Silly work questions

octatonic

axisus said:

I hate all that corporate bollocks. We are flooded with it at work these days. the life of a civil servant.

Thing is, if you get good at it then you can earn a fortune.

Emp_Fab

I recently had to endure this nonsense too.  We were all summoned to a meeting and among the displays of a woeful understanding of our business and our customers' needs and sycophantic empire building, we were split into groups and asked to come up with answers to various questions on how to improve the company.  We all duly discussed this and the nominated spokesperson from each group then announced our findings to the senior managers - and not one of them bothered to even pretend to write our ideas down.  The meeting ended with them all slapping each other on the back for it being such a success.

It's almost as if one of them had half-read "Management for Dummies" and dazzled the others with his suggestions of brainstorming but never read the next page that said "make a note of what your staff are telling you - at the very least pretend you give a shit".

WezV

Yeah, that's a bit of an oversight.

only works if the staff see some effort to acknowledge the responses.

My place does a whole "you said, we did" bit afterwards.  Still not perfect, but the intentions are generally good.

monquixote

Sometimes these type of questions can be quite good if they are done properly.

I have regular catch up meetings with all the people who work for me and I sometimes ask a very general question like: "Is there anything that gets in the way of you doing your job?"

Sometimes people will say "Not that I can think of" and that's fine, but occasionally someone will say. "Process X takes me about 2 hours when if it wasn't so complicated it could be done in 10 minutes".

You do have to be prepared to take action if someone raises something sensible (or explain why it has to be that way).  

I would never do it as a group exercise though. I had a meeting like @Emp_Fab describes once where we all got together in groups and put lots of work into making a proposal for what the company do then presented it to my former boss whereupon he said everything all the groups had presented was bollocks and he had already decided we were going to do something totally different.

octatonic

This actually happened:

Back in the 90's I worked for Fujitsu, a Japanese tech company, in Sydney- I was an IT tech at the time.
We had a team building weekend that was paid, in a hotel in Bondi.
One of the 'team building' exercises was the management standing around with their arms crossed whilst all the workers (including me) were told to play 'pass the parcel' and 'musical chairs'.

I raised an objection to this- the reply was that the management had done it themselves on a management team building exercise the week before so I had no right to object and should 'get involved'.

I very calmly explained that there was a fundamental difference between the management playing pass the parcel in isolation and us, the plebs and workers, playing it with the management standing around observing our willingness to debase ourselves in front of our bosses and coworkers.
Then I went home.

Unsurprisingly I wasn't put up for a promotion and ended up getting a job a Compaq where that sort of shit didn't happen.

Ravenous

Sporky said:

equalsql said:

I'd start looking for a new job. When the marketing bullshit starts to bleed into the technical side of the company you know there's a storm brewing and some clueless twunt in HR is trying to protect their job.

There's only fiftyish of us, most of whom are installers. We don't have HR.

I don't think this is a 'beginning of the end' sort of thing.

We all tend to feel cynical when the Sales types start to kick off... but I think some people are being too cynical.

Assume the guy means well and is looking for sensible improvements in his new-ish area. If he receives ideas but doesn't take them, then start panicking.  But not before.

axisus

octatonic said:

axisus said:

I hate all that corporate bollocks. We are flooded with it at work these days. the life of a civil servant.

Thing is, if you get good at it then you can earn a fortune.

I really can't do bullshit games. 

FX_Munkee

I just tell them the truth's they don't want to hear.
Eventually they stop asking for my opinions.

57Deluxe

my answers:

- One business achievement that you are most proud of this year to date -
Turning up on time once

- One thing that restricts you doing this on a regular basis

Can't be arsedness

- What makes you get up every morning and come to work for [company name removed]?

money?

- What would you change about your day if you could?

not having to be here

- Apart from family and friends, what is the most important thing to you outside work?

wanking

CabbageCat

- One business achievement that you are most proud of this year to date -
Selling a big expensive GizmoTron to BlahCo.

- One thing that restricts you doing this on a regular basis

BlahCo now have a GizmoTron and don't want another one.

- What makes you get up every morning and come to work for [company name removed]?

The alarm on my phone.

- What would you change about your day if you could?

Making the work part shorter and/or the not-work part longer.

- Apart from family and friends, what is the most important thing to you outside work?

I am fond of my dog, Sprocket.

TheBlueWolf

- One business achievement that you are most proud of this year to date

Having got away with it so far.

- One thing that restricts you doing this on a regular basis

The soul sucking dross contained in my "Contract Of Employment".

- What makes you get up every morning and come to work for [company name removed]?

If I go on the dole, Emp will shoot me. Plus I feel obliged to partake in the fantasy that is earning a living.

- What would you change about your day if you could?

I'd very much like authors of questionnaires like this to be ridiculed in public. Light refreshments and sammiches are compulsory for such events.

- Apart from family and friends, what is the most important thing to you outside work?

There is no "outside work". I am a prisoner of *insert company name*.

Bellycaster

The only reasonable way to respond to this is to Vomit on his Shoes.

Sporky

Bellycaster said:

The only reasonable way to respond to this is to Vomit on his Shoes.

Gosh no. He's got very nice shoes.

Ravenous

Some people have an interesting definition of "Reasonable"

grungebob

- One business achievement that you are most proud of this year to date  - poo'ed on work time

- One thing that restricts you doing this on a regular basis - A lack of fiber in my diet

- What makes you get up every morning and come to work for [company name removed]?- I like expensive things

- What would you change about your day if you could?- Start later and finish earlier, 2 hour lunch break

- Apart from family and friends, what is the most important thing to you outside work? - Consuming enough fiber to be able to poo at work.

Sporky

I forgot to update!

I did quite sensible answers based on @Octatonic 's advice, with only a modicum of flippancy added. It was all OK actually, though the biscuits were all at the other end of the table.

Teetonetal

The best way to play this game is to answer in good faith then you follow up in 2-3 months asking how your answers or feedback made an impression on the day to day. 

Engaement is key to finding if these things are bullshit or taken seriously. 

I do them with my team as it's company policy. I take them seriously and we talk about what action to take individually through out the year. Sometimes nothing changes for a while or maybe you see a perceived desire for change where none is necessary.

One of the fun ones that came up for me is we ditched a work from home one day a week rule as most people didn't like it and felt it made their job harder. In the end we still offer it but on an on request basis rather than a fixed one.

In my experiance it's always better to engage positively then be unbendingly cynical.