The Dunkin’ Donuts clerk just asked me if I was going to ever change up my order a bit. Everyday I order an unsweetened iced tea, because my headaches made me give in to the Great Iced Tea robbery boycott, where they jacked the price up from $0.99 to $2.69 for a large, unsweetened iced tea. The boycott did cost me my mayoral status of the local Dunkin’ Donuts. Some young girl got the title. I’m not sad. I don’t really know why I check in on Foursquare. I don’t really get anything out of it. Once in a while it’s fun to play “spot the other Foursquare person”, but I don’t collect pins or badges or anything. I did get a discount on a tree once. Maybe we’ll try that again. We need more trees.
As I was sitting at the supervisor’s station at work, being all supervisor like for the obligatory 10% of the work week, I decided that I must be a heck of an employee to try to manage. I don’t do that well with being told what to do. I kind of find the whole “this is a directive” thing kind of amusing. Many years ago at an old job I was in a staff meeting with the management staff and the owners of the company. The president of the company told me during the meeting that he wanted a list of everyone’s passwords for his records so he could monitor their internet usage. Now he was known for yelling and screaming and swearing to make his point. I politely stifled a giggle and told him that I wasn’t going to do that, the users’ passwords were none of his business. He screamed and yelled and swore. I screamed louder. Don’t tell me what to do, especially when we both know that it’s not the right thing to do.
Because I go through life with this “I know what I need to do” attitude (albeit with some guidance once in a while), I kind of expect people follow suit and know what to do as well. I mean, if you’re in the same job for several years, you kind of have an idea of what to do at your job. At least I’d hope so. But there are people that have no idea as to what they’re suppose to be doing unless they’re told what to do. I find this concept a little foreign. If something needs to be done, do it.
It’s not complex.
# 1 rule of management. People do only what they are measured and rewarded for doing. If supervisor doesn’t care enough to tell them then it must not be important enough to get done.
I tell them what to do but they seem to need it, whereas I already know what I have to do.