Want to strangle a coworker or client - Tell us Why ! Share !

[EcK]

I didn't mean it.

: (

 

[EcK]

[MENTION=5643]EcK[/MENTION] can you say f*ck it without losing your job? Or hand it off (at least hand off direct communication) to someone who this guy has a better rapport with? When all else fails, it's one of those two. I would try that. Good luck.

Well it's not really a matter of 'losing my job' but they represent 50% of my billings.
I actually like that company and brand, (it's an ONG helping millions of kids throughout the world) and I often go the extra extra mile for them because I like doing my part.
They get discounted rates etc.

So the guy I'm dealing with is part of the 'group' owned by the guy owning the ONG.
His background is finance. So I've had modifications done on the project - we've done more in 10 days than I normally would in two months (because that guy always asks for so many modifications that I can't keep having designers available for a 10th row of 11th hour changes, I'm a decent communicator I think but I can't tell someone this is the 'last push' 10 times in a row and keep them motivated and keep disrupting other projects for the sake of one client.

Now this guy keeps barging back into the project asking for complicated / useless crap / things which were his responsibility and he's laying on me cc'ing everyone.
They requested some extra updates 2 days ago, I managed to get everything done within 24 hours and put the project 'back on track' on the fly while implementing double the amount of changes that was initally scoped. The new marketing team was like 'okey lets do it' - that guy has just been asking stupid questions and asking for 'more options' etc. for the last two days.

In the meantime I've already actually done the job because I couldn't afford to wait for the guy to make up his mind (and then i would be 'late' and he would keep sending me obnoxious emails asking me to update the planning).

Essentially what I've done is double the scope for 1/4th of the extra cost of an ALREADY very low budget project HE had set despite my clearly stating that we probably couldn't cover all the changes they'd want on that budget. And all only pushing back the delivery time by 2 days.

So - in any SANE world - I would be getting high fives for that.
But with this guy I have to answer asinine mail after asinine mail - wasting time and patience.

 

[EcK]

[MENTION=5643]EcK[/MENTION] can you say f*ck it without losing your job? Or hand it off (at least hand off direct communication) to someone who this guy has a better rapport with? When all else fails, it's one of those two. I would try that. Good luck.

What I'm trying to do now is to communicate as much as possible with the new marketing team - the 'problem guy' is shifting his responsibilities and is going to be splitting his time between the NGO (my client) and another company in that group (financial company).

But it's difficult to do that without that guy getting 'pissy' as soon as he suspects he might be 'losing control'. The irony is that if he was really given full 'control' over the project it would be utter shit. Because I've been working with the guy for 2 years and I've seen him reject every good idea for shitty reasons (like telling the branding guy how the brand works.. yeah right it's not like said branding guy has 20 years experience in the field and is actually good at his job or anything).

Honestly I Think this guy would make a great coordinator - I Mean he would annoy the fuck of any minor provider but he would keep cost low and basic stuff on time as long as he's not the one making DECISIONS as to the direction of the job. Just making sure the design choices / content choices of a more qualified person are applied.

He would be much better at this than I would be for example because honestly being nick-picky with details is boring as fuck to me.

BUT he's not competent at being a manager of any kind. And he doesn't have the right personality for it. I've been managing people since year 2 of my career and created my own departments in every company I worked in, I founded my own company and went from 1 to 18 employees in a year's time etc. I Mean maybe, just maybe I know what I'm talking about. ya know.

 

[EcK]

Oh jeez. I know this type. There's a couple of people like this at my job in separate departments who feel like they have to cc everyone at the company on emails to me. Always copying my supervisor so before I even have a chance to problem solve or address a situation I have to answer questions from my own boss when I could've already been working on the problem.

holy shit, yeah. On complex projects there's ALWAYS troubleshooting to be done. Esp. if you've been asking to implement bug-prone custom features late in the project. (which this guy ALWAYS does against my recommendation). Now it's FINE to send a 'feedback' email - I get that. When I do point out 'mistakes' from someone else I do it in a 'collegial way' if that makes sense. Like "hey great job this week, deadlines were tight so oversights are understandable. GOing through the projects I've noticed a) b) c) could you please look it it before EOD so we can roll out next week?"

But that guy sends emails which are like "THIS IS NOT WORKING" (after asking me for links before the Quality Assurance on the project is finished) - making it sound like it's some MAJOR FUCK UP on my side. Ironically it's ALWAYS the stuff he insisted upon and I recommended against which created 90% of issues during quality assurance.

My point is that yeah there's plenty of 'individual things' i could point out as his mistakes, but overall being a 'bad manager/ bad contact client' is a more wholistic problem. It's about attitude, how you treat people you work with etc. It's difficult to just go and point out an obvious 'mistake' that lead to result X (delays in project for example) when the issue is the guy's whole WORK STYLE/ BAD JUDGMENT. Rather than some obvious 'oh you told me to delete this essential part of the project' kind of error.

For example when I started working with him I'd start making mistakes myself due to mental exhaustion of having to revise a project 30 times / doing things I didn't agree with. I mean I get that these were my mistakes BUT I also know from experience It wouldn't have happened with a more competent client-side liaison (Because I've managed 300 projects easily and know what causes issues on projects)

I'm not sure the best way to address this though as your situation is a little different with you having to deal with someone outside of your company. This sounds like a problem with your client company having a poorly defined structure and chain of command. There should be one or two MAIN points of contact, at the most, and no one at this dude's company seems to realize. I have dealt with this on occasion with some of our vendors not having a clearly defined POC at their respective companies. All you can really do is state your case to your superiors and have any necessary arguments or evidence available to back yourself if this fuckhead is trying to make you look bad. Is he accusing you of specific fuck ups or kind of just trying to beat around the bush in a way to imply you are responsible for fuckups?

I don't really have a supervisor, I'm working with this company through another company but I'm an independent. I essentially turned that client into something that can actually turn a profit and I've been handling 90% of their orders ever since. Well it's more like 'beating around the push/implying' in general. Tone of the emails etc. Or asking me for hte same thing several times and I have to keep sounding like I have a stick up my ass by keeping mentioning in my emails "as mentioned in my last email" in half my emails. etc.

And If I don't keep being borderline obnoxious myself by keeping mentioning "as mentioned in my last email' every time then his boss just sees multiple emails 'asking for htings' 'reminding me to send something' and it automatically look like i did something wrong. Then half of the time as to sound competent he sends me back emails asking for stupid details / acting like I didn't already answer his question.
Then if I get tired of answering pointless emails and don't answer rapidly he sends me obnoxious 'reminders' ccing everyone as always.

Essentially he's doing the opposite of what a competent person would do:
a) put people in copy when PRAISING
b) be more 'private' and more action than drama driven when troubleshooting (the company ceo doesn't need to know every details of product troubleshooting anyway)
c) don't trusts his own judgment (on things he's not competent at) over that of specialists (look I get it managers need to make decisions but they have to be GOOD decisions, this guy acts like he read that 'you have to be an alpha male' in a self-help book and is trying to emulate it while not knowing what he's doing). A good manager asks for information and THEN takes a decision BASED on this information, not the other way around.

 

[Amargith]

Huh...any chance he is doing this coz he feels youre fucking these things up on purpose (as youre against them and they were his ideas)?

Not saying you are, but im sensing a mirror effect - i bet this guy is paranoid and ranting about you being impossible to work with as well as you dont take orders and question his authority, in his eyes.

Personally, id ask him for two min of his time next time you see him and just ask him about this, while going out of your way to reassure him you value his input and youre only interested in doing the best job possible - not in powerplay as it just gets in the way of the project.

See if you can get him to give you the benefit of the doubt on something smaller as an experiment (explain to him that you deliver better results when not micromanaged), and take moment to check in with him and really listen to his feedback on it, then build on that trust to bigger parts of the projects.

From your side, you ll have to likely put more effort in validating his ideas and using the 'sandwich' feedback technique when his ideas are impractical. That means curbing your frustration output and impatience as you walk him through it as otherwise you ll be right back where you started. Lastly, see if you can redirect towards areas of the project that would seriously benefit from his skillset and affirm his value there, if you can.

This way, you have a shot at getting on the same page and actually turning this guy into an asset, even.

 

[EcK]

Huh...any chance he is doing this coz he feels youre fucking these things up on purpose (as youre against them and they were his ideas)?

Not saying you are, but im sensing a mirror effect - i bet this guy is paranoid and ranting about you being impossible to work with as well as you dont take orders and question his authority, in his eyes.

Personally, id ask him for two min of his time next time you see him and just ask him about this, while going out of your way to reassure him you value his input and youre only interested in doing the best job possible - not in powerplay as it just gets in the way of the project.

See if you can get him to give you the benefit of the doubt on something smaller as an experiment (explain to him that you deliver better results when not micromanaged), and take moment to check in with him and really listen to his feedback on it, then build on that trust to bigger parts of the projects.

From your side, you ll have to likely put more effort in validating his ideas and using the 'sandwich' feedback technique when his ideas are impractical. That means curbing your frustration output and impatience as you walk him through it as otherwise you ll be right back where you started. Lastly, see if you can redirect towards areas of the project that would seriously benefit from his skillset and affirm his value there, if you can.

This way, you have a shot at getting on the same page and actually turning this guy into an asset, even.

Well yeah duh. It's self evident that a guy who's driven by the whole 'fake it until you make it' mindset / is too young to be managing anyone / doesn't have the right personality to manage smart people would be 'paranoid' and saying I'm hard to work with.

Do you seriously imagine a scenario where this wouldn't be the case with an ambitious young guy way over his head?
I already took him aside tens of times to explain stuff and how it's best to work on these types of project, and warned him tens of times about how specific directions he wanted to take could cause problems etc.

All in PRIVATE of course because I'm not a fucking savage or a child.

 

[Amargith]

Well yeah duh. It's self evident that a guy who's driven by the whole 'fake it until you make it' mindset / is too young to be managing anyone / doesn't have the right personality to manage smart people would be 'paranoid' and saying I'm hard to work with.

Do you seriously imagine a scenario where this wouldn't be the case with an ambitious young guy way over his head?
I already took him aside tens of times to explain stuff and how it's best to work on these types of project, and warned him tens of times about how specific directions he wanted to take could cause problems etc.

All in PRIVATE of course because I'm not a fucking savage or a child.

Then you failed in acquiring his trust and/or curbing your frustration and extend validation, id say.

 

[EcK]

Then you failed in acquiring his trust and/or curbing your frustration and extend validation, id say.

If it was purely a personal issue then why would every provider i know who worked with him raise that that guy wasnt reasonable (i dont mention anything in professional settings), his subordinates tend to like me. And much more work gets done on project where that guy is taken out of the equation. However when seeing email exchanges on things i don't participate in but that guy does it takes him significantly (several times more tim) to secure call with suppliers etc (ie: suppliers we both worked with will make time for me on a busy day but will not make time for him deapite that guy being closer to the final checkbook)

 

[Tilt]

If it was purely a personal issue then why would every provider i know who worked with him raise that that guy wasnt reasonable (i dont mention anything in professional settings), his subordinates tend to like me. And much more work gets done on project where that guy is taken out of the equation. However when seeing email exchanges on things i don't participate in but that guy does it takes him significantly (several times more tim) to secure call with suppliers etc (ie: suppliers we both worked with will make time for me on a busy day but will not make time for him deapite that guy being closer to the final checkbook)

Ego + insecurity + incompetence creates that BS from others. I have a hard time with those types of people. I just try to disengage. Sorry that you have to put up with that shit.

 

[prplchknz]

if they're into bsdm you could seduce them into bed and strangle them but claim it's part of bed play.

 

[Amargith]

If it was purely a personal issue then why would every provider i know who worked with him raise that that guy wasnt reasonable (i dont mention anything in professional settings), his subordinates tend to like me. And much more work gets done on project where that guy is taken out of the equation. However when seeing email exchanges on things i don't participate in but that guy does it takes him significantly (several times more tim) to secure call with suppliers etc (ie: suppliers we both worked with will make time for me on a busy day but will not make time for him deapite that guy being closer to the final checkbook)

Bear, I'm not saying this is your fault, or that you don't have every right to be frustrated by this.

I'm just saying that to solve the situation - short from having him removed, which you stated wasn't possible - you'll need to find common ground, connect with him and take away his fears regarding you, so he'll let you do your job. Otherwise, you're both going to be locked into this chronically stressful interaction which isn't benefitting anyone

 

[EcK]

Bear, I'm not saying this is your fault, or that you don't have every right to be frustrated by this.

I'm just saying that to solve the situation - short from having him removed, which you stated wasn't possible - you'll need to find common ground, connect with him and take away his fears regarding you, so he'll let you do your job. Otherwise, you're both going to be locked into this chronically stressful interaction which isn't benefitting anyone

Hey. Well it s much better than it used to be. And honestly i really try to always be conciliatory / diplomatic and I don't do anything to "sabotage" anything. Just every time i end up working twice as much to get a project i know is below my standards of quality. And that s extremely frustrating to me (it s inefficient for the client and wasteful of my time)

I mean they represent 50% of my billings because they waste so mycg money on internal mismanagement. And that guy is the one managing it. And even if say i m the problem and everyone is the problem except for this guy. If it was so then it would be his job to replace me. If he didnt then again : he s a shitty manager.

 

[EcK]

Ego + insecurity + incompetence creates that BS from others. I have a hard time with those types of people. I just try to disengage. Sorry that you have to put up with that shit.

I guess what pisses me off is just that the guy is not stupid. I can accept stupidity from stupid people, just in that case it's just sad. But mh enough whining anyway.

 

[EcK]

if they're into bsdm you could seduce them into bed and strangle them but claim it's part of bed play.

Well I'm not into guys or Dorian Grey shit past the normal male behavior - I think.

 

[ChocolateMoose123]

if they're into bsdm you could seduce them into bed and strangle them but claim it's part of bed play.

That escalated sensuously...and then violently.

 

[prplchknz]

Well I'm not into guys or Dorian Grey shit past the normal male behavior - I think.

you don't have to insert your penis.you could tie him down strangle him leave him and then when he's like why did you leave be like i got really sleepy all of a sudden and went to sleep.

 

[EcK]

you don't have to insert your penis.you could tie him down strangle him leave him and then when he's like why did you leave be like i got really sleepy all of a sudden and went to sleep.

Dude, I think most porn sites have a 'for women' porn section these days, ya know just saying

 

[prplchknz]

Dude, I think most porn sites have a 'for women' porn section these days, ya know just saying

oh i wasn't even thinking of it sexually just a way for you to strangle him in socially approriate manner.

 

[EcK]

oh i wasn't even thinking of it sexually just a way for you to strangle him in socially approriate manner.

I feel objectified

 

[prplchknz]

I feel objectified

yeah but you're an entp bear how can you not be objectified?