Survive
Submitted by "Anonymous Coward"
New people in meetings small talk before the meeting starts. They have not been broken yet....
Do you ever have an out-of-body experience in the middle of a meeting and realize you work with at least one Michael Scott? I do. From here on out, I'm going to refer to my boss as Michael.
Yes meetings can be fun and even productive. That is to say, right before Michael enters the room. One meeting my colleague asked me to do him a favor to which I replied, "Yeah, sure... for five dollars." A pithy little joke, maybe not even worth the time it took to utter, but displayed our rapport. Of course another person said, "you should have asked for Euros" and another, "No, Bitcoin!" We chuckled. Now the joke has reached the end. In fact I believe it has gone just past exhaustion.
Michael enters the meeting and decides he must hear this conversation explained in full detail. It is now so old, recounting the story is drudgery. He then says "...or Pesos!"
At that moment, we all calculate the risk/reward of explaining why his answer makes no sense, and how completely torturous the experience has become. This was simply suppose to be a little pithy comment to be glazed over by the minutia of the day.
This experience reminds me of being a kid and joking with my friends, and then some well-meaning mom steps in to try to show how cool she is. "That's a cool PokeMAN spaceship!"
Maybe the lesson is that the engineers outside of management are like the kids and the managers the parents. Everyone is playing a role, but there are some boundaries that should not be crossed even if you are a cool mom or a mature kid.
Unfortunately, letting a mom down; telling them they just don't get it isn't so easy when the mom is your ill-tempered boss who could ruin your career. Even if you say nothing, Michael can sometimes be perceptive enough to know he has in fact embarrassed himself. This fuels his insecurity, which runs much of his professional decision making.
Decision making, on the spot, is not for the insecure. When Michael's boss asks about progress he panics and seemingly randomly generates timelines and justifications. If I didn't know any better I would think that he was an evil genius attempting to undermine all of the engineers. However, I think he is just passively allowing blame to fall where it may which, like iron filings to a magnet, sticks to engineers (because we actually DO the work).
If Michael is your manager, you're broken or you will break. You know that anything you say or do may lead to many awkward moments and unnecessary work.
Before the meeting, I stay silent. I don't make jokes. I limit my answers to as few words as possible. I survive.
New people in meetings small talk before the meeting starts. They have not been broken yet....
Do you ever have an out-of-body experience in the middle of a meeting and realize you work with at least one Michael Scott? I do. From here on out, I'm going to refer to my boss as Michael.
Yes meetings can be fun and even productive. That is to say, right before Michael enters the room. One meeting my colleague asked me to do him a favor to which I replied, "Yeah, sure... for five dollars." A pithy little joke, maybe not even worth the time it took to utter, but displayed our rapport. Of course another person said, "you should have asked for Euros" and another, "No, Bitcoin!" We chuckled. Now the joke has reached the end. In fact I believe it has gone just past exhaustion.
"Michael enters..."
Michael enters the meeting and decides he must hear this conversation explained in full detail. It is now so old, recounting the story is drudgery. He then says "...or Pesos!"
This experience reminds me of being a kid and joking with my friends, and then some well-meaning mom steps in to try to show how cool she is. "That's a cool PokeMAN spaceship!"
Maybe the lesson is that the engineers outside of management are like the kids and the managers the parents. Everyone is playing a role, but there are some boundaries that should not be crossed even if you are a cool mom or a mature kid.
Unfortunately, letting a mom down; telling them they just don't get it isn't so easy when the mom is your ill-tempered boss who could ruin your career. Even if you say nothing, Michael can sometimes be perceptive enough to know he has in fact embarrassed himself. This fuels his insecurity, which runs much of his professional decision making.
"...evil genius attempting to undermine all of the engineers"
Decision making, on the spot, is not for the insecure. When Michael's boss asks about progress he panics and seemingly randomly generates timelines and justifications. If I didn't know any better I would think that he was an evil genius attempting to undermine all of the engineers. However, I think he is just passively allowing blame to fall where it may which, like iron filings to a magnet, sticks to engineers (because we actually DO the work).
"many awkward moments and unnecessary work"
If Michael is your manager, you're broken or you will break. You know that anything you say or do may lead to many awkward moments and unnecessary work.
Before the meeting, I stay silent. I don't make jokes. I limit my answers to as few words as possible. I survive.
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