK]

...and I've worked with a pile of them in my time.

[Dakmar]

I bet the terrorist are chuckling over the thought of government screeners at the airports!

I'm sure they'll be no worse than the folks at the license branch. (Shudder)

[Hillary 666]

When Becky Boyd was a sales representative for Hewlett-Packard Co., she stopped bringing her boss along on customer calls because, she said, "he was so stupid he'd actually jeopardize sales."

I have this same problem at work. We have an individual like this in my office. We don't let him go anywhere near contractor or client meetings because he can and will screw up. In meetings with contractors, he always comes up with really stupid, unnecessary, and expensive project requirements that needlessly drive up the cost and hassle factor of projects. When dealing with clients, his incompetence jeapordizes sales. We've had to be innovative in coming up with special assignments or send him off to some school to keep him away from contractors and/or clients. This person cannot be fired because he is the fair-haired boy of somebody in upper management. This guy has been promoted out of many departments just to get him the hell out of the office to go be somebody else's problem. He will probably be promoted out of my office, too.

I sure hate to wish a terrible car accident on somebody but it's probably the only way to solve the problem.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

I suspect that incompetent people get promoted because of a human tendency not to surround oneself with people better than you are. It has to do with human pride.

Yes and survival. Like the show, the Weakest Link.
Often they gang up on the smart one to clear the path.
But in the end they always have to watch their own backs.

[DonQ]

Years ago I worked for a lawyer who ran an "unconventional" firm: He was The Boss of a bunch of younger lawyers who evidently were so hard up for jobs that they were working for him for less than McDonald's paid. And they wound up doing all the work. One word of advice that all of them gave me was "Don't let Howard (the Boss) speak to a client alone!" They were absolutely scared to let their own boss handle any legal matters because he was such a clod. And a crook. He kept stiffing them for their paychecks. One young woman stuck with him because she desperately needed the group insurance for a pre-cancerous condition that required lab tests and sometimes overnights in the hospital every other month ... it turned out that the "group" for the insurance consisted only of him and her and he let his coverage lapse, deliberately, he was dodging calls from the insurance broker, and ignoring warning letters, etc., and one day she went home and found two months' accumulated hospital bills in an envelope from the insurance company saying Your group insurance ceased to exist, pay these out of your own pocket. She first called the insurance broker, then the firm's secretary and, last, the boss - and he lied to her. She was mad enough to bite through nails. She knew he was hiding money from the IRS and creditors, and she secretly xeroxed his checkbook and his ledgers and turned it over to the Bar Disciplinary Committee and he was disbarred.

My current supervisor is a failed lawyer. He started at a topnotch job at the other end of the country and then went through a series of about ten different jobs, each one a bit less prestige and responsibility than the one before. Now he's my supervisor. He brags about his ability to read "body language" - you can read his real well; he walks out of the room while people are talking to him, if he's not interested in what you're saying then his eyes not only glaze over but they also wobble side-to-side (I thought he was having a stroke). I recently got a big honor from other members of my specialized field and when I told him he didn't want to hear it - his predecessor would have thrown a party!

[Beeline40@aol.com]

Sounds like our problem, only this is our boss founder of the company.
He is supposed to retire in Jan(yeah ok) he is in his mid 70's.
His production output (billable time) is so low
than all of us 7 worker bees put together have more billable
time than he does. So what do they do?
They lay off the secretary, and I am stuck doing both
of the bookkeeping and secretarial duties.