Sunday, September 02, 2007

Office Politics

Malicious Bitching
The past couple of days at work have been particularly unpleasant. So much so that, for the first time in a long while, I've felt like I don't want to be there. I won't go into too much detail about what's made me feel like this. There's nothing more dull than listening to somebody droan on and on about the intricate details of their working relationships.

The whole situation has arisen because one supervisor got into trouble for poor job performance and, rather than accepting this and pulling their socks up, is attempting to drag everybody else down with them. They started with obvious targets like Ed - somebody who wouldn't know an honest day's work if it slapped him in the chops. But I didn't think for one moment the mud-slinging would extend to me.

There have been accusations made that my work in the cash office is "sloppy and full of mistakes". What makes it harder to take is that these slurs are coming from somebody who I'd previously respected and thought a great deal of.

My first reaction to hearing that I'm "sloppy" and "mistake-prone" was anger. How dare somebody accuse me of being incompetent at a job that a monkey could do - never mind somebody who's studying for a degree and has five A-levels. All the cash office entails is entering numbers into a computer, counting things and extracting information from printed reports. To even suggest that there's a level of skill involved, or more than a minimal level of concentration required, really annoys me.

My next reaction was to give tit-for-tat. Fight back and defend myself. Of course I'm going to make the odd whoopsie with the cash procedures -I'm the first to admit to it - when I sandwich the job in between running about doing so many other things. In my mind, if the checkouts are busy, I need to be down there supporting them. That comes before sitting upstairs doing admin jobs. But other supervisors who operate the cash office think differently. When the door swings shut, they're in the office and won't move from it. They spend an hour doing something I'd cram into twenty minutes.

My final take on the issue was influenced by my subsequent chat with Terry. As far as I'm concerned, I'm now satisfied that I do the best I can and I'm happy with that. If somebody else wants to go nit-picking and scouting for my mistakes, then let them. I'm not perfect.

But I remain very disappointed with the person who's said these things. It feels like a betrayal.

4 comments:

Al said...

I always thought that the cash office would be one of the more challenging jobs in store. Apparently not. Although saying that, a lot of people think my job is hard but it really isn't. It just looks difficult.

I hate when people try to take others down with them. If they're doing something they shouldn't be then they should just accept it when they get caught. There's no need to turn on everyone else.

AggressiveAdmin said...

Nah, cash office isn't difficult. A job like yours I suppose - looks much more difficult than it actually is. It was a lot more time consuming before we got our Float Manager machine because everything had to be hand-counted and you really had to concentrate to make sure things were accurate.

Maybe it was a bit much to say that a monkey could do the job - if nothing else it does involve a high level of trust. I handle about one and a half times my annual earnings in a single shift. With some people, the temptation to pocket the odd £20 note would be there, but to be honest I don't view it as money. It's just bits of paper that I have to count and sort.

Al said...

You're right, it's really a simple routine until something goes wrong when you occassionally have to think a bit.

Having said that, there is a lot to know (how each type of film is dealt with, the scheduler, digital kiosks, paper, chemicals etc.) but once the basics are there it's easy.

domestic empire said...

I don't wish to sound whiny but why do these pathetic small minded people always have to spread their bad feelings around the place?

Life would be so much simpler if we could sweep aside these bottom feeders.

Think of it as giving evolution a piggyback.