Managerial Incompetence: How common is it?
 

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Peter Principle

"Significant" would have had the wrong connotation.

Managerial Incompetence: How common is it?
It is a requirement.

Don't get me started...

I've had my share. I would say about half of my managers have been incompetent, though I've liked all but one of them well enough since their incompetence wasn't sinking the boat or causing me damage. Their stupidity mainly has served as a source of entertainment and annoyance more than anything. You need to learn to manage up, and understand that you control your own fate. Of course, if the idiots are sinking the boat there's not much you can do by keep your head up so they can serve as a reference.

The one manager I had that was an idiot was actual walked all over by his boss who loved to micromanage everyone in the department. Not only would he micromanage, but he would insult you and berate you if he found out something before you did. Also, he would go behind your back and under mind you every chance he got. The guy was an ass, but the manager should have prevented him from meddling. The director once commented on how nothing got done unless he was there. I see that comment as a reflection of his poor management.

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AAHZ, minimum wage retail workers are the easiest kind of people to keep in a recession.

Who's better - the average manager or the average employee?

For the first six months at my current job I was technically part of Marketing. My direct manager was a very tech-savvy guy, but his manager was most certainly not. That was incredibly frustrating for the first couple months as the Liberal Arts (http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...milies/mad.gif ) educated manager tried to manage us doing tech development that he didn't comprehend. And he was a micromanager. It was a cluster**** til we finally escaped the clutches of the tyranny of the marketers and finally got placed in the proper department (IT), and now directly report to the CTO.

The ***** of this all was we had to fight tooth and nail to do it. Marketing wouldn't let us go even though we weren't able to do much of anything under them. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...milies/mad.gif

Marketing is not a profit centre. They're 100% sunk cost. We get much more funding as part of IT as the new upper management at the company has finally decided that the company needs to be transformed into an Information company, not just a 'Directory publisher'. We're officially the R&D arm of the company now, which means much better funding opportunities. And we're not making stupid little marketing gimicks at their whim anymore...

It also doesn't help that they're basically in the process of shutting down the Toronto marketing office. The Quebec government is giving massive tax benefits to consolidate jobs in Montreal, so the anglophones are on the chopping block. The marketing staff here now are skeleton and their days are numbered.

I'm not convinced that he can distinguish between fantasy and reality.

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When I worked in the store the owner wanted someone who was an 'outsider' to try to sort things out. Predictable results, the staff liked me, and most of the middle management hated me with a passion. The staff loved pointing out the crap that was wrong so I could fix it. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/smile.gif That I liked, since they made my job about 10 times easier. Middle manager gave me crap, although the lady that ran the book department liked me for whatever reason.

Fixed up about half the store by the time my contract ran out which was a shame. I was hoping to have everything sorted out by then!

As for managers, I have seen really good ones, and terrible ones. One of the best managers I had was my treeplanting boss. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/smile.gif He paid me to do his reports for him, so that he could do the stuff he enjoyed. That lasted half the year, until his bosses finally caught on, and then I got bumped down in the pay scale. He still made sure that I got to help him out, just he had to find another way for me to get paid. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/smile.gif

I try my best to be an incompetent manager in order to quicken my promotion to partner.

I click reply all when I receive e-mails sent to the entire office.

Don't be silly, we have team secretaries to do that for us.

I'm forced to be on a million conference calls I don't need to be on. All the time.

So double-booking is a necessity. I'll frequently be in a meeting (that I don't need to be in, but am required to) with my bluetooth earpiece on with a teleconference on (that I don't need to be on, but am required to), while I work on my laptop (and by work, I mean post on Poly).

At least he didn't reply with a pic of the hiring manager with his secretary. We had something similar happen once; manager sent nude pics of himself to the entire company on accident, when he meant to send it to his mistress only, who in turn was one of his employees who was experiencing rapid career advancement.