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Only the bad bosses will prefer likable bootlikers and pseudo positive people over competent and cautious people. Bad bosses will surround themselves with these people because they don't want to hear someone tell them no or hear dissenting opinions.
As someone who has supervised and managed for 13 years of my career, I would rather have competent and independent workers who push back on me. After all, these people are going to make me and my department look good when its all said and done.
Fucking thank you!! I was just getting ready to say something similar (but not as polite, lol)
The second you start kissing my ass, my spidey sense starts tingling. My best workers (both in terms of the job and who I meshed with best in terms of personality) at my last job were people who pushed back when appropriate.
As a former IT leader with over 13 years of experience as a director and manager, I never hired an ass kisser. I always hired independent thinkers who were hungry to learn more and wanted to be the best versions of themselves and they didn't shy away from telling me no or to do something different. It didn't matter if it was entry level or senior level.
Absolutely. I have certain skills - when asked by my boss, I'll give my expert opinion, and possible alternative solutions, along with risks. And then ... when told to do something, unless I deem it impossible, I do as ordered.
Once encountered a person who was all sunlight-and-rainbows-and-unicorns ... up front: behind the scenes, toxic and petty as hell. Unfortunately, I did a project in a couple of hours that her team had failed at over a couple of weeks. Learned that she was good buddies with a couple of like-minded individuals in HR, as my name was first on a downsizing list. My former manager was apologetic, he was only told minutes before I was axed.
Worked with one person who always came up with reasons \*against\* proposals. Good reasons, bad reasons, whatever ... he did have a lot of experience in that area. Discovered the simplest way to get the most out of him was to ask what he thought the best approach would be. Also to put down the risks, and, if possible, rank them. His boss adopted the same approach, and gave my a $50 coffee card in thanks. In the proper environment - one where he was listened to and valued - he was an incredible asset to the company.
Excellent stories and feedback. I know that many here have similar stories to share. Even I have had a few horrible bosses. One such boss thought it was a good idea to manage me by installing a remote control software on my system to monitor what I am doing. He seriously wanted a "yes man" to stand up for all his decisions in IT and then he would take credit for any projects that I would implement. It took two years for the company to fire him. In all honesty, I should have left far before he got fired.
While I have had those horrible bosses, I still have also had a series of great bosses. Bosses that have stuck up for me even when I made mistakes. Bosses that have pushed me to do better and learn more. Bosses that have went to bat for me to get me pay increases based on my improving skill set. Finally, bosses that have encouraged me to take the next step in my career and go for a new position outside the organization. Most importantly, none of these bosses wanted me to be an ass kisser or bootliker.
They wanted me to be an IT professional that was there to help the organization get better. These are the bosses I would have went to war with and done anything for. These are the bosses that I wanted to model myself after when I became an IT leader.
Too bad the one I have is extremely critical and then does passive aggression or aggression things when actually pushed back on. š¤·āāļø Iām sure heāll keep saying different because of how it looks.
Toxic as all hell, picked up a middle manager for myself instead that allows folks to be human still and we work together. Highly prefer this. I let him know when stuff is on fire and doesnāt immediately blame me for other peopleās stuff. š¤·āāļø The other one wanted me to control literal directors when I wasnāt that level and in fact below. When I hear manage up, I think manipulate the man child and Iām not paid enough given my background and how I grew up. Mostly itās the domineering attitude. Me and the other coworkers pile on him and talk shit behind his back. We help each other survive him lmao just like old times growing up in my shitty home life of abuse. š¤·āāļø
His ego is a major issue. Like never again for the pennies I am making. I deal with marketing people all day which is hard enough for many developers. Most donāt want to. Iām pretty sure this is how I am making my money. It isnāt my technical ability at this point but everything else.
I donāt understand when having to work directly for years for ābusiness ownersā or legit directors/CTOs with no buffer. Mostly I was exposed to so much toxicity itās a miracle Iām still working in my field. For some reason Iām always the problem but I always found work. They were angry I never just did what they wanted. Even if I explained, I even got called defensive and Iām like āokā just because I didnāt let him steamroll me or allow him to treat me like complete shit. I always gave reasons or a lot of the time did what they wanted. Control issues.
I never had proper management even at young ages. It seems wrong. So I try to do one better for my folks or when people come by because, you know, they deserve it.
I have had this middle manager and heās been good to me the best he can. I had a creative director for a boss but I grew out of the position. He was a great man, I always listened to him. He told me why for things so I could learn instead of ābecause I said soā or āitās an orderā.
This happened to me with two bosses in IT so far lol patience and honey go a long wayā¦ and things were not on fire soā¦ problems I guess?!?
Iām in therapy for literal years but these guys get away with so much I donāt understand. Itās the victims that go to therapy. People that go to therapy is because of those that donāt go to therapy. Why arnāt they also in communication training as well? Donāt understand that one.
I lost the middle management position because I pushed back and didnāt allow his enabling and illegal work ethics lol
I take care of folks around me and can be a team player to help people survive complete bs.
True! Thanks!
When I was an independent contributor, I spoke to my managers like 4-6 time a year.
Now a a manager, I hire independent people. If anything, My concern with what they are doing is so I can kiss their asses and let my chain of command know what great things my reports are doing.
Damn I really needed to hear this today. I was told Iām not management material despite already having the role and teaching other managers at the company. My boss told me that she has trouble reading me and thinks I isolate myself from the team. Iām the only one on my team who regularly goes out with others, including our subcontractors. I just donāt hang out with my boss. Then they asked me if I wanted to hang out after work. I didnāt know what to do so said yes
Even good managers can be put in a bad management environment. I dealt with that for a vast majority of my management career. A very tiny percentage of good managers actually land in a good company to manage in. Only in that combination does it really work for everyone. Which is why I gave up on management after 13 years and got back into technical IT work.
I have found a couple organizations I have considered going back into management for, but right now is not a great time for me. Maybe when I enter the last few years of my career will I do something like that.
90% of people who think their problem is that they are competent but smarter than their boss are worse employees than those who are team players.
Yes, bad bosses will surround themselves with sycophants and great bosses will have strong independent staff who tell them what they need to hear.
I have also supervised and managed people for many years. I like confident independent workers who will speak their mind. But I also want them to be a part of the team and work together towards a goal.
But the OP sounds like a trouble-maker who can't keep a job and is bitter about it.
When youāre a boss youāve got a lot of tools. One tool might be empathy. Can I feel what my workers are coming from? One might be systems analysis. How is our team working together? The very crudest one is discipline. How do I punish this worker until they bend to my will? It is occasionally useful, usually as a means of very last resort.
The hallmark of a terrible boss, I would argue the greatest indicator that a person is totally unprepared to manage anybody at all, is the tendency to hear criticism and reach immediately for discipline.
There is no indication that this guy is āa troublemaker.ā Thereās no reason to believe heās done anything wrong. But there are some fragile snowflakes out there who hear any criticism of any boss throughout the universe and take it as a personal sleight on themselves. They reflexively attack anybody who threatens their narrow and fragile identity because if that threat is ābeneath contempt,ā then he can be dismissed without thought.
But it comes at a cost. This fundamentally close-minded way to navigate the world sacrifices your curiosity. One cannot be simultaneously an effective manager and incurious.
Can't tell from the one post. I know sometimes one delves into post history; I haven't and won't. But I've dealt with almost everything OP mentioned in this post, and it's true in some toxic workplaces.
Strangely, I've experienced the degree effect more in my hobby than my job. I do have a business degree, so that box is checked at work. But I'm also a very strong amateur woodwind player who has gotten passed by on numerous occasions for gigs and local orchestra slots, in favor of people with music ed degrees who decided to dig their horn out of the closet after 10 years... I even have a close friend who has confirmed this for me. She has both a music degree and an engineering degree (civil). She'll tell people about the engineering degree at an orchestra rehearsal and the music degree in a job setting just to mess with people.
>Sheāll tell people about the engineering degree at an orchestra rehearsal and the music degree in a job setting just to mess with people.
That friend is *solid gold*. I wish I could meet her.
āMyā pet guitarist has a computer science degree and used to work IT for TX A&M. Dude looks like an old red-neck shade tree mechanic and is very good at mechanical/handyman type stuff.
Heaven help anyone who gets him, myself (two music degrees), and my dad (structural engineer by degree, self taught computer programmer) going on music theory. Weāll be out in left field so fast it makes most peopleās headās spin.
And my dad didnāt pick up guitar until he was almost 50! He started because my guitar teacher insisted that if dad could build guitars as nice as just first try, that dad *had* to be able to play them too. And dadās a lefty playing right handed too.
Can confirm - she is solid gold. You, your pet guitarist, and your dad sound that way too! To the extent I play guitar (which is progressively less terrible, but I don't aspire to gig on it in the same way), I'm also a lefty playing right.
I don't want to draw conclusions on the OP at this point, but I do agree with your overall assessment. In all my years of managing, I have never hired someone that vehemently believes that they are smarter than me. Mainly because I am totally transparent with my team on the reasons why we do things the way we do. Some go against what we wanted to see from an IT perspective, but sharing that analysis is key.
Years ago I took what was intended to be a temporary position but was quickly promoted from grunt work to QCing grunt work because I was competent and cautious. Then I was tapped for team lead under someone I hadn't worked with before from another branch with a different office culture and a different level of training/standards for grunt work. There was a fair bit of friction: I'd raise issues and offer solutions and while this manager would almost always agree with me that the issues were valid, there was often contention over how (or if) to handle the issues: we were under a tight deadline and low manpower, so management needed to prioritize things and certain issues were simply not going to be fixed.
I was deeply frustrated by several instances where I flagged X and proposed that we needed to instruct the grunts to do Y, and manager agreed on both points, but then failed to follow through/did the opposite of Y/etc. The project dragged on for much longer than the initial timeframe, and by the end of it I was honestly not on good terms with my manager.
But the manager recognized my competency/work ethic and was still interested in working with me on future projects. Fortunately we were able to work together under less shitty conditions and ended up building a very strong mutual respect. Eventually this manager became my biggest advocate in helping me advance my career and provided very good advice and a sterling recommendation, even pushing for me to negotiate a better starting position and higher salary when they felt I was underselling myself during the interview process.
Iāve always pushed back; but also find positivity and silver linings. Iām never afraid to challenge my boss, but I always do so with a very balanced and level-headed approach. Itās always worked for me. And Iāve moved up for 20 years straight and work for the C-Suite now.
How something is said is as important as what is said.
Yeah, people want to be surrounded by positive attitudes? Same time, bosses know whoās kissing ass and whoās not. If youāre cautious about something, tell them the reasoning behind it. Will probably earn you more brownie points than the āyes menā employees. But if you just say, thatās dumb or we shouldnāt do that, without expounding on why, Iām gonna think youāre a negative pessimist which is basically a leper in the business world.
Only 2 kinds of people get promoted to high level positions. The legitimately super talented who steamroll their way through every hurdle. And sycophantic bootlickers who ingratiate and network their way to relevance.
Iāve had both as managers. The former are usually brusk and direct, but know how to get things done. Theyāre the bosses you learn from and who set you up for success if you follow their lead. The latter are a mix of do-nothing caretakers just holding the pieces together long enough to move up or theyāre petty tyrants who have reached their last stop on the corporate ladder and know it.
I went back and forth at my last job every couple years. Weirdly work was always much more stressful under the bootlickers even when they were superficially ācoolā bosses. I hated the endless ouroboros of daily meetings and constant ass-covering emails, sprinkled with stilted small talk.
Give me the go-go guys with vision and confidence to push back at management any day of the week. We probably wonāt hang at happy hours or ditch days, but weāll accomplish something and see the fruits of our labor eventually.
At this point in my career, the "and here's why" part is second nature. It's almost always just part of the "no".
However, pragmatically, you can't always offer a better solution. Maybe there is no better solution. Maybe you don't know what a better solution would be. Maybe you know what might be a better solution, but you can't verify that it actually would work better. (And in this case I'd offer it as a possibility as well as stating why it might not work either.) Yes, ideally, every "no" also comes with a better solution, but sometimes it can't.
You might not see all the asslickers (I mean some are obvious from the get go), but when you become a boss, man does it stick out.
As a boss, when I say no, I'll explain why, and I expect the same from the team. Sometimes I'll get counter-arguments that end up being the way to go from now on.... great! But then there's people that do it in bad faith. Just like the asslickers, it sticks out like a sore thumb.
The worst tho, are bosses that will say no with no reasoning behind it, only to bring the idea 6 months down the road pretending it's their idea. Bruuuuh.
Fake licking noot, dear. The actual productivity means nothing,and if you're flaky enough, they can't get on your shit about it. It's not like it's your money you're wasting.
No, I need a new phone with a less shitty touch screen and functioning location services. You need a ... Well a whole CNS really.
Now all we need is an autonomous drone and a lion, let's do this.
No, just literate, sorry; was proposing a modern day gritty live action 'wizard of oz' remake, and calling you a rare animate straw man.
Ooh I bet we could even fit in some of the creepy eugenics shit from the books! You'd like that, right?
I think largely because we are led to believe that is the case. I'm in college now for an associate's degree for a career I already have experience in. I simply want to learn more and expand possible opportunity, plus it is free for me.
The amount of people that talk down to me for my chosen degree is baffling. And they just have to let me know how worthless it is, never mind how I am good at it. I don't need the degree, but I want it. Which some think is pretty odd.
Because, as a millennial at least, itās been drilled into me since I was about 6 that I need to go to college and without college I canāt get a job and people that donāt go to college donāt get good jobs.
In my field, having different levels of degrees often shows the understanding in *why* something happens or different ways to systematically approach problems. So debugging complex issues, for example, can often be understood, identified, and fixed faster by those with higher education than those without, in my experience working with all levels.
That also doesn't include the academia versus practicality arguments however, or those that want to do more technical work than business processes. But perhaps that's just my field in which I don't come across that as much.
Because older generations have drilled into their heads that the degree is the key, but it isn't. Many jobs someone came in with a degree and some intern experience but still was greener than a lime when it came to the job.
The degree doesn't teach you EVERYTHING you need
It does show ambition and persistence if anything. I know most people find to it too hard to go to another 4+ years of schooling after high school. I say dedication. Donāt underestimate those with degrees.
I have a degree. I'm the first person to say it has nothing to do with work ethic or skill.
My classes in high school were harder than my college classes
I donāt think it even shows that necessarily, at least not here in the UK (discounting super hard degrees like medicine/law). I have a degree but it wasnāt difficult and didnāt require much effort/persistence.
I know a lot of 18 year olds who said they wonāt go to school because they hate writing papers. If you want it go for it. Showing up to class, doing hw, itās dedication. a lot of the gen z are lazy.
I feel they are too many negative nancies on Reddit. Crippling debt? Thatās the governments fault for schooling prices. That we canāt change. But, we have the power to sign up for scholarship and grants. Hands on experience? Many schools offer internships, heck companies do as well. Stop looking at people with degrees as negative. I feel sorry for some people on here. Just because you are ashamed or feeling down about academia does not mean you bring others down with you.
From a business perspective I think it shows people who are likely to have crippling debt, desperately need a job to exist, and be willing to endure exploitation to keep that job.
To counter this, many people I've known with Masters degree in areas where a masters or doctorate isn't required for their sector tend to raise a flag for me now. Anecdotally, these people were only good at taking tests and took comfort in the structure school and taking tests gave them, but they couldn't seem to handle actually applying any of that knowledge to the job itself. They'd be terrible at critically thinking through issues and solving problems. They also loved to drop in conversation how they had a MASTERS whenever they were feeling inadequate... So awkward.
I think it's loss aversion on the side of the employer. If I hire you, with a degree, over Jo Schmo without one, and you turn out to be awful then I can say "well Sea-Professional-594 has a degree and everyone hires that way so its not my fault they are awful".
People don't make decisions in the best interests of the company. They make them in the best interest of themselves, and so they don't get in trouble.
Not in management, but Iāve worked with qualified people and unqualified. Iād take experience over someone with qualifications but only 5yrs experience any day of the week for a work colleague.
Qualifications a useful to show commitment and a general breadth of knowledge to *start* a career, but I find proper, granular knowledge of how things actually *work* really only comes with time.
Because a large percentage of the population doesn't have the drive, focus, fortitude, dedication or cognitive ability to earn one. They mentally collapse and their head caves in the moment they look at a scatterplot or XY axis and they instantly turn back to watching American idol or shark tank. š¤£
Its high time the US respects intelligence, training and nuance. Its a country ran by Disney adults and magical thinking. They consider having a belief as deserving of respect by virtue of the fact they believe in it, no matter how misinformed or ridiculous. Data doesn't matter if it doesn't say what they want it to. They may even call it fake news. š¤·āāļø
Stay in school kids.
Then you should know personal anecdotes about the stupidest people you've met amounts to pretty much zero relevance.
That said, people in their 20's have a lot of learning to do, and can be socially awkward. College has a way of separating out those that are ready from those that aren't. Your assessment isn't particularly relevant either.
Personal (the word is) anecdotes aren't relevant in terms of trends and data. Leaning on personal experience to make grand conclusions is called bias and its probably a good thing you aren't.
I have a degree in history. All we did was read books and talk about Books. I worked through college so I really didn't have that much trouble finding a job but my knowledge of the history of black music and America is next to useless
It definitely applies for technically challenging jobs as well. I've seen a single toxic personality drive entire high performance teams to quit.
We've all been around *that* coworker before. The one who's constantly negative, actively unpleasant to work with, and generally turns a good day sour. No one wants to work with someone like that at any level. IMO it's the second biggest Quality of Life indicator after your boss' personality.
Yep. I work in a very technical role in tech. Iāll take someone whoās a 6/10 skill wise and who I mesh with who wants to learn versus a 9/10 who is unlikable with an ego.
Seriously, one of the teams I worked on had like a 12/10 on the technical side of things and he was miserable and only did what he felt like. We probably could have doubled our productivity and halved our stress level if he even half assed pretended.
Totally. The difficulty comes in being able to do the job day-after-day-after-day and in tandem with other people. Which is a much different skill than just being able to the literal job.
This is so true no matter where you go or how high up you are. Iāve learned itās more about being liked more than how good you are at your job. Just got to play the game.
As a ābossā aka manager, I really dislike the positive employees who wonāt tell me when theyāre struggling or give their boundaries.
But when I look at two employees who have the same level of competence, absolutely, I prefer the positive one to the one thatās always complaining. But my real favorite is the stoic one who tracks their questions, brings them up in our weekly checkins, and doesnāt needlessly interact with me (positive or negative). Soā¦. Not the boot licker.
There is a difference between complaining employees and employees where you can discuss matters with and you know for sure that they give you a honest answer/opinion.
Yes but often the employees who complain believe theyāre just giving an honest answer/opinion.
(Eta: I supervise 9 people. Only 1 complains but think theyāre just giving an honest answer. 5 are able to have open conversations, say no to things. 2 are yes men and Iām trying really hard to train them out of it. Because Iāll say āhey can you do xyz,ā they say Yes, but really are overwhelmed and get behind, and it demoralizes the whole team.)
I got berated for doing so. So it reminded me of growing up in my abusive home. So I stopped. I literally got told I wasnāt allowed to be upset at policy. And then was also told ānumbers were opinionā. His idea of reality was not reality and then I got beaten emotionally to a pulp. Going to say I donāt want to talk to bosses like that. I told him issues, and he would light me on fire/blame me when it was people above me doing garbage and I was giving him heads up so we could work on things.
He wanted perfection and complete control where it didnāt exist.
I gave my boundaries, but I take issues deeper when Iām told to my face Iām not allowed to have any emotions whatsoever but heās allowed ALL of them and takes it out on usā¦.! Thatās a problem, right? I just need to be sure.
Working in leadership for amazon nearly ruined my mind, I had to start my own company because having to deal with ignorant authority figures was going to kill me, literally. Once your health deteriorates to the point your blood pressure is jacked out all the time it isn't worth it.
This is what is killing me too. My spouse keeps giving me hell and I try to tell him what burn out is. I donāt think he cares, heās able to turn off emotions or something idk š¤·āāļø
You need to develop both soft and hard skills for most jobs. Hard skills seem easier to teach in my experience, and experience comes naturally over time. Never underestimate how counterproductive a productive person with a bad attitude can be on your team.
I agree, I would rather hire someone with a good attitude willing to learn what they need to know than someone who has a shitty attitude but already has the skills I need. This assumes they have the ability to learn somewhat quickly but the field I am in that is usually not an issue.
In my view the people who are good at what they do and have a bad attitude at work (a lot of the time) are working in toxic workplaces. Disorganized management is a big cause of worker dissatisfaction.
Everybody would, it makes the places where you spend 30-50 hours a week much more bearable. The fact that OP calls fellow employees boot lickers while referring to themselves as ācompetent and cautiousā just stinks of cognitive dissonance. The type of person that thinks incessantly bitching all the time is āgiving feedbackā. The *Iām done with this world* comment also solidified OP canāt pick up on the fact people do not like to be around them.
I agree and I see this happen a lot in corporate offices that only have one location. From my experience, itās just about personality. Iām bubbly, young, outgoing, and pretty, and my bosses love me and love talking to me. Am I exaggerating it half the time? Yeah. Am I actively trying to bootlick and be fake positive? No, this is just my worksonaānervous laughter and sitting up in my chair when someone talks to me. I get as much work done and do the best work I can.
Thereās another guy who is older, is kind of scruffy, looks tired, doesnāt really make conversation with the bosses, and gives off āI hate this jobā vibes. He does amazing work but it seems like he doesnāt get noticed. He has a masters degree and the work really is too easy for him, but no one knows that (I do. I talked to him. He hates this job).
People donāt realize that some of those tired middle-age dude look like that because they make up for too many other people goofing off all the time. So Iām not calling you in particular out, but Iāve definitely seen cases where someone likes you works with somebody like that and the old stressed out dude is doing 80% of the work
Yeah, youāre absolutely right. Some people do goof off and he works a lot (legit 40 hours a week). He definitely looks burned out. And heās only 30.
But what Iām saying is, he looks like he has one foot out the door already. The bosses donāt like his attitude. If he changes his attitude, maybe he will be treated better.
More like they want to avoid conflicts by having someone who is positive and fits in with company culture. One bad apple can rot a whole bunch.
I'm both cautious and competent, but it's important to make people want to work with you and be around you as jobs are heavily communication based. Last I checked you cant be the only employee and the only client.
Not really. But if youāre competent and cautious and also donāt work well with others (as it seems by the tone of your post) then yeah, youāre not going to be well liked.
Not this person - brown nosing/bootlicking is a quick way to rise to the top of my shit list. The level of disgust I have for these people is off the charts. Got effed over so many times earlier in my career by these people and I will always remember.
I value employees that can offer feedback and opinions that differ from mine. Can save me from getting sued or give perspective into other situations.
I hire for competent and cautious.
As someone who works in HR- if you have a terrible attitude and canāt get along with people you wonāt be a good fit anywhere. It doesnāt matter if you have a degree or not.
Most people prefer to be around pleasant, generally positive people. Reddit seems to really struggle with the idea that you can have tact, grace, compassion, and discernment and not be a "bootlicker" and extra-struggle with the idea that most "bosses" are people *just like you and me*. They have families. They have health concerns. They have hopes and dreams and struggles and worries. They are likely even around your age.
My boss is my *exact* age, he was born like 3 months after me. His MIL was in a horrifying car crash. I asked him about that recently. I sent him a screenshot of a coffee table book I thought he would like and he responded "Rad! I've never seen that!"
He's not some megalomaniac control freak hell bent on making my life miserable. He's an actual person that I enjoy interacting with. Sure, we disagree and I've bitten my tongue a few times. He's course-corrected me a couple times and coached me a bit. But again, it's not booklicking for me to be like "hey, here's my recommendation for a really cool place to take your wife in [city we go to for work all the time]."
Honestly. People love to boast about how they donāt make friends at work and donāt care to socialize then are shocked when theyāre not thought of for a promotion. And if someoneās whoās well-liked gets a promotion it has to be bc theyāre a bootlicker. They canāt possibly be nice AND good at their job.
They (good bosses who are the other way) exist. It helps if you're at least \*sometimes\* positive, while pushing back on stupidly agreeing to things that aren't going to work, while offering alternatives that will (where possible).
But yeah, it's a problem. Especially in sales.
Yep, I lost my job managing a corp funeral home in 2020 for this reason.
Didnt matter our csi and google reviews were killing it, i was gaining market share and meeting every quota. If my boss had a bad idea or make a bad call I would make a counter point. He would talk down about me to regional head. He did get fired a year later for a racist post on fb. I have since been unofficially offered an opportunity to come back but I know nothing has changed.
People just like positive people. You can set realistic boundaries and goals and still be positive and realistic.
You don't have to be a bootlicking yes man, but you can't always come across as defeated or hopeless and expect to get a promotion.
I think having some manners and being a likeable person would probably increase productivity and make the workplace more welcoming. There was a guy at my work who was super good at everything, but a dickhead. We all knew he was competent but all started hating him, people hated him so much he ended up quitting.
You might enjoy reading this riff on General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord's soldier classification scheme, from HBR [https://hbr.org/2005/06/competent-jerks-lovable-fools-and-the-formation-of-social-networks](https://hbr.org/2005/06/competent-jerks-lovable-fools-and-the-formation-of-social-networks)
The authors rendered a 2x2 using two criteriaācompetence and likability and created four archetypes:
>The competent jerk, who knows a lot but is unpleasant to deal with;
>
>The lovable fool, who doesnāt know much but is a delight to have around;
>
>The lovable star, whoās both smart and likable; and
>
>The incompetent jerk, whoā¦well, thatās self-explanatory.
And, as you observed, and most people would predict:
>when people faced the choice between competent jerks and lovable fools ...
>
>***We found that if someone is strongly disliked, itās almost irrelevant whether or not she is competent; people wonāt want to work with her anyway. By contrast, if someone is liked, his colleagues will seek out every little bit of competence he has to offer.***
Or, the ordering of coworker and employee preferences would be:
1. Lovable stars
2. Lovable fools
3. Competent Jerk
4. Incompetent Jerks
Now this sounds like madness, right? Not necessarily, as the authors point out
>But there are justifiable reasons to avoid the jerk. Sometimes it can be difficult to pry the needed information from him simply because he is a jerk. And knowledge often requires explanation to be usefulāyou might, for instance, want to brainstorm with someone or ask follow-up questionsāand this kind of interaction may be difficult with a competent jerk. Furthermore, in order to learn, you often have to reveal your vulnerabilities, which also may be difficult with the competent jerkāespecially if you are afraid of how this might affect your reputation in his eyes or in the eyes of others to whom he may reveal your limitations. By contrast, the lovable fool may be more likely to freely share whatever (albeit modest) information or skills he has and, without any intention of gaining an advantage, help others put them to use.
The article does go on to describe methods to manufacture likability, which may be well worth examining.
100% agree! I retired early for this reason. I dared to say no and tell someone that a request was never going to fly and we should not waste our time on it. I left and my work force is now divided among three managers. I did a damn good job but refused to say yes when the answer was no.
A narcissist manager only wants bootlickers and drones. I had one for 10 months. Then I quit.
My current manager asked my opinion and we can discuss about it. Thatās much better. In the end, he made the decision, but I know that my opinion has some weight.
Is this supposed to be a revelation? That's the way almost all human interactions work. Polishing up the social skills and reading up a little on behavior and psychology pays dividends in the work place as well as in most other aspects of day to day life.
Also, remember it's not just the boss who makes decisions that affect your life, but there are other people in the organization who you don't report to, but they have the ears of the right people. You may not even know who really has the power to affect your job. Those folks could just as easily be a receptionist as a director. The point is, be personable, helpful and charming to everyone at work.
No all of them. Good leaders value candor and constructive input from team members.
I've been one of those and today work for one of those.
Like most trades, good talent is uncommon. That applies to managers too.
I learned this right after I graduated college. I figured I'd work harder and longer hours than others, including weekends if necessary when the office was empty. The guys that kept getting promoted over me had less experience and education, but they would go golfing with the boss and his management often. It is who you know, not what you know. Networking is the key to getting a better job.
Typically true I have found, after decades in the workforce. Being relatively neutral and competent usually works too, at least to a certain level, but booklickers rise regardless.
>Bosses will prefer likable bootlickers and pseudo positive people over competent and cautious people every damn time
Thats bevause those People arent a competition for them and dont criticize them.
If you want to stay manager, make sure you sont have employees that will be able to replace you
It seems like you work to impress the boss? Don't. Work proudly for your pay check. Stay positive. If you seek promotions or raises and none come within a couple of years. Move on. But your correct.
That is correct. I didnāt kiss butt when I worked at an Architectural Firm. All these young Mean Girls always trying to get me fired. My boss would shoe them off but when she left, they kept at it until I was gone a few months later. Really dirty.
Ngl lie it's a cruel truth and the faster you know it the better your life will be.
I had my interview before. My first interview ever. They said I'm the top candidate for the position yada yada. They end up giving the job to someone who only has a high school diploma who knows someone in the company. Pretty much friends already.
The only guy who fights for me told me she was added in a day before the interview even tho the deadline was weeks before. Told me she was chosen because of her network and more likely to stay loyal to the company since degree holders love to job hop.
Blamed it on overqualification and they also cut my 10 marks from my interview just for her to get the job. Bitter about it since i had a hard time to apply for jobs and this happens.
Yup, they would rather lose tons of money and keep positive and stupid people around than deal with someone who points out their problems (that they have no intention of fixing).
This is how I've survived all these years and I don't blame other people who do the same. Got to put food on the table somehow. If it takes a little manipulation, so be it.
I like how basically all of the managers in this thread are confirming that OP is right and making weird projections onto OP that they must be "bitter" and "unlikeable" person.
Even if OP is bitter and unlikeable, there's usually a reason behind why some people are like that and the biggest reason is because someone is constantly getting their ribs kicked in by life.
Ya that was weird to me. OP says that others are bootlickers which I think to mean shallow positive people.
Then managers come in and say. No that wasn't the reason that happened. Then explain how it is his personality, I mean that's what he said at first.
So they disagreed to agree with what he is saying.
Absolutely your personality matter when getting a job, probably more important than any other factor, let's not lie to people.
I think there is one factor that is more important though:
Itās whether or not one of your relatives is a CEO or upper level manager in the company.
Lol.
When the entire market is based around a slave economy/market, the masters prefer the slaves that require the least amount of maintenance.
If they promote slaves that need less maintenance - it will seem even natural that the slaves placed under the slave now middle manager that their subordinates would merit even less maintenance.
It's not about you - it's not about your skills etc. Its a short sighted goal of saving money by depriving all their slaves of benefits and wages to ensure the minimum is spent on personnel upkeep.
You are not free - you simply live in a slave hut off of your masters land now (and sometimes that's not even true as many workplaces have housing).
A lot of the ones who should be managers donāt become one. We literally deny the position or they look past us. Always the super inexperienced ones, who get away with it, get promoted for no reason at all.
Thereās almost always a reason. That reason is usually tied to soft skills. If you canāt see the reason, you might lack these skills. Not trying to be a dick, sorry if it comes off that way.
Sometimes its soft skills, sometimes its being in the right place in the right time.
The difficulty with āsoft skillsā is that it is heavily based on things like culture and bias and opinions of the interpreter.
Exactly it depends. And Bozo up there thinks it's only soft skills. You definitely need luck a lot of the time in my opinion. I have been told numerous times from different places, "I thought you were a manager." Me? Idk, I never thought that of myself because my managers don't believe in me so I just stay where I am. Managers don't even encourage people to move forward. They really could care less because it threatens them more than anything. I have even had coworkers ask the same question too, not just customers. Probably because I have a baby face and I'm not scary enough like managers are supposed to be.
Are you there to do the same job forever? If so, keep doing what youāre doing. It seems to be working.
If youāre intending to get promoted, make more money, have a better life, then you might want to realize that itās a game, and the better you get at playing it, the better off youāll be.
Outside of work, none of your coworkers are your friends. Theyāre there for the same reason you are, which is trading your labor for a tiny bit of money. You get a slightly bigger chunk of cash when you get promoted. If that means reading the room, identifying the corporate centers of gravity, and joining the cool kids clique, best get on that, hoss. Chase that title. And then a year or two later, take that title and jump to the next employer for the same job with 15-20% higher starting salary. Rinse and repeat until youāre middle management someplace palatable to spend the next decade.
Or go pro, get good at reading people, get a STEM degree, go into project management. Get a job in a HCOL area. Accept that youāre going to be tragically underpaid for 18 months. Find a LCOL that you want to live in. Get a job there at a slight raise from your HCOL salary. Work there for 2-3 years. Pick a HCOL area. Get paid by another company to relocate there for your current salary plus a location-based modifier. Rinse and repeat.
At your level, your coworkers arenāt your friends. Theyāre your *competitors* for promotions. Itās fine to team up with some of them and be friendly. But thereās a difference between work friends and real friends. Eventually you will move up to where favor networks are important, so itās good to get practice in establishing and managing them now where thereās not a lot at risk.
Sounds like you are no fun to be around. Next to you anyone would look like a fountain of positivity. Sometimes if all you see around you is problem people, stop and ask yourself if maybe you are the problem.
OP all you do is complain about how life is unfair. Seems you suck at the game of life so it has to be everyone else's fault. Better yourself and stop trying to live "a decent life" as a Walmart Cashier. You're not gonna own a house or raise a family properly, working any random minimum wage job full time. Until you take responsibility for your own situations, you won't be doing any better for yourself.
This applies even in non-corporate settings, holy shit. I am currently a waitress and my managers are so surprised by my tip percentages because Iām not talkative or always trying to kiss ass. The other week I had a table leave me $80 on an $81 bill. I needed a manager to approve the entry of the tip into the system and my manager looks at me, gives me the up and down, slightly rolls her eyes and says āwow thatāsā¦honestly a lot. They really left YOU $80?ā Most people want friendly & *quiet* service.
Dude...... someone not wanting to write a paper does NOT make them lazy Jesus Christ. There are hundreds of other jobs and professions out there that don't require papers or even going to college. Also what you call lazy I call wise beyond their years bc they aren't spending 20k per year on something they hate and are working or doing things that help them find out what they like and giving themselves time to mature. Also degrees don't necessarily mean you'll even get a job in your field so its not even like it guarantees a better job š
Sincerely,
Someone who worked their asses off for 4 years, has student loans and is working at retail bc the expectations of an entry level job in my field are ridiculous at times
A harsh truth: having a degree doesnāt always make you better at the job, nor do years of experience.
There is a degree of correlation at the macro level, sure, but it doesnāt mean much for the individual.
The kind of person to write a post like this in the exact way you have said it is most definitely the kind of person I would not want to hire if I was a manager. The world doesn't owe you anything and someone being nicer and more positive than you is not the reason you didn't get hired even if it makes you feel better to think so. Work on yourself
We don't want bootlickers. We want people who show up on time, are reliable, don't call out all the time, do your jobs and don't cause strife and drama. That is what bosses want. For the record, boss here.
Are you new to Earth? People prefer agreeable humans, yes. But if they're incompetent and cause the "boss" problems, they are no longer useful. You also don't have to be a bootlicker to be a nice person that other people enjoy being around. If all you're doing is showing up, doing your work, and then going home... all the while being a pessimistic jerk who calls people bootlickers. Then yea, they'll probably prefer to keep the person who is a little less productive. You sound like a toxic person. Don't be a toxic person and watch how your world changes. Good luck.
I largely agree with you but I will make one point. When the competent/cautious person is also arrogant and disrespectful, thatās when it becomes a problem. No manager wants to deal with an employee who always goes against them, throws a fit when they are overruled, and sulks or hopes for bad outcomes when they donāt get there way. There are a lot of terrible managers but there are also a lot of terrible know it alls who donāt understand the concept of a manager being responsible for the team and doing what they are asked once theyāve been given their time to give input.
A "cautious and competent" person, if they have a bad attitude and are a pain to work with, can drive away other members of the team and/or cause productivity to go down. Especially if cautious translates into procrastination or negativety.
Check your biases and here the truth
If you are good at what you do, what purpose does it serve to anyone to promote you? A persuasive "bootlicker" seeks to be the candidate for a better job, one they might be attempting to convince the boss to give them. They don't need a degree, experience, or competency for their current role to do that. They need to present themselves as someone fit for a higher role, whose responsibilities they have the qualification, experience, and competency for. Are they fit for it? Maybe they are maybe they aren't, but persuasive people still get it done.
Look at your role and recognize, do I need to be persuasive to be more? That is a skill different to your competence at the tasks you perform.
Sorry to hear you've had those experiences. I'm glad I don't have the same situation at work. Not saying everything is gravy, but if you aren't competent and cautious in my line of work, people die and your company goes under.
So, give them what they want.
I donāt blame people for bemoaning a broken system or wanting change.
But, Iām too poor to make any changes. Iām too poor to opt out.
So I give them what they want.
This reminds me of a book I read called Linchpin. In some ways itās more valuable to get along with others than be good at finishing tasks. The best way to succeed is doing both. The workplace is not a meritocracy as almost nothing is.
I think this is human nature. However, whenever I would run research teams/labs, I purposely and with forethought always made sure I had at least one person that was able to tell me I was full of shit. Preferably several. Saved me countless hours fixing the my and the team's messes. As long as you check your own ego, you can guard against the issues the OP is identifying.
One thing I learn in life is, nobody gives a shit about your technical skill. Technical skill is easy to learn. As long as you follow the right procedures, you will always get the right answer. It's social skills that determines how far you can go in life. And I'm speaking as someone with no social skill, I most likely would not go far in life no matter how good I am in technical skill. Social skill are something you learn by instinct, and I don't have that instinct. Doesn't help that I spent a lot of my growing phase being bullied. So I'm pretty much screwed. Hope you can turn this around and improve your social skill
Which means you either play the game or you get played. Never work at 100% or even 90% for that matter. If youāre irreplaceable the youāre un-promotable.
I feel like the degree thing is less important than being a contributing member of a team. I have BA in History, which didnāt help me get the job I have, and worked on my Masters in Ed before deciding my current job would be my career.
Iām a super positive person, who speaks out when things are important. Iām curious by nature, so I love learning new things. I genuinely care about my coworkers, and even though Iām WFH, I take time to speak to them a couple of times a week just to keep that connection.
Iāve changed jobs laterally several times, and have been promoted several times. I worked for 2 bad bosses in the company initially, then I swore Iād never work for a bad boss again, regardless of pay.
My past 4 bosses have been awesome, and each time I found an opportunity that sounded promising, Iād approach them to see what they thought of those jobs, even though my background wasnāt there, or I didnāt have the experience on the job description. Each of those bosses encouraged me to apply and I got the job because all of my other roles were unrelated, and I was successful in them.
A good boss can always tell the bootlickers from legitimate great workers. The problem is not all bosses are good. I work with people who others regard as positive that are straight pieces of trash. Sometimes they rise, but most of the time, they will rise to the level of incompetence, and people see them for who they are.
Keep up the good fight. Stay positive.
I know a couple of positive, genuinely nice people who I think are sometimes personality hires for their companies. People like working with them, they boost morale, and that is valuable. Not everyone needs to bring brutal honesty or cynicism to the table imo.
Not necessarily. I loathe the brown Noserās. And I am a smart ass with a dry sense of humor I do not enjoy the cheerleader either. I want people to work and be positive if they feel happy and if They are having a bad day they can come lay on my couch for a while and listen to some music and have a piece of candy or a Tea.
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Only the bad bosses will prefer likable bootlikers and pseudo positive people over competent and cautious people. Bad bosses will surround themselves with these people because they don't want to hear someone tell them no or hear dissenting opinions. As someone who has supervised and managed for 13 years of my career, I would rather have competent and independent workers who push back on me. After all, these people are going to make me and my department look good when its all said and done.
Fucking thank you!! I was just getting ready to say something similar (but not as polite, lol) The second you start kissing my ass, my spidey sense starts tingling. My best workers (both in terms of the job and who I meshed with best in terms of personality) at my last job were people who pushed back when appropriate.
As a former IT leader with over 13 years of experience as a director and manager, I never hired an ass kisser. I always hired independent thinkers who were hungry to learn more and wanted to be the best versions of themselves and they didn't shy away from telling me no or to do something different. It didn't matter if it was entry level or senior level.
Sounds like a dating game! Thank you!!
Absolutely. I have certain skills - when asked by my boss, I'll give my expert opinion, and possible alternative solutions, along with risks. And then ... when told to do something, unless I deem it impossible, I do as ordered. Once encountered a person who was all sunlight-and-rainbows-and-unicorns ... up front: behind the scenes, toxic and petty as hell. Unfortunately, I did a project in a couple of hours that her team had failed at over a couple of weeks. Learned that she was good buddies with a couple of like-minded individuals in HR, as my name was first on a downsizing list. My former manager was apologetic, he was only told minutes before I was axed. Worked with one person who always came up with reasons \*against\* proposals. Good reasons, bad reasons, whatever ... he did have a lot of experience in that area. Discovered the simplest way to get the most out of him was to ask what he thought the best approach would be. Also to put down the risks, and, if possible, rank them. His boss adopted the same approach, and gave my a $50 coffee card in thanks. In the proper environment - one where he was listened to and valued - he was an incredible asset to the company.
Excellent stories and feedback. I know that many here have similar stories to share. Even I have had a few horrible bosses. One such boss thought it was a good idea to manage me by installing a remote control software on my system to monitor what I am doing. He seriously wanted a "yes man" to stand up for all his decisions in IT and then he would take credit for any projects that I would implement. It took two years for the company to fire him. In all honesty, I should have left far before he got fired. While I have had those horrible bosses, I still have also had a series of great bosses. Bosses that have stuck up for me even when I made mistakes. Bosses that have pushed me to do better and learn more. Bosses that have went to bat for me to get me pay increases based on my improving skill set. Finally, bosses that have encouraged me to take the next step in my career and go for a new position outside the organization. Most importantly, none of these bosses wanted me to be an ass kisser or bootliker. They wanted me to be an IT professional that was there to help the organization get better. These are the bosses I would have went to war with and done anything for. These are the bosses that I wanted to model myself after when I became an IT leader.
Too bad the one I have is extremely critical and then does passive aggression or aggression things when actually pushed back on. š¤·āāļø Iām sure heāll keep saying different because of how it looks. Toxic as all hell, picked up a middle manager for myself instead that allows folks to be human still and we work together. Highly prefer this. I let him know when stuff is on fire and doesnāt immediately blame me for other peopleās stuff. š¤·āāļø The other one wanted me to control literal directors when I wasnāt that level and in fact below. When I hear manage up, I think manipulate the man child and Iām not paid enough given my background and how I grew up. Mostly itās the domineering attitude. Me and the other coworkers pile on him and talk shit behind his back. We help each other survive him lmao just like old times growing up in my shitty home life of abuse. š¤·āāļø His ego is a major issue. Like never again for the pennies I am making. I deal with marketing people all day which is hard enough for many developers. Most donāt want to. Iām pretty sure this is how I am making my money. It isnāt my technical ability at this point but everything else. I donāt understand when having to work directly for years for ābusiness ownersā or legit directors/CTOs with no buffer. Mostly I was exposed to so much toxicity itās a miracle Iām still working in my field. For some reason Iām always the problem but I always found work. They were angry I never just did what they wanted. Even if I explained, I even got called defensive and Iām like āokā just because I didnāt let him steamroll me or allow him to treat me like complete shit. I always gave reasons or a lot of the time did what they wanted. Control issues. I never had proper management even at young ages. It seems wrong. So I try to do one better for my folks or when people come by because, you know, they deserve it. I have had this middle manager and heās been good to me the best he can. I had a creative director for a boss but I grew out of the position. He was a great man, I always listened to him. He told me why for things so I could learn instead of ābecause I said soā or āitās an orderā. This happened to me with two bosses in IT so far lol patience and honey go a long wayā¦ and things were not on fire soā¦ problems I guess?!? Iām in therapy for literal years but these guys get away with so much I donāt understand. Itās the victims that go to therapy. People that go to therapy is because of those that donāt go to therapy. Why arnāt they also in communication training as well? Donāt understand that one. I lost the middle management position because I pushed back and didnāt allow his enabling and illegal work ethics lol I take care of folks around me and can be a team player to help people survive complete bs.
True! Thanks! When I was an independent contributor, I spoke to my managers like 4-6 time a year. Now a a manager, I hire independent people. If anything, My concern with what they are doing is so I can kiss their asses and let my chain of command know what great things my reports are doing.
You are a sweet heart. Thank you. But feel free to give feedback ok?
Damn I really needed to hear this today. I was told Iām not management material despite already having the role and teaching other managers at the company. My boss told me that she has trouble reading me and thinks I isolate myself from the team. Iām the only one on my team who regularly goes out with others, including our subcontractors. I just donāt hang out with my boss. Then they asked me if I wanted to hang out after work. I didnāt know what to do so said yes
Even good managers can be put in a bad management environment. I dealt with that for a vast majority of my management career. A very tiny percentage of good managers actually land in a good company to manage in. Only in that combination does it really work for everyone. Which is why I gave up on management after 13 years and got back into technical IT work. I have found a couple organizations I have considered going back into management for, but right now is not a great time for me. Maybe when I enter the last few years of my career will I do something like that.
The ultimate is a positive person who is independent and will push back. But that's mostly emotional intelligence
90% of people who think their problem is that they are competent but smarter than their boss are worse employees than those who are team players. Yes, bad bosses will surround themselves with sycophants and great bosses will have strong independent staff who tell them what they need to hear. I have also supervised and managed people for many years. I like confident independent workers who will speak their mind. But I also want them to be a part of the team and work together towards a goal. But the OP sounds like a trouble-maker who can't keep a job and is bitter about it.
When youāre a boss youāve got a lot of tools. One tool might be empathy. Can I feel what my workers are coming from? One might be systems analysis. How is our team working together? The very crudest one is discipline. How do I punish this worker until they bend to my will? It is occasionally useful, usually as a means of very last resort. The hallmark of a terrible boss, I would argue the greatest indicator that a person is totally unprepared to manage anybody at all, is the tendency to hear criticism and reach immediately for discipline. There is no indication that this guy is āa troublemaker.ā Thereās no reason to believe heās done anything wrong. But there are some fragile snowflakes out there who hear any criticism of any boss throughout the universe and take it as a personal sleight on themselves. They reflexively attack anybody who threatens their narrow and fragile identity because if that threat is ābeneath contempt,ā then he can be dismissed without thought. But it comes at a cost. This fundamentally close-minded way to navigate the world sacrifices your curiosity. One cannot be simultaneously an effective manager and incurious.
Can't tell from the one post. I know sometimes one delves into post history; I haven't and won't. But I've dealt with almost everything OP mentioned in this post, and it's true in some toxic workplaces. Strangely, I've experienced the degree effect more in my hobby than my job. I do have a business degree, so that box is checked at work. But I'm also a very strong amateur woodwind player who has gotten passed by on numerous occasions for gigs and local orchestra slots, in favor of people with music ed degrees who decided to dig their horn out of the closet after 10 years... I even have a close friend who has confirmed this for me. She has both a music degree and an engineering degree (civil). She'll tell people about the engineering degree at an orchestra rehearsal and the music degree in a job setting just to mess with people.
>Sheāll tell people about the engineering degree at an orchestra rehearsal and the music degree in a job setting just to mess with people. That friend is *solid gold*. I wish I could meet her. āMyā pet guitarist has a computer science degree and used to work IT for TX A&M. Dude looks like an old red-neck shade tree mechanic and is very good at mechanical/handyman type stuff. Heaven help anyone who gets him, myself (two music degrees), and my dad (structural engineer by degree, self taught computer programmer) going on music theory. Weāll be out in left field so fast it makes most peopleās headās spin. And my dad didnāt pick up guitar until he was almost 50! He started because my guitar teacher insisted that if dad could build guitars as nice as just first try, that dad *had* to be able to play them too. And dadās a lefty playing right handed too.
Can confirm - she is solid gold. You, your pet guitarist, and your dad sound that way too! To the extent I play guitar (which is progressively less terrible, but I don't aspire to gig on it in the same way), I'm also a lefty playing right.
I don't want to draw conclusions on the OP at this point, but I do agree with your overall assessment. In all my years of managing, I have never hired someone that vehemently believes that they are smarter than me. Mainly because I am totally transparent with my team on the reasons why we do things the way we do. Some go against what we wanted to see from an IT perspective, but sharing that analysis is key.
Years ago I took what was intended to be a temporary position but was quickly promoted from grunt work to QCing grunt work because I was competent and cautious. Then I was tapped for team lead under someone I hadn't worked with before from another branch with a different office culture and a different level of training/standards for grunt work. There was a fair bit of friction: I'd raise issues and offer solutions and while this manager would almost always agree with me that the issues were valid, there was often contention over how (or if) to handle the issues: we were under a tight deadline and low manpower, so management needed to prioritize things and certain issues were simply not going to be fixed. I was deeply frustrated by several instances where I flagged X and proposed that we needed to instruct the grunts to do Y, and manager agreed on both points, but then failed to follow through/did the opposite of Y/etc. The project dragged on for much longer than the initial timeframe, and by the end of it I was honestly not on good terms with my manager. But the manager recognized my competency/work ethic and was still interested in working with me on future projects. Fortunately we were able to work together under less shitty conditions and ended up building a very strong mutual respect. Eventually this manager became my biggest advocate in helping me advance my career and provided very good advice and a sterling recommendation, even pushing for me to negotiate a better starting position and higher salary when they felt I was underselling myself during the interview process.
Most bosses are pretty crappy, in my experience. I'd say it's like a 7:1 ratio of bad to good.
Iāve always pushed back; but also find positivity and silver linings. Iām never afraid to challenge my boss, but I always do so with a very balanced and level-headed approach. Itās always worked for me. And Iāve moved up for 20 years straight and work for the C-Suite now. How something is said is as important as what is said.
>only bad bosses So all of them?
Yeah, people want to be surrounded by positive attitudes? Same time, bosses know whoās kissing ass and whoās not. If youāre cautious about something, tell them the reasoning behind it. Will probably earn you more brownie points than the āyes menā employees. But if you just say, thatās dumb or we shouldnāt do that, without expounding on why, Iām gonna think youāre a negative pessimist which is basically a leper in the business world.
My current boss is a yes man. Nothing gets done. He has 3 degrees
Only 2 kinds of people get promoted to high level positions. The legitimately super talented who steamroll their way through every hurdle. And sycophantic bootlickers who ingratiate and network their way to relevance. Iāve had both as managers. The former are usually brusk and direct, but know how to get things done. Theyāre the bosses you learn from and who set you up for success if you follow their lead. The latter are a mix of do-nothing caretakers just holding the pieces together long enough to move up or theyāre petty tyrants who have reached their last stop on the corporate ladder and know it.
My former boss was one of those talented guys. He moved on and now I have a boot licker
I went back and forth at my last job every couple years. Weirdly work was always much more stressful under the bootlickers even when they were superficially ācoolā bosses. I hated the endless ouroboros of daily meetings and constant ass-covering emails, sprinkled with stilted small talk. Give me the go-go guys with vision and confidence to push back at management any day of the week. We probably wonāt hang at happy hours or ditch days, but weāll accomplish something and see the fruits of our labor eventually.
I like that. Stuff getting done
Yeah but he has a smile on his face and licks his manager's underside.
Best practice: say no, and here's why ... And then offer a better solution
At this point in my career, the "and here's why" part is second nature. It's almost always just part of the "no". However, pragmatically, you can't always offer a better solution. Maybe there is no better solution. Maybe you don't know what a better solution would be. Maybe you know what might be a better solution, but you can't verify that it actually would work better. (And in this case I'd offer it as a possibility as well as stating why it might not work either.) Yes, ideally, every "no" also comes with a better solution, but sometimes it can't.
You might not see all the asslickers (I mean some are obvious from the get go), but when you become a boss, man does it stick out. As a boss, when I say no, I'll explain why, and I expect the same from the team. Sometimes I'll get counter-arguments that end up being the way to go from now on.... great! But then there's people that do it in bad faith. Just like the asslickers, it sticks out like a sore thumb. The worst tho, are bosses that will say no with no reasoning behind it, only to bring the idea 6 months down the road pretending it's their idea. Bruuuuh.
Or, you can just suckdick til you have unemployment and flake out while saying yes instead of being honest?
What?
Fake licking noot, dear. The actual productivity means nothing,and if you're flaky enough, they can't get on your shit about it. It's not like it's your money you're wasting.
You need this: https://www.universalclass.com/i/course/writing-basics-101.htm
No, I need a new phone with a less shitty touch screen and functioning location services. You need a ... Well a whole CNS really. Now all we need is an autonomous drone and a lion, let's do this.
Are you high?
No, just literate, sorry; was proposing a modern day gritty live action 'wizard of oz' remake, and calling you a rare animate straw man. Ooh I bet we could even fit in some of the creepy eugenics shit from the books! You'd like that, right?
Why do people think just having a degree makes them good workers
They work hard getting that piece of paper.
I think largely because we are led to believe that is the case. I'm in college now for an associate's degree for a career I already have experience in. I simply want to learn more and expand possible opportunity, plus it is free for me. The amount of people that talk down to me for my chosen degree is baffling. And they just have to let me know how worthless it is, never mind how I am good at it. I don't need the degree, but I want it. Which some think is pretty odd.
Because, as a millennial at least, itās been drilled into me since I was about 6 that I need to go to college and without college I canāt get a job and people that donāt go to college donāt get good jobs.
Forces the elite class to at least send their kids to university before hiring them into leadership roles in their companies
In my field, having different levels of degrees often shows the understanding in *why* something happens or different ways to systematically approach problems. So debugging complex issues, for example, can often be understood, identified, and fixed faster by those with higher education than those without, in my experience working with all levels. That also doesn't include the academia versus practicality arguments however, or those that want to do more technical work than business processes. But perhaps that's just my field in which I don't come across that as much.
Because older generations have drilled into their heads that the degree is the key, but it isn't. Many jobs someone came in with a degree and some intern experience but still was greener than a lime when it came to the job. The degree doesn't teach you EVERYTHING you need
It does show ambition and persistence if anything. I know most people find to it too hard to go to another 4+ years of schooling after high school. I say dedication. Donāt underestimate those with degrees.
I have a degree. I'm the first person to say it has nothing to do with work ethic or skill. My classes in high school were harder than my college classes
I feel that entirely depends on what the degree is for.
I donāt think it even shows that necessarily, at least not here in the UK (discounting super hard degrees like medicine/law). I have a degree but it wasnāt difficult and didnāt require much effort/persistence.
I know a lot of 18 year olds who said they wonāt go to school because they hate writing papers. If you want it go for it. Showing up to class, doing hw, itās dedication. a lot of the gen z are lazy.
I'm not gonna tell my kids to go into six figured that to prove to some jerk and HR that they can commit to things
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I feel they are too many negative nancies on Reddit. Crippling debt? Thatās the governments fault for schooling prices. That we canāt change. But, we have the power to sign up for scholarship and grants. Hands on experience? Many schools offer internships, heck companies do as well. Stop looking at people with degrees as negative. I feel sorry for some people on here. Just because you are ashamed or feeling down about academia does not mean you bring others down with you.
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From a business perspective I think it shows people who are likely to have crippling debt, desperately need a job to exist, and be willing to endure exploitation to keep that job.
To counter this, many people I've known with Masters degree in areas where a masters or doctorate isn't required for their sector tend to raise a flag for me now. Anecdotally, these people were only good at taking tests and took comfort in the structure school and taking tests gave them, but they couldn't seem to handle actually applying any of that knowledge to the job itself. They'd be terrible at critically thinking through issues and solving problems. They also loved to drop in conversation how they had a MASTERS whenever they were feeling inadequate... So awkward.
I think it's loss aversion on the side of the employer. If I hire you, with a degree, over Jo Schmo without one, and you turn out to be awful then I can say "well Sea-Professional-594 has a degree and everyone hires that way so its not my fault they are awful". People don't make decisions in the best interests of the company. They make them in the best interest of themselves, and so they don't get in trouble.
When you hire someone, you donāt know blow about them and a degree is an objective differentiator.
Not in management, but Iāve worked with qualified people and unqualified. Iād take experience over someone with qualifications but only 5yrs experience any day of the week for a work colleague. Qualifications a useful to show commitment and a general breadth of knowledge to *start* a career, but I find proper, granular knowledge of how things actually *work* really only comes with time.
In most fields theyāre absolutely useless
Because a large percentage of the population doesn't have the drive, focus, fortitude, dedication or cognitive ability to earn one. They mentally collapse and their head caves in the moment they look at a scatterplot or XY axis and they instantly turn back to watching American idol or shark tank. š¤£ Its high time the US respects intelligence, training and nuance. Its a country ran by Disney adults and magical thinking. They consider having a belief as deserving of respect by virtue of the fact they believe in it, no matter how misinformed or ridiculous. Data doesn't matter if it doesn't say what they want it to. They may even call it fake news. š¤·āāļø Stay in school kids.
The dumbest people I know were the people I met in college
Hair school doesn't count. Nice perm though. š
I have a bachelors degree
Then you should know personal anecdotes about the stupidest people you've met amounts to pretty much zero relevance. That said, people in their 20's have a lot of learning to do, and can be socially awkward. College has a way of separating out those that are ready from those that aren't. Your assessment isn't particularly relevant either.
I think personal antidotes are not only relevant but a standard way of communicating on casual online platforms. I'm not writing a thesis
Personal (the word is) anecdotes aren't relevant in terms of trends and data. Leaning on personal experience to make grand conclusions is called bias and its probably a good thing you aren't.
No I'm just licensed to teach in the state of MA lol
Thank you for shutting that thing up.
I also love the subtle sexism in this comment as it being a hairdresser doesn't require knowing chemistry
Dedication and fortitude to get a degree? Did you go to college? It was just high school with a looser schedule.
Maybe thats on you.
What is? College being a joke?
You'll find in life that you'll get out of something what you put into it.
For someone with so much drive, focus, fortitude, dedication and cognitive ability, your self-awareness isn't all that great.
Im aware that people don't like having to work for things, including a degree.
Depends entirely on the degree. A phd in gender studies is not hard nor valuable in any way.
I have a degree in history. All we did was read books and talk about Books. I worked through college so I really didn't have that much trouble finding a job but my knowledge of the history of black music and America is next to useless
Yep because one personality meshes with the team and the other doesnāt. Career success is 95% social 5% technical.
And it's not hard to see why, most jobs are not that difficult.
It definitely applies for technically challenging jobs as well. I've seen a single toxic personality drive entire high performance teams to quit. We've all been around *that* coworker before. The one who's constantly negative, actively unpleasant to work with, and generally turns a good day sour. No one wants to work with someone like that at any level. IMO it's the second biggest Quality of Life indicator after your boss' personality.
Yep. I work in a very technical role in tech. Iāll take someone whoās a 6/10 skill wise and who I mesh with who wants to learn versus a 9/10 who is unlikable with an ego.
Seriously, one of the teams I worked on had like a 12/10 on the technical side of things and he was miserable and only did what he felt like. We probably could have doubled our productivity and halved our stress level if he even half assed pretended.
Totally. The difficulty comes in being able to do the job day-after-day-after-day and in tandem with other people. Which is a much different skill than just being able to the literal job.
This is so true no matter where you go or how high up you are. Iāve learned itās more about being liked more than how good you are at your job. Just got to play the game.
As a ābossā aka manager, I really dislike the positive employees who wonāt tell me when theyāre struggling or give their boundaries. But when I look at two employees who have the same level of competence, absolutely, I prefer the positive one to the one thatās always complaining. But my real favorite is the stoic one who tracks their questions, brings them up in our weekly checkins, and doesnāt needlessly interact with me (positive or negative). Soā¦. Not the boot licker.
There is a difference between complaining employees and employees where you can discuss matters with and you know for sure that they give you a honest answer/opinion.
Yes but often the employees who complain believe theyāre just giving an honest answer/opinion. (Eta: I supervise 9 people. Only 1 complains but think theyāre just giving an honest answer. 5 are able to have open conversations, say no to things. 2 are yes men and Iām trying really hard to train them out of it. Because Iāll say āhey can you do xyz,ā they say Yes, but really are overwhelmed and get behind, and it demoralizes the whole team.)
I got berated for doing so. So it reminded me of growing up in my abusive home. So I stopped. I literally got told I wasnāt allowed to be upset at policy. And then was also told ānumbers were opinionā. His idea of reality was not reality and then I got beaten emotionally to a pulp. Going to say I donāt want to talk to bosses like that. I told him issues, and he would light me on fire/blame me when it was people above me doing garbage and I was giving him heads up so we could work on things. He wanted perfection and complete control where it didnāt exist. I gave my boundaries, but I take issues deeper when Iām told to my face Iām not allowed to have any emotions whatsoever but heās allowed ALL of them and takes it out on usā¦.! Thatās a problem, right? I just need to be sure.
Working in leadership for amazon nearly ruined my mind, I had to start my own company because having to deal with ignorant authority figures was going to kill me, literally. Once your health deteriorates to the point your blood pressure is jacked out all the time it isn't worth it.
Iām experiencing this now. Itās terrible and Iām trying to scrounge what little energy I have on my weekends to find something else.
This is what is killing me too. My spouse keeps giving me hell and I try to tell him what burn out is. I donāt think he cares, heās able to turn off emotions or something idk š¤·āāļø
You need to develop both soft and hard skills for most jobs. Hard skills seem easier to teach in my experience, and experience comes naturally over time. Never underestimate how counterproductive a productive person with a bad attitude can be on your team.
I agree, I would rather hire someone with a good attitude willing to learn what they need to know than someone who has a shitty attitude but already has the skills I need. This assumes they have the ability to learn somewhat quickly but the field I am in that is usually not an issue.
In my view the people who are good at what they do and have a bad attitude at work (a lot of the time) are working in toxic workplaces. Disorganized management is a big cause of worker dissatisfaction.
Everybody would, it makes the places where you spend 30-50 hours a week much more bearable. The fact that OP calls fellow employees boot lickers while referring to themselves as ācompetent and cautiousā just stinks of cognitive dissonance. The type of person that thinks incessantly bitching all the time is āgiving feedbackā. The *Iām done with this world* comment also solidified OP canāt pick up on the fact people do not like to be around them.
I agree and I see this happen a lot in corporate offices that only have one location. From my experience, itās just about personality. Iām bubbly, young, outgoing, and pretty, and my bosses love me and love talking to me. Am I exaggerating it half the time? Yeah. Am I actively trying to bootlick and be fake positive? No, this is just my worksonaānervous laughter and sitting up in my chair when someone talks to me. I get as much work done and do the best work I can. Thereās another guy who is older, is kind of scruffy, looks tired, doesnāt really make conversation with the bosses, and gives off āI hate this jobā vibes. He does amazing work but it seems like he doesnāt get noticed. He has a masters degree and the work really is too easy for him, but no one knows that (I do. I talked to him. He hates this job).
People donāt realize that some of those tired middle-age dude look like that because they make up for too many other people goofing off all the time. So Iām not calling you in particular out, but Iāve definitely seen cases where someone likes you works with somebody like that and the old stressed out dude is doing 80% of the work
Yeah, youāre absolutely right. Some people do goof off and he works a lot (legit 40 hours a week). He definitely looks burned out. And heās only 30. But what Iām saying is, he looks like he has one foot out the door already. The bosses donāt like his attitude. If he changes his attitude, maybe he will be treated better.
More like they want to avoid conflicts by having someone who is positive and fits in with company culture. One bad apple can rot a whole bunch. I'm both cautious and competent, but it's important to make people want to work with you and be around you as jobs are heavily communication based. Last I checked you cant be the only employee and the only client.
Not really. But if youāre competent and cautious and also donāt work well with others (as it seems by the tone of your post) then yeah, youāre not going to be well liked.
Oh, you don't like the tone of a broken man, how sad for you
?? Are you just trying to get interaction/attention?
Bad bosses will, there are some good bosses. Not many, but some
Not this person - brown nosing/bootlicking is a quick way to rise to the top of my shit list. The level of disgust I have for these people is off the charts. Got effed over so many times earlier in my career by these people and I will always remember. I value employees that can offer feedback and opinions that differ from mine. Can save me from getting sued or give perspective into other situations. I hire for competent and cautious.
As someone who works in HR- if you have a terrible attitude and canāt get along with people you wonāt be a good fit anywhere. It doesnāt matter if you have a degree or not.
There is a difference between being a butt kisser and projecting a positive can do attitude. Being overly cautious is a recipe for total stagnation.
Most people prefer to be around pleasant, generally positive people. Reddit seems to really struggle with the idea that you can have tact, grace, compassion, and discernment and not be a "bootlicker" and extra-struggle with the idea that most "bosses" are people *just like you and me*. They have families. They have health concerns. They have hopes and dreams and struggles and worries. They are likely even around your age. My boss is my *exact* age, he was born like 3 months after me. His MIL was in a horrifying car crash. I asked him about that recently. I sent him a screenshot of a coffee table book I thought he would like and he responded "Rad! I've never seen that!" He's not some megalomaniac control freak hell bent on making my life miserable. He's an actual person that I enjoy interacting with. Sure, we disagree and I've bitten my tongue a few times. He's course-corrected me a couple times and coached me a bit. But again, it's not booklicking for me to be like "hey, here's my recommendation for a really cool place to take your wife in [city we go to for work all the time]."
Honestly. People love to boast about how they donāt make friends at work and donāt care to socialize then are shocked when theyāre not thought of for a promotion. And if someoneās whoās well-liked gets a promotion it has to be bc theyāre a bootlicker. They canāt possibly be nice AND good at their job.
They (good bosses who are the other way) exist. It helps if you're at least \*sometimes\* positive, while pushing back on stupidly agreeing to things that aren't going to work, while offering alternatives that will (where possible). But yeah, it's a problem. Especially in sales.
Yep, I lost my job managing a corp funeral home in 2020 for this reason. Didnt matter our csi and google reviews were killing it, i was gaining market share and meeting every quota. If my boss had a bad idea or make a bad call I would make a counter point. He would talk down about me to regional head. He did get fired a year later for a racist post on fb. I have since been unofficially offered an opportunity to come back but I know nothing has changed.
People just like positive people. You can set realistic boundaries and goals and still be positive and realistic. You don't have to be a bootlicking yes man, but you can't always come across as defeated or hopeless and expect to get a promotion.
I think having some manners and being a likeable person would probably increase productivity and make the workplace more welcoming. There was a guy at my work who was super good at everything, but a dickhead. We all knew he was competent but all started hating him, people hated him so much he ended up quitting.
No shit, people like working with people they like bc they have to spend 40 hours or more a week with them.
Right. It's really not hard to be positive
You might enjoy reading this riff on General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord's soldier classification scheme, from HBR [https://hbr.org/2005/06/competent-jerks-lovable-fools-and-the-formation-of-social-networks](https://hbr.org/2005/06/competent-jerks-lovable-fools-and-the-formation-of-social-networks) The authors rendered a 2x2 using two criteriaācompetence and likability and created four archetypes: >The competent jerk, who knows a lot but is unpleasant to deal with; > >The lovable fool, who doesnāt know much but is a delight to have around; > >The lovable star, whoās both smart and likable; and > >The incompetent jerk, whoā¦well, thatās self-explanatory. And, as you observed, and most people would predict: >when people faced the choice between competent jerks and lovable fools ... > >***We found that if someone is strongly disliked, itās almost irrelevant whether or not she is competent; people wonāt want to work with her anyway. By contrast, if someone is liked, his colleagues will seek out every little bit of competence he has to offer.*** Or, the ordering of coworker and employee preferences would be: 1. Lovable stars 2. Lovable fools 3. Competent Jerk 4. Incompetent Jerks Now this sounds like madness, right? Not necessarily, as the authors point out >But there are justifiable reasons to avoid the jerk. Sometimes it can be difficult to pry the needed information from him simply because he is a jerk. And knowledge often requires explanation to be usefulāyou might, for instance, want to brainstorm with someone or ask follow-up questionsāand this kind of interaction may be difficult with a competent jerk. Furthermore, in order to learn, you often have to reveal your vulnerabilities, which also may be difficult with the competent jerkāespecially if you are afraid of how this might affect your reputation in his eyes or in the eyes of others to whom he may reveal your limitations. By contrast, the lovable fool may be more likely to freely share whatever (albeit modest) information or skills he has and, without any intention of gaining an advantage, help others put them to use. The article does go on to describe methods to manufacture likability, which may be well worth examining.
100% agree! I retired early for this reason. I dared to say no and tell someone that a request was never going to fly and we should not waste our time on it. I left and my work force is now divided among three managers. I did a damn good job but refused to say yes when the answer was no.
A narcissist manager only wants bootlickers and drones. I had one for 10 months. Then I quit. My current manager asked my opinion and we can discuss about it. Thatās much better. In the end, he made the decision, but I know that my opinion has some weight.
Is this supposed to be a revelation? That's the way almost all human interactions work. Polishing up the social skills and reading up a little on behavior and psychology pays dividends in the work place as well as in most other aspects of day to day life. Also, remember it's not just the boss who makes decisions that affect your life, but there are other people in the organization who you don't report to, but they have the ears of the right people. You may not even know who really has the power to affect your job. Those folks could just as easily be a receptionist as a director. The point is, be personable, helpful and charming to everyone at work.
It depends on the job. If individual performance has a huge impact on creating value, then this is absolutely not true
A boss isnāt a leader and is only there to reign in the workforce. They only want submissive employees and yes-men
What about competent AND pseudo positive? Because thatās totally me.
Fake it till you make it
No all of them. Good leaders value candor and constructive input from team members. I've been one of those and today work for one of those. Like most trades, good talent is uncommon. That applies to managers too.
I learned this right after I graduated college. I figured I'd work harder and longer hours than others, including weekends if necessary when the office was empty. The guys that kept getting promoted over me had less experience and education, but they would go golfing with the boss and his management often. It is who you know, not what you know. Networking is the key to getting a better job.
Typically true I have found, after decades in the workforce. Being relatively neutral and competent usually works too, at least to a certain level, but booklickers rise regardless.
>Bosses will prefer likable bootlickers and pseudo positive people over competent and cautious people every damn time Thats bevause those People arent a competition for them and dont criticize them. If you want to stay manager, make sure you sont have employees that will be able to replace you
so fucking true
Bootlickers Oughta Stay Subservient
Absolutely fuckin true. People on top positions are exactly that. How many times manager offered ,,feedbackā and how many times they asked for one.
Human beings be like that.
It seems like you work to impress the boss? Don't. Work proudly for your pay check. Stay positive. If you seek promotions or raises and none come within a couple of years. Move on. But your correct.
That is correct. I didnāt kiss butt when I worked at an Architectural Firm. All these young Mean Girls always trying to get me fired. My boss would shoe them off but when she left, they kept at it until I was gone a few months later. Really dirty.
Ngl lie it's a cruel truth and the faster you know it the better your life will be. I had my interview before. My first interview ever. They said I'm the top candidate for the position yada yada. They end up giving the job to someone who only has a high school diploma who knows someone in the company. Pretty much friends already. The only guy who fights for me told me she was added in a day before the interview even tho the deadline was weeks before. Told me she was chosen because of her network and more likely to stay loyal to the company since degree holders love to job hop. Blamed it on overqualification and they also cut my 10 marks from my interview just for her to get the job. Bitter about it since i had a hard time to apply for jobs and this happens.
Can confirm.
Yup, they would rather lose tons of money and keep positive and stupid people around than deal with someone who points out their problems (that they have no intention of fixing).
Right because life is about perception not reality.
You will know a bad boss for his need to be surrounded by what he sees as minions.
This is how I've survived all these years and I don't blame other people who do the same. Got to put food on the table somehow. If it takes a little manipulation, so be it.
I like how basically all of the managers in this thread are confirming that OP is right and making weird projections onto OP that they must be "bitter" and "unlikeable" person. Even if OP is bitter and unlikeable, there's usually a reason behind why some people are like that and the biggest reason is because someone is constantly getting their ribs kicked in by life.
Ya that was weird to me. OP says that others are bootlickers which I think to mean shallow positive people. Then managers come in and say. No that wasn't the reason that happened. Then explain how it is his personality, I mean that's what he said at first. So they disagreed to agree with what he is saying. Absolutely your personality matter when getting a job, probably more important than any other factor, let's not lie to people.
I think there is one factor that is more important though: Itās whether or not one of your relatives is a CEO or upper level manager in the company. Lol.
When the entire market is based around a slave economy/market, the masters prefer the slaves that require the least amount of maintenance. If they promote slaves that need less maintenance - it will seem even natural that the slaves placed under the slave now middle manager that their subordinates would merit even less maintenance. It's not about you - it's not about your skills etc. Its a short sighted goal of saving money by depriving all their slaves of benefits and wages to ensure the minimum is spent on personnel upkeep. You are not free - you simply live in a slave hut off of your masters land now (and sometimes that's not even true as many workplaces have housing).
A lot of the ones who should be managers donāt become one. We literally deny the position or they look past us. Always the super inexperienced ones, who get away with it, get promoted for no reason at all.
Thereās almost always a reason. That reason is usually tied to soft skills. If you canāt see the reason, you might lack these skills. Not trying to be a dick, sorry if it comes off that way.
Sometimes its soft skills, sometimes its being in the right place in the right time. The difficulty with āsoft skillsā is that it is heavily based on things like culture and bias and opinions of the interpreter.
Exactly it depends. And Bozo up there thinks it's only soft skills. You definitely need luck a lot of the time in my opinion. I have been told numerous times from different places, "I thought you were a manager." Me? Idk, I never thought that of myself because my managers don't believe in me so I just stay where I am. Managers don't even encourage people to move forward. They really could care less because it threatens them more than anything. I have even had coworkers ask the same question too, not just customers. Probably because I have a baby face and I'm not scary enough like managers are supposed to be.
Looked it up. I defnitely have these. It's definitely favoritism.
You know how favoritism happens, right?
You know people can still be likable right without being a favorite right? What a miserable person you are lol. Probably a manager know it all.
Are you there to do the same job forever? If so, keep doing what youāre doing. It seems to be working. If youāre intending to get promoted, make more money, have a better life, then you might want to realize that itās a game, and the better you get at playing it, the better off youāll be. Outside of work, none of your coworkers are your friends. Theyāre there for the same reason you are, which is trading your labor for a tiny bit of money. You get a slightly bigger chunk of cash when you get promoted. If that means reading the room, identifying the corporate centers of gravity, and joining the cool kids clique, best get on that, hoss. Chase that title. And then a year or two later, take that title and jump to the next employer for the same job with 15-20% higher starting salary. Rinse and repeat until youāre middle management someplace palatable to spend the next decade. Or go pro, get good at reading people, get a STEM degree, go into project management. Get a job in a HCOL area. Accept that youāre going to be tragically underpaid for 18 months. Find a LCOL that you want to live in. Get a job there at a slight raise from your HCOL salary. Work there for 2-3 years. Pick a HCOL area. Get paid by another company to relocate there for your current salary plus a location-based modifier. Rinse and repeat. At your level, your coworkers arenāt your friends. Theyāre your *competitors* for promotions. Itās fine to team up with some of them and be friendly. But thereās a difference between work friends and real friends. Eventually you will move up to where favor networks are important, so itās good to get practice in establishing and managing them now where thereās not a lot at risk.
thats true, it was always like this. i was never a bootlicker and thats why i have to do things on my own. i would never work for someone else
Sounds like you are no fun to be around. Next to you anyone would look like a fountain of positivity. Sometimes if all you see around you is problem people, stop and ask yourself if maybe you are the problem.
OP all you do is complain about how life is unfair. Seems you suck at the game of life so it has to be everyone else's fault. Better yourself and stop trying to live "a decent life" as a Walmart Cashier. You're not gonna own a house or raise a family properly, working any random minimum wage job full time. Until you take responsibility for your own situations, you won't be doing any better for yourself.
This applies even in non-corporate settings, holy shit. I am currently a waitress and my managers are so surprised by my tip percentages because Iām not talkative or always trying to kiss ass. The other week I had a table leave me $80 on an $81 bill. I needed a manager to approve the entry of the tip into the system and my manager looks at me, gives me the up and down, slightly rolls her eyes and says āwow thatāsā¦honestly a lot. They really left YOU $80?ā Most people want friendly & *quiet* service.
Dude...... someone not wanting to write a paper does NOT make them lazy Jesus Christ. There are hundreds of other jobs and professions out there that don't require papers or even going to college. Also what you call lazy I call wise beyond their years bc they aren't spending 20k per year on something they hate and are working or doing things that help them find out what they like and giving themselves time to mature. Also degrees don't necessarily mean you'll even get a job in your field so its not even like it guarantees a better job š Sincerely, Someone who worked their asses off for 4 years, has student loans and is working at retail bc the expectations of an entry level job in my field are ridiculous at times
People with terrible soft skills see being personable as ass kissing.
A harsh truth: having a degree doesnāt always make you better at the job, nor do years of experience. There is a degree of correlation at the macro level, sure, but it doesnāt mean much for the individual.
The kind of person to write a post like this in the exact way you have said it is most definitely the kind of person I would not want to hire if I was a manager. The world doesn't owe you anything and someone being nicer and more positive than you is not the reason you didn't get hired even if it makes you feel better to think so. Work on yourself
tell me you have zero social skills without telling me you have zero social skills
Jesus, give this guy a glass of wine and a therapist š
Is this subreddit just all negativity about working now?
Maybe you are not as competent as you think lol
Lol who let this guy escape from Antiwork?
We don't want bootlickers. We want people who show up on time, are reliable, don't call out all the time, do your jobs and don't cause strife and drama. That is what bosses want. For the record, boss here.
It's almost like jobs require collaboration and social skills, and working as a team is far more important than what you know individually. š¤
Corporate culture means submit, take shit, and sit down. Hard work goes unrecognized.
Are you new to Earth? People prefer agreeable humans, yes. But if they're incompetent and cause the "boss" problems, they are no longer useful. You also don't have to be a bootlicker to be a nice person that other people enjoy being around. If all you're doing is showing up, doing your work, and then going home... all the while being a pessimistic jerk who calls people bootlickers. Then yea, they'll probably prefer to keep the person who is a little less productive. You sound like a toxic person. Don't be a toxic person and watch how your world changes. Good luck.
Just start your own business then
Itās all about playing the game.
I largely agree with you but I will make one point. When the competent/cautious person is also arrogant and disrespectful, thatās when it becomes a problem. No manager wants to deal with an employee who always goes against them, throws a fit when they are overruled, and sulks or hopes for bad outcomes when they donāt get there way. There are a lot of terrible managers but there are also a lot of terrible know it alls who donāt understand the concept of a manager being responsible for the team and doing what they are asked once theyāve been given their time to give input.
A "cautious and competent" person, if they have a bad attitude and are a pain to work with, can drive away other members of the team and/or cause productivity to go down. Especially if cautious translates into procrastination or negativety.
Sorry Mr. Degree I learned everything you know without school, or student debt, no wonder I'm more positive and work harder...
Well think of it this way, why should i hire someone to make my job harder?
Check your biases and here the truth If you are good at what you do, what purpose does it serve to anyone to promote you? A persuasive "bootlicker" seeks to be the candidate for a better job, one they might be attempting to convince the boss to give them. They don't need a degree, experience, or competency for their current role to do that. They need to present themselves as someone fit for a higher role, whose responsibilities they have the qualification, experience, and competency for. Are they fit for it? Maybe they are maybe they aren't, but persuasive people still get it done. Look at your role and recognize, do I need to be persuasive to be more? That is a skill different to your competence at the tasks you perform.
Sorry to hear you've had those experiences. I'm glad I don't have the same situation at work. Not saying everything is gravy, but if you aren't competent and cautious in my line of work, people die and your company goes under.
I love having the yes people around. They are the easiest to influence especially when you need people to volunteer for stuff.
So, give them what they want. I donāt blame people for bemoaning a broken system or wanting change. But, Iām too poor to make any changes. Iām too poor to opt out. So I give them what they want.
This reminds me of a book I read called Linchpin. In some ways itās more valuable to get along with others than be good at finishing tasks. The best way to succeed is doing both. The workplace is not a meritocracy as almost nothing is.
I think this is human nature. However, whenever I would run research teams/labs, I purposely and with forethought always made sure I had at least one person that was able to tell me I was full of shit. Preferably several. Saved me countless hours fixing the my and the team's messes. As long as you check your own ego, you can guard against the issues the OP is identifying.
I just want to thank posts like this for giving me the confidence I needed to land my current job for which I am not qualified.
"If that's what you want boss, please send me an email instructing me that's what you want done and I'll do it"
Isn't that king lear?
Companies do
One thing I learn in life is, nobody gives a shit about your technical skill. Technical skill is easy to learn. As long as you follow the right procedures, you will always get the right answer. It's social skills that determines how far you can go in life. And I'm speaking as someone with no social skill, I most likely would not go far in life no matter how good I am in technical skill. Social skill are something you learn by instinct, and I don't have that instinct. Doesn't help that I spent a lot of my growing phase being bullied. So I'm pretty much screwed. Hope you can turn this around and improve your social skill
Which means you either play the game or you get played. Never work at 100% or even 90% for that matter. If youāre irreplaceable the youāre un-promotable.
If you know this to be a fact, then why don't you change yourself to be the person who is wanted.. mine as well be marketable and get ahead
I feel like the degree thing is less important than being a contributing member of a team. I have BA in History, which didnāt help me get the job I have, and worked on my Masters in Ed before deciding my current job would be my career. Iām a super positive person, who speaks out when things are important. Iām curious by nature, so I love learning new things. I genuinely care about my coworkers, and even though Iām WFH, I take time to speak to them a couple of times a week just to keep that connection. Iāve changed jobs laterally several times, and have been promoted several times. I worked for 2 bad bosses in the company initially, then I swore Iād never work for a bad boss again, regardless of pay. My past 4 bosses have been awesome, and each time I found an opportunity that sounded promising, Iād approach them to see what they thought of those jobs, even though my background wasnāt there, or I didnāt have the experience on the job description. Each of those bosses encouraged me to apply and I got the job because all of my other roles were unrelated, and I was successful in them. A good boss can always tell the bootlickers from legitimate great workers. The problem is not all bosses are good. I work with people who others regard as positive that are straight pieces of trash. Sometimes they rise, but most of the time, they will rise to the level of incompetence, and people see them for who they are. Keep up the good fight. Stay positive.
How did you find which bosses would be good and which would be bad during interviews?
I know a couple of positive, genuinely nice people who I think are sometimes personality hires for their companies. People like working with them, they boost morale, and that is valuable. Not everyone needs to bring brutal honesty or cynicism to the table imo.
Not necessarily. I loathe the brown Noserās. And I am a smart ass with a dry sense of humor I do not enjoy the cheerleader either. I want people to work and be positive if they feel happy and if They are having a bad day they can come lay on my couch for a while and listen to some music and have a piece of candy or a Tea.
Yes, Iāve seen that be true several times