things at work that make you cringe?

paradisiac · 12 May 2012 at 09:46

[FnG]magnolia;21896993 said:
Sometimes the ability to manage people and the overall organisation is more important than having first hand knowledge of the product/service. This is why we have GMs, CFOs, and CEOs.

he also has no idea on how to manage people or organise anything.
he is basically the first person a customer sees, but he has no customer service skills at all.

his job involves :
selling items
booking jobs in
ordering stock
cashing up

my job involves :
selling items
booking jobs in
ordering stock
cashing up
carrying out all workshop jobs
contacting customers
sourcing items
explaining what the hell everything is to the 'manager' and why he miss sold it to the previous customer

i see why the manager gets paid more than me

but i guess i work in a 'unique' company, this is probably completly different everywhere else

seriously, my OP, i could easily do a 'daily quotes from my retard manager', maybe even hourly (if we saw a customer every hour

)

his most popular one at the moment is :
customer i have a virus
manager do you use facebook or ebay?
customer yes i use both
manager thats where you got it from, facebook games and ebay spread viruses
customer but my daughter uses them and doesnt get any
manager what antivirus do you use?
customer Norton i think
manager (face bright red and looking like he is going to explode) NORTON!!!! remove it, remove it now, that does not stop viruses it just kills your hard drive
customer (looking rather puzzled) but i paid £35 for it from (enter chainstore name or your choice) and they said it was good, i have seen it on tv too
manager only use the free ones, the paid ones do not work, they are designed to give you a virus and kill your hard drive. you will probably now need a new hard drive, fresh installation of windows and all your data is lost
customer oh no, how much will that cost
manager we will have to assess it as let you know
(we have fixed prices for these jobs, so not really hard)
customer ok, i will leave it with you

manager books it in, few days later i get to looking at it, remove virus, give it back to customer. they ask if it will happen again, i explain it could do, but depends where they got it from. get the whole facebook/ebay story, laugh and explain that stupid, who told them that (infront of the manager coz i know it was him) he then quickly exits to the back room. they then says thats cheap, and can she have her old hard drive. i explain its in the desktop/laptop still, i didnt know she wanted a new one as it wasnt on my notes. to then get the whole thing on being told they required a new drive. explain its not the case and she hasnt lost anything.

this process happens everytime we get a virus related job, no matter how many times i explain to him. Norton is not great, as you have to pay for it and it does a lot more than virus protection, hence why it slows machines down. this does not make it the devil, although i personally wouldnt recommend it. and it certainly does not set out to kill hard drives, if it did, it wouldnt be on sale.

Stolly · 12 May 2012 at 10:09

People like that fool in the PC shop give IT a bad name. No different to the cowboy mechanics of the motor industry.

paradisiac · 12 May 2012 at 10:10

Stolly said:
People like that fool in the PC shop give IT a bad name. No different to the cowboy mechanics of the motor industry.

ageed. i personally think IT people should have to have some form of recognised qualification to be allowed to work in the industry. there are soo many self employed 'PC Engineers' around here that really dont have a clue, but nothing stops them from advertising and ruining some peoples computers.

hyperzed · 12 May 2012 at 10:30

"Going forward, let's touch base offline so that we can proactively come up with an action plan based on the lessons learned."

Managers :mad:

Lopéz · 12 May 2012 at 10:34

I would hate to work with about 90% of the people in this thread, and I expect the feeling's mutual.

I've just been on a 4 month personal journey which I am now reflecting on. You'd all hate where I work!

The Halk · 12 May 2012 at 10:45

Lopéz said:
I would hate to work with about 90% of the people in this thread, and I expect the feeling's mutual.

I do agree, there seems to be a rather large amount of malcontents in the thread who I suspect are the problem, rather than suffering from it. I racked my brain to see if I could come up with anything that makes me cringe at work, and I could think of nothing significant.

Lopéz said:
I've just been on a 4 month personal journey which I am now reflecting on. You'd all hate where I work!

Could you try to be just a little more cryptic?

paradisiac · 16 May 2012 at 12:37

ok, just to add to my managers 'special' quotes

Customer this graphics card says DDR3 but my pc is DDR2, will it work?
Manager oh, we should have a DDR2 card here, i will see if i can order one for you
Customer so this one wont work?
Manager No!, most deninatly not
Customer oh, how soon can you order one?
Manager our supplier doesnt seem to have any in stock, hang on
Manager (to me out the back) we cant get DDR2 cards now can we, this gentleman has a DDR2 machine so ours wont work
Me (as loud as i could so the whole store could here) YOU WHAT?!?!? the GDDR on the graphics card has nothing to do with the RAM in the pc, if it was how come you get GDDR5 RAM on cards?!?!

surfice to say, the customer did not look amused at all.

Zefan · 16 May 2012 at 12:46

paradisiac said:
ok, just to add to my managers 'special' quotes

Customer this graphics card says DDR3 but my pc is DDR2, will it work?
Manager oh, we should have a DDR2 card here, i will see if i can order one for you
Customer so this one wont work?
Manager No!, most deninatly not
Customer oh, how soon can you order one?
Manager our supplier doesnt seem to have any in stock, hang on
Manager (to me out the back) we cant get DDR2 cards now can we, this gentleman has a DDR2 machine so ours wont work
Me (as loud as i could so the whole store could here) YOU WHAT?!?!? the GDDR on the graphics card has nothing to do with the RAM in the pc, if it was how come you get GDDR5 RAM on cards?!?!

surfice to say, the customer did not look amused at all.

You see, you've not done anything for yourself there. Why not quietly mention it to him? That way you become "The guy who knows stuff and understands how to behave in front of customers - maybe he should be promoted" rather than "Oh yeah that ****head".

paradisiac · 16 May 2012 at 12:47

Zefan said:
You see, you've not done anything for yourself there. Why not quietly mention it to him? That way you become "The guy who knows stuff and understands how to behave in front of customers - maybe he should be promoted" rather than "Oh yeah that ****head".

because he is the manager, the owner NEVER comes to our branch, there is NO chance of future promotions

if it was every now and then, i would be more civil with him. but i swear, these quotes come out of his mouth on a daily basis, he is clueless, but believes everything he spouts out to be gospel.
i do my

The Halk · 16 May 2012 at 12:48

paradisiac said:
Me (as loud as i could so the whole store could here) YOU WHAT?!?!? the GDDR on the graphics card has nothing to do with the RAM in the pc, if it was how come you get GDDR5 RAM on cards?!?!

surfice to say, the customer did not look amused at all.

If I was the manager I'd give you a formal warning for that.

paradisiac · 16 May 2012 at 12:50

The Halk said:
If I was the manager I'd give you a formal warning for that.

im sure if you were the manager you would know your products?

he tired selling someone an SB cpu with an AM3+ mobo the other day. i still stand by my arguments, people that work in the computer industry should be forced to do a course to get a basic understanding of computers before they are allowed to work in the industry.

The Halk · 16 May 2012 at 12:52

paradisiac said:
im sure if you were the manager you would know your products?

If I misunderstood or made a mistake and one of my staff pulled that stunt I'd be mightily annoyed.

Aside from that though, the manager doesn't necessarily have to know his products inside out, he's there to manage staff. In this case though what he did was pretty staggeringly ignorant, however that doesn't excuse you.

paradisiac · 16 May 2012 at 12:54

The Halk said:
If I misunderstood or made a mistake and one of my staff pulled that stunt I'd be mightily annoyed.

Aside from that though, the manager doesn't necessarily have to know his products inside out, he's there to manage staff. In this case though what he did was pretty staggeringly ignorant, however that doesn't excuse you.

he is the store manager incharge of sales and customer service. i think that should therefore entitle me to believe he would have a basic grasp on computer components, as that is essentially 99% of his job. i answer to the owner of the company, not my store manager, as i am primarily dealing with repairs and part sourcing, not sales. its just because he has no understanding i spend half my day babysitting him.

sorry if i didnt explain the job roles that well

. the 'manager' is incharge of the shop and shop alone, i work in the workshop and not the shop, therefore my boss is the owner. the 'manager' is more of a collegue on better pay.

mrk · 16 May 2012 at 12:56

Sticking it to theman

Morba · 16 May 2012 at 13:03

Everyone whinges about their managers, I've done it enough over my time.
However, for once, I am actually happy with my manager. A rare decent one that listens, understands and has a clue what he is doing and want's to help the team as best he can. Shocked.

Zefan · 16 May 2012 at 13:04

Ah that makes a little more sense, but I still wouldn't be showing him up like that unless he was actually a **** to me in the first place/I had some other reason to be malicious towards him.

Could you tell the owner about his incompetency?

paradisiac · 16 May 2012 at 13:12

Zefan said:
Ah that makes a little more sense, but I still wouldn't be showing him up like that unless he was actually a **** to me in the first place/I had some other reason to be malicious towards him.

Could you tell the owner about his incompetency?

i get nothing but abuse from him all day. i have endless amounts of work to do, but am forever running around after his screw ups, because i get paid less than him, he feels i should do his work.

i have mentioned it to the owner, and i get 'you are both grown men, just sort it out'. as for telling him the manager has no knowledge, that would be suicide as he 'hand picked' him from another job (well so im told by the manager, i wasnt here at the time). no one else in this branch likes him, but then they are all working with me, so get treated the same way. he has no staff directly working under or with him.

Spuj · 16 May 2012 at 13:14

Morba said:
Everyone whinges about their managers, I've done it enough over my time.
However, for once, I am actually happy with my manager. A rare decent one that listens, understands and has a clue what he is doing and want's to help the team as best he can. Shocked.

My last manager was a complete legend. He was the one of the most helpful men I have ever met, he helped me progress in my job and was an absolute laugh to boot. He wasn't everyones cup of tea as he knew how to get jobs done but it wasn't always 'by the book' but the amount we achieved as a team was impressive!

Unfortunately he retired and the next manager was the complete opposite. I have since then moved job and my new manager is pretty similar to the first one.

There are good guys out there but they do seem few and far between for the most part.

The Halk · 16 May 2012 at 13:18

The context you've put it in now Paradisiac makes more sense. In that case I'd probably pull him aside and verbally go through him - but it's easy for me to say, I'm not in your position.

paradisiac · 16 May 2012 at 13:22

The Halk said:
The context you've put it in now Paradisiac makes more sense. In that case I'd probably pull him aside and verbally go through him - but it's easy for me to say, I'm not in your position.

yeh sorry, he just uses his title 'manager' all the time to make excuses for getting me to sort out his jobs, but in essence he has no more power than me, just a fancy title and nicer wage.

we have had a few 'clash of opinions' in private, i dont like to be rude infront of customers, but i have a shed load of work and he has 1 simple task of selling stuff. for me, its common sense. he has no life outside of work, so he has no excuse not to do a little bit of research instead of munching infront of the tv downing can after can of larger on his own. maybe this is why i dont push things with the owner, i kind of feel sorry for him in that respect. but im sure if he went into any other shop to buy something and was greated by someone in that industry with the same level of itellegence he has in his, he would be annoyed.