Tips to Supervisors

Another thing I should post about is about Supervisors...

At the place I work at now, there was a position I applied for, it was a supervisor position and unfortunately, I didn't get it.

To me, wasn't a big deal...  I was told I why and had no hard feelings about it.

The person who was hired, was my supervisor.  I was asked if there were hard feelings about it.  I told the person, no.

However...  This supervisor did a few things that I think a Supervisor should know when they take a position over people, and again, this sadly follows the same venue I noticed with my earlier rants about one of my managers before.

**1** - Get the lay of the land

This is a #1 in my book...  Get an understanding of what you are getting into and the people you are working with.

My supervisor, unfortunately, didn't bother doing this.  First thing the supervisor did was displace the people working under him, shoved them into a room.  Made a few of us unhappy because that was their first order of business when they started.

The second order of business was not only to get a questionnaire answered but establish "dominance", as one coworker seem to make it out to be.  Making sure people 'knew their place' with him.  Case in point, said co-worker was literally brought into a meeting with one higher up and ambushed him about how he was doing work and it was fairly much a rant fest towards him.

Also, given where I am working now...  He wanted to make broad changes, getting frustrated at us when we informed him some changes may not happen due to the way the place work...  Namely, different groups had different IT departments and different standards and we had to try and interface with them but no way to get 'standards' across the board due to this.

**2** - Treat your subordinates with respect and humility

Now yes, we all know that we "peons" need to support you as our manager and not be insubordinate or uppity.  But at the same time, when you treat your subordinates as "peons"...  Yelling at them, making their mistakes as personal upfronts against you...  You aren't going to make us any more productive.

As the joke goes, "The beatings will continue until morale improves." is exactly what this is... 

When I approached my supervisor about his attitude towards us...  He told me that he had made others flourish under this method...  That being 'nice' often lead to people taking advantage of that niceness.

Thing is...  I was considering, several times, looking for another job because his attitude towards us and how he did things was more detrimental than it was 'helpful' or 'motivating'.

Also, when I speak of humility...  Humility is about being a bit more empathetic to your subordinates.

The thing that also set off a lot of alarms for me was how often he would say, "I know you are technically superior to me..."  This is not humility...  This is a passive aggressive way of saying, "Don't patronize me."  When people pull this card, it puts me on the defensive because I try not to act arrogant about something, but when someone harps something, I have to make sure they understand what they are wanting me to do that I don't feel is in the best interests of our group.

3 - Don't make it personal

My supervisor also had a bad tendency to make things 'personal'.

Case in point.  One time, a mistake was made, we tried to handle it as best we could.

Our supervisor sent us an email while we were dealing with it, berating us about the fact that we fouled it up.

Once the supervisor was in the office, verbally berating us about how he had to micromanage us and the fact that we screwed up.  It made him look bad on performance, telling us that "If I fail... YOU Fail".

Another time, giving us tasks with no real direction and expecting us to 'do it', but when we had no idea and were waiting for it to be explained, yelled at once again for 'ignoring the task' and shouldn't have micromanage us.

All of this, each time, the supervisor made it out like it was a personal attack on them and needed to yell at us for not doing it.

And also something you supervisors should know...  Yelling is 'verbal abuse' in the work place.  And abuse in the work place is a no-no...

4 - Manage proper expectations

As above...  The supervisor had this expectation that we should 'ask about something we don't know'.  To be honest, any task you give a person, you need to make sure you explain what the expectation is.

This supervisor believed in people being self-motivating and pick up without direction.  Problem is, this expectation was never really relayed to the group and also ignores the 'lay of the land' part.

Again, his argument was not wanting to 'micromanage' people.  Problem is, as a supervisor, you do have to 'manage' some things and when providing a task, knowing whether or not they know how to do it is part of 'managing' people.

If they don't know it, you help them out or if you don't know it either, see if they can figure it out for you but be honest...

5 - Have a better understanding of your 'customers'.

Like my manager from earlier...  My supervisor didn't exactly have a 'grasp' of who his customers were.  To better put it, the argument he made in one of his rants to us was "Who is your #1 customer here?"  We listed off other people, but his response is, "Your #1 customer is ME (Again, making it personal)"

While it is true we need to impress our boss or our manager, to be fair, impressing a boss or manager does not make you "our customer".  Because you are not your own customer either.  Our #1 customer, as a tech group, is the people we have to support.  As our boss or manager, not only are you a person we have to support, we have to rely on you to back us up, more than anything, so we can do the job we were tasked for.

At the same time, YOU have to be wary of how you treat other customers.  Case in point, I was assisting a user in their office.  My supervisor barged into the user's office and told me I needed to help him with another user because they were a VIP, not even bothering to knock or be polite to the user I was assisting at the time.

When the issue was resolved and I went back to the other user...  The other user was pretty annoyed with my supervisor, despite the fact the user understood the importance.  The reason?  My supervisor barging into their office and pulling me away without knocking or being polite about it annoyed the user.  I literally had to be the one apologizing for it, but the user said that it wasn't my fault.

6 - Respect your subordinate's space

This was one thing that annoyed me as well.  My supervisor seemed to try and be 'chummy' with us, even though it takes time for some of us to warm up.

Standing over us, looking into our areas, isn't respecting our space.

One time, he even 'friended' us on Facebook.

This is a no-no...

While we can deny the friend request, this is crossing a line when you don't ask us in person.

In the end...

The supervisor didn't last very long.  But I had to pass this along for future supervisors.

Retorting back to the retort about "All Lives Matter".

It has been a while, but recently, I have to say something about this malarkey about the retort about "All Lives Matter" some people have been scoffing at.

While some will say it is like that Dad (White people) being sarcastic to the kid (Black people) about "their fair share"...  The problem here is...  That is still the 'racist' view from the other side.

The "All Lives Matter" isn't just about whites.  It also means Asians, be they Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai or otherwise...  Or the Hispanics...  Or even people from the Middle East.

The "Black Lives Matter" "crusade" is exactly what it is.  Just as for the call for "killing white people and cops".

Where does it end?  When one extremist calls for the death of whites and cops because they feel persecuted and tormented by those.  I mean, does this mean cops who are of Asian decent or even Hispanic or even of Middle Eastern also deserve to die?  Cause that is the implication.

Does this mean the 5 to 15 year old white boys and girls also deserve to die?

If the answer is "yes"...  Then it is time to say this is the death of America.  The America that was suppose to be the land of the free has now become the land of hatred and misanthropy.

Let me point out something people have to understand.  This is all about hate.  White Supremacy is about hate...  The call to kill White People is about hate...  The call to kill cops...  IS ABOUT HATE.

Are all cops bad?
Are all black people bad?
Are all white people bad?

If you truly believe the answer is whole heartedly 'Yes' to ANY of those three questions...  You will have to stop and think...  Are you the problem?  And when you look back to how you answered the above question, if any of them are "YES"...  Then the answer is "Yes...  I am the problem."

Seems extreme?  Sadly, this is the legacy of hate.  It is about the fact that when you "deal in absolutes", to quote the fictional Obi-wan...  Leads to the fact that we are heading down a dark path.

I will say, I am a hot head...  I hate certain things...  But the one thing I will say, no matter how much I hate...  Whether it be a bad boss...  Or the jerk who cut me off.  I try to hold myself from trying to go that one extra step in killing.

What needs to stop is the hate mongering.  Killing or even calling for the death of someone does not do more than create the vicious cycle.

People want cops to stop disrespecting people.  That's fine.  Killing them to get respect or flat out just acting like a complete ass to them isn't going to make them 'be better'.  Yes, we want them to be held to a higher standard, but do you think you would be 'better' if you were disrespected and insulted or threatened to be killed by some random person or even a person who hates you?

And before some of you think I like cops, I want you to understand something.  This isn't about the love for cops or being some cop fan or what not.  It is about how we treat those who get treated horribly just being who they are and NOT because it is some jerk or jackass who give them a bad name.  It is like saying any person who is Asian or Hispanic that are in a gang that all Asians or Hispanics are hoodlums and criminals.  Just like many black people don't want to be considered that as well because of others.

And again...  Not all cops are white.  Not all of them are bad.  Yet demanding them to die or treating them all as 'scum' just shows that it is a hypocrisy to say "Black Lives Matter" and demanding cops and whites should be killed.

If you truly feel this is a war against whites/cops versus black...  Again, I fear that America has finally died and this is now the United States of Hate.