simplerich

Sometimes as a manager, and this was in the early days, I would be missing something I needed. There would be some thing that I didn’t have that I needed and that was someone else’s job to get for me. Tape, for example. All our supplies were supposed to be provided by our Area Supervisor so they could monitor our budget and make sure we weren’t using it all up or stockpiling it or stealing it or whatever. I was never sure, even as a supervisor, what I was supposed to do if I thought someone was using too much of a needed supply. But I digress.

Pretend I’m out of tape. Pretend it’s my job to return defective merchandise or out-dated product to vendors. Pretend also that I can’t return said product with the flaps folded shut on the boxes and no tape. So, when my boss would show up if I were out of tape and they said to me, “Hey Rich. What’s with all the returns back here not done?” And I smiled at them broadly and say, “I ordered tape! It hasn’t arrived yet.” I then wait for them to realize it wasn’t my fault. I was doing what I could do and it was instead THEIR fault my needs weren’t being met and therefor I couldn’t do my job. I’m not the one at fault here. THEY are.

Ah yes. That was a glorious glorious 3 and a half seconds in my mind’s eye. The way it REALLY played out was more like, “Well, I’d faxed my order to you two weeks ago and it’s not here yet.”  What followed was silence and then, and I don’t know how they did it, my focus zoomed in on their right eyebrow as it slowly arched up questioningly. This is where the conversation mostly took place in my head.

Me: “You did it! You didn’t get me my stuff! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
Me2: “So, you’d rather not return product in a timely manner, let it expire so you don’t get credit, and cost your store money to prove a point?”
Me: “No. No. No. That wasn’t my point at all. I was pointing out that I couldn’t do it.”
Me2: “Couldn’t? Has your Shop-Martzone closed?”
Me: “Well no, but I’m supposed to get my stuff from you.” (Plaintive voice here, desperate even)
Me2: “Yes, but if that’s not happening don’t you think it’s important that you get your job done? Wouldn’t you rather get in trouble for being over-zealous than for making excuses?”
Me: “I’d rather not get in trouble at all!”
Me2: “How many times have you ever gotten in trouble for over-doing your job and taking care of a problem that you’d found?”

OK, do a fast-forward effect, pull the camera back to just my face as I shake my head back and forth and time returns to normal speed. “I’m sorry. I should have gotten tape to take care of it. It won’t happen again.”

Excuses and blame-shifting aren’t symptomatic of a good manager. They can be symptomatic of a young manager and they can be symptomatic of an unhealthy hierarchy in general. If management thinks they’ll get in worse trouble for failing to follow procedure than they will for failing to take care of a problem there’s a real problem with the company. I have worked at such companies and it’s no fun at all. It’s a definite damned if you do, damned if you don’t kind of place to work.

The Excuses are never a good idea… by Rich Griffith, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.