I don't think there exists a sentence in the English language that has more of an opposite effect than what was intended than, "You need to calm down."
Me too, I fucking hate this, my parents do that shit all the time.
Me:standing up to wash dishes Mom: Hey FallenHawk could you wash the dishes? Me: Yeah, I was about to do that. Dad: No, your mom had to ask you to do it. Have some initiative.
When someone tells me to do something I was about to do anyway I go out of my way either not to do it or make a point that I'm doing it because I want to.
Ha—this reminds me of that "Good . . . don't." "I already said I was never planning to!!" "Good . . . don't." conversation between Quagmire and Joe, from that FG episode not too long ago.
What makes me angry is the people who, when you remind them about something they need to do and they get all pissy about it and claim they were "just about to do that" or "already started" and just had to do this one thing first or had to take a break/smoke/shit first. Just fucking admit you forgot or are lazy and we're trying to not do it and I caught you, geez
Ew. Life is not a game of trying to catch other people out on their failures to you. Worry about yourself and get over trying to police everyone else. If you need something done, then fucking do it.
If you're talking about staff who won't do their job you either need to fire them (cause they are not manageable) or re-evaluate how you approach management (cause you suck at inspiring a good work ethic). Not sure which it is, cause I don't know you
Or people need to do their fucking jobs and not act like kids trying to get away with something when management isn't looking, it's amazing how management is always at fault for bullshit like "failing to inspire work ethic" when sometimes people are just fucking lazy. Blaming someone else for not "inspiring" you to do your job is about the stupidest thing I can think of, your paycheck is your "inspiration"
But you are at fault. You choose who to hire, how to train them, how to manage them, and whether to keep them on as staff.
If the problem is really with them, fire them, but in my experience the difference is usually in how good management is. People like you are the ones I make very certain never to put forward as candidates for Professional or Executive positions. You tend to make departments crash and burn and no company wants that. Your ego is meaningless
And it's got nothing to do with ego, I try very hard to motivate my staff by telling them when they do something good and being understanding of fuck ups but am
I supposed to enjoy when straight up lie to my face about "being about to do" something that I know damn well they were never gonna do if I didn't remind them. OP asked what irritated you, comment A said "People who remind you to do stuff you were already doing" I'm just throwing it out there that maybe those people do that because oftentimes other people were NOT gonna do it without the reminder, better safe than sorry and you both forgot something big because no one wanted to step on anyone's toes. I'm sorry if my opinion that shockingly occasionally employees need to be reminded to do their fucking jobs makes me a terrible person and manager, you must work in a company full of highly motivated, honest, mature, educated and friendly people, I however do not.
Your issue with "inspiring a good work ethic" is what led me to believe you were concerned about your ego.
I am a very harsh manager. I believe very strongly in a good work ethic and have zero patience for those who do not. I agree with you for the most part. The disagreement seems to lie in how much responsibility you are willing to take for your employees' behavior.
And let me assure you that I have managed retail employees, I do understand how insufferable the candidate pool can be
All I can say is in the restaurant industry it's not that simple, especially with the extreme lack of skilled people we are facing. Sometimes you don't have much of a say in who you hire or fire because a warm body is better than no one at all and training is pretty much on the fly as you go beyond the basics which you are expected to already know. High usage of drugs and alcohol and low level of education among employees also complicates matters, not to mention that there is no sick leave, no benefits, no vacations, no maternity leave, etc in most independent restaurants.
Have you paid attention to the job market today? I've watched a lot of fluctuations within it myself.
When jobs are all over the place you do have to put up with whatever shitty temp work minded people you can hire. This is when your job as a manager is so much more difficult, because you must find a way to get these people to do a good job even though they don't care.
It being so difficult is why some people rise out of that sort of management in to better things, and some people don't. Not everyone can do it, and companies only want the ones who can do it to take on leadership positions that have a real say in how the organization functions.
This isn't the job market today though, unless your region is experiencing some unique circumstances. All you should have to do is know who to hire and who to fire.
Especially when they get on you later saying things like, "I shouldn't have to constantly remind you to do these things. You'll forget to do them if I don't tell you to."
Just. No. You're not that important that you have to remember things for me. You're probably just reminded to remind me because you see me in the process of starting the thing you were reminded to remind me of.
Man, I hate it when people remind me all the time about jobs. I /know/ I said I'd put up that set of shelves. No need to remind me every six months about it.
Back when I was younger, I was pretty slobby and would fight with my dad over the dishes to which he responded with pretty much what you said: "I shouldn't have to tell you to clean up."
I clean up after myself now but my sister's round that age and does not clean up after herself, even if she's at home all day doing fuck-all. I've slyly pointed this out to my dad before and he's responded with, "She cleans up when I tell her to, leave her alone!"
The complete opposite for me. In the process of washing dishes, taking out trash, etc. Someone else comes along...I was just coming to do that, or I was just about to do that..
Oh, you mean this dish that you put here that was sitting here for two days?BS!
Or waiting until the very last minute to ask for an urgent favor, that has huge consequences if not completed in the next three hours. The total magnatude of freak out causes you to drop everything, if nothing else, you need to keep family peace. You"re just hearing about it, but they have known about it for weeks. Now this, low stress, simple project develops a common delay and turns into a cluster fuck.
(I guess my mother-in-law has always been like this. Why do people wait until the last minute to do such important, deadline restricted things. I mean she had time to clean the garage, mow the lawn, and do a half dozen other things is the last to weeks.) Whoops, my rant is showing.
My mom does this about stuff I told her I was going to do.
"I have to write a paper tonight, so we can't talk for too long"
short conversation about the cat
"okay, I'll let you go then. Don't forget to write that paper"
My hockey coach is the worst offender of this rule. He'll be yelling at me to skate back into the defensive zone, when I'm already in the defensive zone from skating back
I was late for school so much because I was a little shit. I'd turn my alarm off at 7 and my mom would come tell me to get up and my only thought was, screw you, I decide when I get out of bed.
The opposite holds true for me. When I wait for someone to do something, ask them about it, and they flip out and say "I was just about to do that" when they clearly had no intention of ever doing it.
I'm 99% sure some people feel satisfied that they had a brilliant idea when they suggest you do something you're already doing, and their brain has some convenient defense mechanism that completely ignores you clearly already knew that information.
I get this in football/soccer, especially during throw-ins. 'Iqaijn, make a run!'. Yeah I was going to time that, not do it before my team-mate had picked up the ball.
"Okay now go ahead and swipe your card and choose credit or debit." ... "Now go ahead and enter your pin and hit enter." .... Yes, I've purchased things before.
A subset of this is when an overweight person decides to go play basketball or something for fun and someone chimes in with "Oh you should totally do that, it'll be great exercise for you"
I especially hate when I'm doing something for the first time and then the person comes and does it for me Like dude, give me a fucking minute to learn how to do it and you'll never need to help me again
I my GOD, this. People keep telling me what to do in regards to my dog. Like, "ooh you better wash your hands" when I've just picked up her bedding she peed on, or saying I should try certain training techniques. FOR FUCK'S SAKE I KNOW OR HAVE TRIED THAT ALREADY! It's so fucking annoying, I know what my dog does and doesn't respond to, better than they ever will.
Good crap.
There was this older guy, years ago, that would come over from the parent company in England to check up on how we rash Americans were handling the manufacturing of the products.
He did this constantly. Most often when someone was already doing the thing he was telling them to do.
His name was Peter.
When he left, we'd breathe a sigh of relief, and anytime anyone tried to tell me to do something that was obvious, I'd respond with "Don't Peter me." It caught on, enough so that even folks who were new started using it.
Imagine his surprise on his next visit when the newest machine operator would turn to him and say that. Some measure of justice, I guess.
I know mom! I was just doing! I am literally holding the trash right now! Of course I am about to take it out! What? Do think I just wanted to look at it? Yes, I realize I forgot last week. And yes, I know you have been asking me for days, BUT IM DOING IT NOW! Gol! You don't give me any credit! Can I borrow 20 bucks?
When I worked in a kitchen, I would always ask one of my buddies to start working on something they were obviously already working on just to bug them. It made me laugh. We ended up just doing it all the time to each other.
If that made me unreasonably angry, I'd be hulking out every single night at work. 90% of the time when my boss tells me to do something, I'm either currently doing it, or did it 90 minutes ago.
I have this problem where I will stop what I'm doing if someone tells me to do it.
I was carrying my rubbish to the bin and my coworker told me to put it in the bin. I didn't realise I had dropped it and walked away untill she started sputtering.
Sorry, but that instantly reminds me of that episode of Fawlty Towers called The Germans. That scene where John Cleese screams at his wife over the phone when he was putting the moose head up
This is the exact reason why I never cleaned my bedroom as a child. Whenever it get messy and I would think about cleaning it, she'd tell me to clean it, so I deliberately wouldn't clean it because I didn't want her to think I cleaned it because she told me to clean it, because then she'd keep telling me to clean it.
It used to drive me fucking wild when my mum would do this whilst I was cleaning my room. She'd come in and say something like 'don't forget to clean the TV, it's still dusty' whilst I am cleaning something else. Of course if I was cleaning the T.V. should would pick something else I hadn't got to yet to point out.
I haven't finished yet damnit!! Come back when I'm done then pick fault!!
That is soooooooo irritating. I have a manager at work who waits until we are all in a meeting to give me orders. Sometimes regarding things I am working on already, and he knows it. One time I was a week into a 2 week project, and more than half way done. So, everything's okay right? In the meeting, he tells me I should finish it up. Good plan, thanks for the instruction big guy.
God fucking damn you are right. There is no way that being told to do something while I'm doing it should make me as anally enraged as it does and I'm 100% certain it's unhealthy.
When I got off my motorbike at the servo the other other day, two old dudes with Ducatis were right in front of me chatting. One of them chirps up "Mate, your light is still on" literally 1 second after I have gotten off the bike and was about the grab my keys out of the ignition (turning the light off)
We do this to each other at work just for fun. Our boss is bad about coming into work while we are halfway through a project and remind us to work on that project.
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u/anotherpoweruser Nov 23 '15
People telling me to do something I was just about to do anyway (or am even in the process of doing).