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People Who Regret Their Original Plan Of Being Nice And Working Really Hard Share When It Hit Them (30 Tweets)
A large part of excelling at work means knowing how to deal with your superiors and reminding them of your achievements. If you can successfully manage your managers, odds are that you’ll live a more peaceful life at the office, on the sales floor, at the construction site, and elsewhere. However, some managers are bent on making your life miserable, they won’t recognize your hard work, your dedication, your willingness to give them a second, third, even fourth chance to change their ways.
And some people… they’ve lost the spark of goodwill that made them go the extra mile and be nice to everyone. That’s exactly what Dr. Kate Lister, a lecturer in the School of Arts and Communication at Leeds Trinity University, spoke about in her viral thread on Twitter.
Kate asked her followers how old they were when they realized that their plan of being nice, working really hard, and taking on more than their share of tasks wouldn’t automatically be rewarded, was nonsense and wouldn’t actually work out. Scroll down to have a read what people tweeted back to Kate, as well as for Bored Panda’s interview with financial expert Sam Dogen, the founder of the Financial Samurai project, about how to deal with managers and how it’s vital to let them know about your achievements on a periodic basis.
Image credits: k8_lister
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Dude just described my entire employed life. Self employed now and never going back. It's less secure but so much better in every other way.
Kate’s thread was a massive success on Twitter. Her questions got a whopping 351.6k likes (that’s over a third of a million!) and was retweeted over 54k times. People opened up the difficulties they faced at work and exactly when they realized that being a dedicated worker who goes out of their way to do more than everyone simply isn’t enough. Not everyone is recognized for working hard. Though I personally still believe that discipline and working hard are the core reasons for success. Is that naive of me? Realistic? That’s for you to decide, dear Pandas.
Financial expert Sam, who runs the Financial Samurai blog, told Bored Panda more about what ‘managing managers’ actually means. In essence, it’s about constant communication and reminding our superiors of what we’re doing, what we’ve achieved, what our contribution to the company is.
I hear similar sentiments that my younger brothers' work mates have shared with him: they're afraid to take time off as it will damage their rep with the boss and affect the amount of over time they will be able to work to pay for the things in their life they can ill afford and have no time to enjoy. [They're in Canada. My brother's been with the company 20 years and now has the right to a month's annual leave...]
This is the worst one to me for some reason. Your monthly pay shouldn’t be confused for a weekly pay. Half of these things wouldn’t be a problem if minimum wage was a normal, decent wage. Like at least $20. Imagine trying to live on less than that. There’s just no way. Not even if you’re single.
“Managing your manager entails keeping him or her abreast of what you are up to,” Sam explained that we should do our best to keep our superiors in the loop about our work as much as we can, without going into too much unnecessary detail.
“It means highlighting your key wins and reminding them at the end of the year about what you did in the first half of the year,” the expert pointed out that we have to periodically remind our bosses of what we’ve achieved so far. It’s something to keep in mind and you should probably take this into consideration, what with the end of the year approaching and all.
This! The last corporate job I had, my manager said she thought I could do more and take on more responsibility but for no pay increase all because I was doing a good job. I was contracted to work part time hours but kept creeping closer and closer to full time hours which resulted in me being stressed and had a full blown panic attack. The head of our department was surprised when I handed in my notice. Never ever give up more of your time for no pay.
I was interested to get Sam’s take on whether we should be worried about leaving a paper trail about what we’ve done and what we’ve spoken about with our colleagues, managers, and bosses.
“It is very important to keep everything in writing. Over time, we tend to forget our interactions,” Sam warned that we have to take the time to make copies of the most important interactions we’ve had at work. These can save our bacon if things go wrong. They can also remind our managers about any promises they made in the past.
Sandberg made that s**t up. When people actually looked at the data, it turns out that while men are rewarded for asking for raises, women are more likely to be punished - forget being given the raise she asks for, she might get fired for asking!
Financial expert Sam noted that we tend to misremember things, so we shouldn’t rely just on our memories. Having documents, screenshots helps refresh your memory and get closer to the truth.
“By keeping things in writing, we can better remember situations and better argue for ourselves when it comes to asking for a raise and a promotion,” Sam said that when we have clear evidence of our work, our achievements, our input, it’s then easier to angle for a raise. The expert added that he’s got some great tips on how to deal with micromanagers which you can find on his blog, Financial Samurai, right here.
That stings! Something similar has happened to me a number of times... I have issues with unfairness.
My wife went through that a few times, especially for county and state jobs. Apparently they prefer to hire morons for those positions.
Jeff Shannon, an executive coach, has a similar point of view that we need to get our superiors to notice our work. He told BBC Worklife that hard work is a good start early in your career, but it’s not enough if you’re aiming for the top or want to avoid stagnating in your career.
“At a certain point, you look around and realize, wow, everyone works hard at this level. Expertise and hard work just become the expectation, and will not help you up the ladder,” he told the BBC. In short, a certain amount of office politics is inevitable if you want to rise in the ranks, get a proper raise, and see your hard work pay off.
Free work for a business about to go under? That's why they sent 18YO in suicide attacks to face the machine guns in WWI. Too young to know better.
That means getting noticed: advertising what you do and promoting yourself, so you don’t fly under the radar when it’s time for a promotion. Tell your manager that you want to keep them in the loop so it doesn’t look like boasting. Or, as Carol Frohlinger, the president of Negotiating Women, Inc., told the BBC, “If you don’t take care of your career, nobody else is going to do it.”
Good. I hope you got a better one, although I am not optimistic about it. The way many women are treated in the workplace is a blight on our societies.
Exactly this! This is part of why I wasn’t really ever able to advance a career. I literally had to make my own businesses to solve this paradox.
Y'all are missing the point. This is nepotism. Not only did they place their friends in management positions, they poured salt in the wound by having a server (who could have done the job and probably deserved it) train them.
At 18,I was told I couldn’t work in a pet food store in the UK because I was going to get married and have children and that was not in their work ethic . I was too dumbstruck and naive to report them.
I was told I couldn't be given a good review because policy would have required them to give me a raise they hadn't budgeted for.
Interesting Twitter handle... There definitely is a gender bias in the working world: males and females ARE treated differently in every field/profession/occupation, whether private or public. The OP now has the perspective from both PsOV.
Networking is the way to advancement today... in the old days it was schmoozing. If you aren't part of the "inner circle", you will not be rewarded. Many organisations, businesses and political entities are based on nepotism.
Note: this post originally had 48 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
I'm going through this right now, at 51. Just found out I was passed over for the promotion I was working toward for 15+ years--volunteering for extra duties, learning things none of the other admin assistants wanted to do, etc. Director chose someone from outside the division to be the office manager, then told me I "might need to grow a thicker skin" when I told him how hurt and disappointed I was. After all my hard work, I'm in the same situation as the woman who's been sitting at her desk reading a book for 20 years. I have 10 more years until retirement, and from now on I will be loyal only to myself.
Whatever else you do, do NOT train that new office manager on ANYTHING. If they were hired over you, then they should automatically know everything they need to know.
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Last year, 26. My boss was made redundant after 25 years in the role, very much a 'married to her job' type. I stayed in touch and she's still pretty heartbroken, won't hear a bad word against the company though. Made me realise I don't want to spend my life working hard making money for other people only to be turfed our 2 years before I'm due to retire. Time is precious y'all.
Was in a planning position for 2yrs. Redid the way things were done and it was a definite improvement. Worked with other groups we interacted with to help get things done smoothly. Mgmt then decided I wasn't 'qualified' for the position and "Oh by the way, can you train your replacement?"
Add onto your CV that you do business process design. Do a course online. Find a management role. Send them photos of your new payslip.
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I'm going through this right now, at 51. Just found out I was passed over for the promotion I was working toward for 15+ years--volunteering for extra duties, learning things none of the other admin assistants wanted to do, etc. Director chose someone from outside the division to be the office manager, then told me I "might need to grow a thicker skin" when I told him how hurt and disappointed I was. After all my hard work, I'm in the same situation as the woman who's been sitting at her desk reading a book for 20 years. I have 10 more years until retirement, and from now on I will be loyal only to myself.
Whatever else you do, do NOT train that new office manager on ANYTHING. If they were hired over you, then they should automatically know everything they need to know.
Load More Replies... Last year, 26. My boss was made redundant after 25 years in the role, very much a 'married to her job' type. I stayed in touch and she's still pretty heartbroken, won't hear a bad word against the company though. Made me realise I don't want to spend my life working hard making money for other people only to be turfed our 2 years before I'm due to retire. Time is precious y'all.
Was in a planning position for 2yrs. Redid the way things were done and it was a definite improvement. Worked with other groups we interacted with to help get things done smoothly. Mgmt then decided I wasn't 'qualified' for the position and "Oh by the way, can you train your replacement?"
Add onto your CV that you do business process design. Do a course online. Find a management role. Send them photos of your new payslip.
Load More Replies...