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Your boss

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strange6

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Why is it that people who haven't a clue at what they're doing always seem to progress up the career ladder? My boss is a nice chap but he is so incompetent, it's unreal. It's not what you know, it's who you know. No wonder the country is buggered.
 
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HugePilchard

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I guess I was lucky with my last boss, in that he was not only very competent from a technical standpoint, but he actually made a really good manager too.

When redundancy came round a few months back, he managed to side-step it, but I'm getting e-mails from him every few days with suggestions for jobs I should be looking at.

Top bloke. I'll be lucky if I ever get to work for someone like him again.
 

SS4

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Just think about how us Civil Servants felt! (and for what it's worth I'll be supporting my PCS ex-colleagues when they strike)

Local management were pretty good, it was when you got those who set policy that the trouble occurred
 

12CSVT

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I won't say which TOC but last year, during an investigation into a SPAD (signal passed at danger), it transpired that one of the local station managers didn't know what a SPAD was. The station manager in question has since moved to a higher paid job.
 

Aictos

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I won't say which TOC but last year, during an investigation into a SPAD (signal passed at danger), it transpired that one of the local station managers didn't know what a SPAD was. The station manager in question has since moved to a higher paid job.

Why does that not surprise me, couple of years back the local manager hadn't a clue that the staple traction being 313s had onboard CCTV which had been the case for 2 years already.

Being ditzy must be a pre-qualification requirement, I would say in that case there ought to be more blonde managers but for some reason it don't work out like that somehow.
 

HST Power

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I'm my own boss.

What, have you become a HGV driver yet?

I agree with some of the points raised in this thread. Standards in many jobs and industries have started to slip, big time. Though having said that, competition to find a job is very fierce, especially if you're a first time graduate with no expierence.

My boss is very friendly and easy going. I don't see him much, as I'm always on the go whilst doing my job, but he doesn't seem to mind how and when things get done, so long as they get done! Suits me just fine. :p
 

1V53

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In fairness many bosses are being pulled in a different direction than the one the staff under them feel they should be. The boss has to either go with that or side with the staff and risk their job.

It annoys me sometimes that my boss gradually forgets their roots and seems to be increasingly influenced by the senior management, but that's life. The budgetary constraints of the senior management are a tad at odds with the requirements of the ground floor staff.
 

Oracle

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My boss is a nice chap but he is so incompetent, it's unreal.


That's me to a 'T'!

I was a useless boss when I had numerous employees in a different incarnation, many years ago. Arguably I have a 'boss; and he's a pleasure to work with. He knows his stuff, is approachable and a man of his word. He deserves to be where he is, on the ladder to the top I suggest.

I should add that some bosses have failings but they are good managers. Also, sometimes they get promoted to get them out of the way!
 

Kernowfem

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Why is it that people who haven't a clue at what they're doing always seem to progress up the career ladder? My boss is a nice chap but he is so incompetent, it's unreal. It's not what you know, it's who you know. No wonder the country is buggered.

I always say "Its what you know about who you know" ;)

My boss is ok, but i work in the public sector where we are over run by management we DONT need. On three times our salary and do bugger all for it. Too many chiefs and not enough indians in my opinion.
 

j0hn0

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Management is a technique, of course these guys look incompetent to the people below them, you have to do all the work for them.

Their game is about upwardly managing expectations, not knowing every little detail, that's the subordinates role.

My manager is brilliant, he is the best manager that I've ever worked for. He knows very little technically and as a coordinator, but he is a great coach and man-manager that lets me get on with what I have to do.

4 people report to me, but I often coordinate work across the business. Knowing how management works is the first step to accepting what they do, I used to hate them all (redundancies etc) but now having had some training, I get it.
 

33056

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With regards to managers earning far more than the people under them, it doesn't usually happen in my particular job where we work shifts and weekends. Less pay and you get rubbish like being on-call every three or four weeks, hence there is usually a stampede (not!) when the job becomes vacant.

Have had at least five different managers in the 10 years I have been around and at least two fairly prolonged periods of temporary cover.
 

ACE1888

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2 Apr 2011
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Used to be a section manager at Tesco, did it for for around 12 years, gave it up and stepped 'down' in 1999, best thing I ever did looking back, all the 'stress' of the job just went right out the window, more than happy just 'brushing up and making the tea' these days...work on the Backdoor there these days...
 

Grantham

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I have too many bosses, some of whom have been promoted under the "Peter Principle", that is, they've been promoted to their level of incompetence!
 

SS4

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I always say "Its what you know about who you know" ;)

My boss is ok, but i work in the public sector where we are over run by management we DONT need. On three times our salary and do bugger all for it. Too many chiefs and not enough indians in my opinion.

That sounds about right. Are your managers often nowhere to be seen either? (and goodness help you if have a query after 4pm :p).

Management are like neutrinos: an awful lot are produced, they are very hard to detect and the pass through matter with barely any interaction
 

Nym

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its more to do with the fact that airheads like shiney things, their cv gets covered in jazzy font and posh crap, and the airheads already in managment like it. And so long as you can spout generic rubbish at the interview you're fine...
 

bb21

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Local management were pretty good, it was when you got those who set policy that the trouble occurred

I concur that statement.

Those setting policies never really knew what they were doing. How many people that devised the earlier versions of the National Numeracy Strategy have actually taught mathematics at school? However they went on to prescribe exactly what should be taught in each lesson. Are you kidding me? A bunch of know-it-all's telling the teachers how to teach their students that vary wildly in personal abilities from one class to the next.
 

Xenophon PCDGS

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Those setting policies never really knew what they were doing. How many people that devised the earlier versions of the National Numeracy Strategy have actually taught mathematics at school? However they went on to prescribe exactly what should be taught in each lesson. A bunch of know-it-all's telling the teachers how to teach their students that vary wildly in personal abilities from one class to the next.

Speaking from personal experiance, having Mathematics as my First, I can bear out that when the "new teaching ideas" were introduced by individuals who wanted to express their favoured particular methods, often against a methodology which they described as "outdated", went to prove that ideology is no substitute for tried and tested methods.

A similar example in the field of architecture where the "brave new world" of modular public housing led to the worse known scenario of mould, dampness and steel reinforcing corrosion in the past 100 years. Yet people had to live in these houses with all these defects. You will note there was soon a return to traditional building methods when all these defects were brought out into the open.

I was going to make a final comparison between high quality suburban railway rolling stock and Class 142 Pacers, but in the words of Mark Anthony in his speech after the death of Julius Caesar..THE EVIL THAT MEN DO LIVES AFTER THEM, THE GOOD IS OFT INTERRED WITH THEIR BONES.
 
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