I read this book about people who seem perfect.
Much better than the rest and get easy and fast job.

In a chapter of the book- I read about a department led by someone very very good and yet work in department were not going well.

With such people expect a very difficult life.

My problem is that I have met such people. And as a naive I changed the job over and over again.
I read then that such people exist in every field.
Why ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakes_in_Suits
From link:
"

• How ... manipulate their way into work and get promoted,
• The effects of their presence on colleagues and corporation, and
• The superficial similarities (and fundamental differences) between leadership skills and .... traits.

"
The problem I have even now: X still looking for the slightest mistake of mine to get complaint to head.
I became very stressed and even I think I will doing something wrong shortly.

The reason for this is apparently good: X wants good for institution and wants to be better than before.
In this it hope to look good in front of the head. But in reality overtax employees and their abilities and wait for their mistakes.
It knows well what it does, it is his interest. He considered himself a very smart guy and manipulative.

I make a lot of papers to justify everything I do, this was the proposal of X.
X put on the table a very thick book with the bylaw. He has been looking into that bylow what is the lack of concordance between my behavior and that bylow.

 

I've met people like this everywhere i've worked, it's more prominent in electronics than in mechanical engineering. Most electronics companies are run by admin staff in a clean office, with designers who never leave their office chairs, bad management thrives in this environment because BS is a lot easier in an environment where you don't have to prove you know what your doing and where the "important people" are all the same, you can easily look like you know electronics in front of a management team that knows less than you, a few big words is all it takes.

My previous manager started at the same time I did, he got promoted by producing weekly performance spreadsheets/graphs using skewed data that made the rest of us look like were not doing enough work. He was also a bully who used to make other people look bad to make himself look good. In the end when he was trying to get me fired, I voice recorded the c*nt expressly telling me to do something that was against company policy, which he then later tried to get me fired for until I produced the voice recording
Following this they rewrote the company handbook to ban voice recording devices.

The idiot once tried to send me and another guy over to our external storage site for a full working day, I made the mistake of questioning the lack of any facilities (toilets or drinking water) at the site, the lack of heating (it was -12c / 10f that day) and the fact that we had no warm clothes. All I did was ask if he'd made any provisions for this........
This lead to a disciplinary for time keeping and insubordination, I produced a log file from my work PC showing up times and shutdown times for every day in the last 3 years, no time keeping issues, so that got dropped, but then 2 days later I got questioned on how I got those log files, a simple batch file on my PC, I was then dragged in for another disciplinary charged with hacking the company computers.
Following this they implemented weekly checks of my PC for anything they didn't like.
It really is pathetic what these people will do and it's even more pathetic how management stick together even when they know they're in the wrong.

The thing is like most bullies they're insecure, they're fearful of the people who work for them and that's why they do their best to put you down.
Now the worst part is that a lot of them are graduates, they're still children, they fast track into management, they automatically assume they're better than everyone else, but in the back of their mind they know that they're not "time served" and they fear being being made to look bad by their subordinates, they behave like children, they tell tales, they make things up and worst they're given the authority to screw up your career.
You'll notice they set traps, they don't fix issues that cause mistakes, because they want people to screw up, they want someone to point the finger at when it all goes wrong.

Understanding your enemy is key to survival, this is very hard because engineers naturally don't want to get involved in all that personal/emotional BS, but you need to understand what motivates them.
If they think you can help them progress up the career ladder and you don't seem to pose a threat, they'll leave you alone, if this goes against your own personal ethics (as it did mine) then you have no choice but to move on.

Everywhere i've worked someone at some level has seen me as a threat, but i'm really not, i'm actually a really quiet/chilled/friendly guy..... BUT since the sh*t that went down in my first job 20 years ago, anyone that steps on me to try and progress their own career, very quickly finds out that I have a very nasty bite.

 

Wow, what a rant! In this case, I wish we could hear the other side of the story. Reading it, I ask myself another question, rather than how these people exist at every company, how does this poster end up in the companies that do?

As far as the last example, why did the poster have access to the log files? If it was because he had the credentials to do so as part of his job, then I cannot see how disciplinary action was warranted. If he exploited a weakness, then there are three courses of action. A warning or thanks for identifying a security flaw. Or, if there exists a written policy, disciplinary action.

This seems to be a possible extreme case. I cannot fairly judge without more information, so merely post my observations.

 

Being the last word on calibration issues, I have had my share of bullies disquised as bosses.
I simply say I am sorry the parts are not accepted. I do not create quality. I cannot inspect quality into a part no matter how long I look at it. If you feel this part is acceptable, you are fully authorized to direct me to pass it.

I then put "accepted per administrative order from Johnny Dipshit"
(Not his real name unfortunately).

The equipment failed when installed at the customers site. I was summoned to the meeting and accused of letting defective parts out of inspection. When I directed the production managers attention to the documents sign off sheet, I asked him why I was being questioned for following a directive from my superior?
He said thanks, and told me to return to my desk.

 

why did the poster have access to the log files? If it was because he had the credentials to do so as part of his job, then I cannot see how disciplinary action was warranted. If he exploited a weakness, then there are three courses of action.

A batch file containing:

echo %username%,%date:~6,4%%date:~3,2%%date:~0,2%,%time:~0,8%>>%userprofile%\usertimelog.csv

Dropped into the system startup folder is hardly an "exploit".
Seeing as even the lowest level user has full access to the windows startup folder.

I've experience these snakes of managers before, if they can't find anything to get you on, they ALWAYS go for time keeping and this simple one line script could save your job. However you do need to start looking for other jobs, because these types of people don't like being made to look like idiots and if they've already decided they want you gone, it's only a matter of time before they fabricate something else.

 

Email is a great coverer of asses.

I ALWAYS get a deviation from standard procedure documented in email form.

I have had experience with CYA and find it very helpful. When asked face to face to perform a non routine task of questionable legality or conformance, I will send an email a few minutes later which echoes the strange request and ask if I correctly understood the directive.

Several times I have been verbally berated by superiors for emailing them such things, but I always stand my ground. No work is performed until the request is formally answered in an email format that can be archived.

No number of personal visits to my desk to remind me ever seem to accomplish getting me to work on the "special" assignment. I just send another email an hour or so later and ask another question about it until I am answered via email.

I am seldom bothered with such things anymore.

 

Email is a great coverer of asses.

Yes/No

It's becoming increasingly common for dept managers to have full access to their subordinates email, you could I guess print PDF copies, but where to keep them? hard copies would go to the only printer (next to the manager), the employer I mentioned above, after the time keeping thing, they put in a policy whereby no files were allowed to be saved on individual PCs, only on a private folder on the server, which of course the manager had access to.
I used to keep a diary of all the stuff he did to us on a notepad so that I had a record if anything went down, they banned personal note pads and the manager used to go through peoples desks every week. I used my phone instead, so they banned phones and tablets for non-managers.

Basically these SOBs, once they have a little power they dig themselves in and make up rules to take away your ability to defend yourself.

 

If they take away your red swingline stapler I know what will happen next.

 

A game of cat and mouse. The mouse can escape form cat in this game?
Why would a cat that caught a mouse "just" to let it go after that ?
Just for mouse to have a small impression of freedom and be caught again.

The mouse might think that the cat has lost his mind.

 

In my department they have imposed new rules.For all employees, but really just for me. You must be young, you must to be........
Under these rules only I will be subject to this procedure.
There are other young employees. Nobody said nothing about them.

If I wonder: why with others not ? They reply that it's not my business.

 

I guess we cannot help you in your dilemma.

You present reasons that defy all efforts to aid you. It seems a new job is the only course of action left open if the situation is truly as targeted as you decry.

 

Where I worked the better and faster I worked, the more rules my manager put in place to hold me back. As I said, it's fear, they don't want anyone to shine more than them.

 

Perhaps you should be more careful when selecting your next boss. Seriously, I turned down a few jobs because I didn't think the chemistry was right.

 

Just an idea:
In which countries job is "safer"?
May be a poor country, but to have reduced the possibility of remain unemployed.

I'm looking on:
https://www.workaway.info
In many cases you have to work for free.
Perhaps in the future you will have to pay to work.

Since newcomen machine productivity increased "dramatically".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_the_United_Kingdom

"Agriculture in the United Kingdom uses 69% of the country's land area, employs 1.5% of its workforce"

They can study anything right or wrong the food are provided from 2% of them.

The "sad" reality is that not need much people for work.

The new concepts - you have to be very clever to get a job.
But I'm a man of average intellectual level.
I do not think that if you are middle level have no right to "live".

 

In 35 years of working as an electronic design engineer, and 13 years before that working as a technician, I never encountered either a corporate environment or a boss even remotely like the horrors described in the complaints expressed here. Not even close.

I've had a few bosses that were less than optimally competent; a few who had a habit of waiting until the last minute to ask for something, forcing us to scurry; and one who was simply an annoying pest with his constant requests for progress reports; but never anyone who was outright malevolent such as what you all are describing.

Was I just lucky?

 

Problem of monster under the bed - Children fear that under their bed or in darkness is something scary. Parents tell them if not afraid not bad doing. They understand that if they are not afraid the monsters does not exist.

And mature in life when a problem seems frightening we prefer to believe that not exist. Am I am hoping that if I do not believe that the problem exist it can not affect me.

I can not believe what is happening to others. Or I can not believe what is happen to me. I prefer to think that my perception is faulty, even go into depression.

Do you think this is real:
"At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day"
http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats
A simple calculation shows that there are 300$ /month.

Many young people believe that it is not normal to work for less than $ 1,000 / month

$ 300 / month is my case of which $ 250 is the rent of apartment.
Personally I can not complain, I can not say that I'm doing bad.
I am part of majority.

The discussion is not so much about me. It is a discussion in general.

We prefer to believe that such people do not exist although I started with show scientific studies that they exist:
"Was I just lucky?"

Such studies bother. Although such discussions are legal.
Personally I suspect that denying these things makes poor to be poorer.
Denying the existence of malevolant implies acceptance of fate
Denying the existence of malevolant helps malevolant.

If you read about you will see they believe that everything they want is right. E.g If they want to sabotage someone and let him out of money it's their right. Moreover they believes that if they are smarter give them this right.

 

Was I just lucky?

The answer is somehow knew and expected. It is normal.
And if this is normal means that I have a problem.
Basically I should build my imaginary reality in that what I see is not correct.
If you are fired because you're not good obviously involve decreased self-esteem.

http://www.healthline.com/health/depression/job-loss
"
For many people, losing a job not only means the loss of income and benefits, but also the loss of one's identity."

"Job loss for people in the United States — a country where many people's work and self-worth are interchangeable — can be an extremely traumatic experience, often leading many to despair and depression."


With depression and low self confidence you more likely to find your next job?
This is not advice obviously. The trend is to pretend we are well-meaning people.

But if I look from another point of view:
Read this discussion and realize that the guy who initiated discussion has trouble at job.

Everyone wants more.
Whose side should I be?
What I will have if I agree with one who has trouble at work?
But I could be with those who have a good position. Maybe they will like and I get something from them. I am smart guy, I see my interest, not talk at nonsense.

But how do I know who has a good social position?
You must be like his bosses. Then I say:
"You have to accept that other people are right. Especially your bosses"
I consider myself in "their shoes" and I know how they feel.
(to play a soul mate is one of the strategies of seduction of malevolant)

 

"
For many people, losing a job not only means the loss of income and benefits, but also the loss of one's identity."

Quite the opposite, I refuse to become a corporate sheep, I refuse to change who I am to fit in with a toxic work culture, I refuse to dumb myself down so as not to be seen as a threat by those around me. My individuality is a core part of who I am, if everyone was a corporate sheep, if everyone just kept the "status quo", we wouldn't have any of the technology we rely on today.

I have an in built dislike for Apple, although I do have much respect for the way Steve Jobs managed to extort huge sums of money from the sorts of trendy people who I never want to be and often dislike, this quote is brilliant:

"Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do."

Very few people understand engineering and they try to put it down as being something simple, too simple for them to waste their time on. The corporate types seek to put everyone inside neat little boxes, this makes their world make sense, but someone like me doesn't fit into a neat little box.

If you saw my "skills matrix" from the employer I mentioned, it contained things like "using a photocopier", "MS Office skills", "Use of staplers", "pencil sharpening", "answering phones", but for the job I was doing it was "Lab work", no mention of XRF machines, electron microscopes, metallography, microscopy, metrology, component testing or anything that I actually did. So to look at the skills matrix, on paper the most skilled people in the building looked entirely incompetent and the young dumb office girls had every single "skill" there was listed.

This what western work culture does, it plays down the role of the most skilled individuals and praises the abilities that really aren't skills at all.

So you have a choice, you give up your identity, the thing that makes you good at what you do, or you move on and hope to find better next time.

 

Remember the human... be courteous when replying to others.


Is this in everyone's reply box?

Doesn't anyone realize that us simple racist white folk hate everyone and cannot help but be discourteous to anyone with more melanin than ourselves?

Where is the tolerance and understanding for those who are different?

/snark off

 

I am puzzled by the photo in post 1. What is the meaning of the guy's appearance from the crotch down?