Regardless of what field you are in, I am sure some of you are in positions that you have to manage projects, product lines, people etc. What do you do? What do you manage? Have you ever had problems managing whatever you had to manage, and if so, how did you deal with the problem?

For just professionals: What kind of environment do you work in? Do you work with a lot of people? Do you like your boss? Have you worked with people that no matter how nice you are to them, they are disrespectful back?

What are your thoughts?


Oh btw, Hi, my name is GRITS_Z71 :-)

3/22/2011 8:49:14 PM

my title is project manager/engineer. one thing that helps me is making a list every morning with two columns: stuff i need to do, and stuff i want to do. i keep it on the desk and check things off and add as i go. if i don't get to stuff from the want to, i table it for another day. at night before i go to bed i grab a notebook i have on me at all times and write down anything that is on my mind about a project and anything i know that i need to do tomorrow (it frees my mind and lets me sleep better). i've tried all kinds of electronic and outlook todo lists, but this still works the best. i do still use outlook tasks, but only to check emails that i need to follow up with. for scheduling, we all use outlook which makes getting meetings setup pretty easy. i work in a medium size office, my boss is great to work for and its a very trusting office environment.

3/22/2011 8:59:47 PM

personally, i manage even the most insufferable task without the slightest hiccup. a mere glance instills the proper balance of fear and respect in my subordinates, and productivity has never been higher under my watch. i attribute my success to my expert communication skills and well-honed critical thinking abilities. in short, i piss excellence.

3/22/2011 9:13:45 PM

I have managed projects now for 3 years and for 3 different organizations. In these projects, I have also had to train and guide colleagues and students. I have always enjoyed working with the people I worked with. I gave them much respect and they always returned that respect no matter their age, level of experience or education. It was a good and productive feeling. I pretty much organize, schedule, coordinate, execute, collect data, manage the data and write the final reports. I enjoy taking projects from the beginning stages and working on them until the end.

I now work for an organization where I feel the environment is less professional. I am still managing projects and people as before; however, the respect given to ANY one person is not there. I constantly observe co-workers throwing each other under the bus, trying to prove they are better than someone, turning someone's tiny mistake into something larger than life. It's ridiculous. Has anyone ever been in this situation? I have been looking for other jobs, and that's probably one of the first things that needs to change. But in the meantime, does anyone have any suggestions as to how a situation like this can be dealt with?

3/22/2011 9:20:09 PM

i worked at a place like that, i quit

3/22/2011 9:22:47 PM

you can't single-handedly change a corporate culture; it has to be done from the top down. you should find a new job

3/22/2011 9:24:24 PM

You are absolutely right, and I have no intentions of trying to change things. So when I say "deal" with the situation, I meant to say obtaining peace of mind when I am working with those types of people.

3/22/2011 9:32:42 PM

option a: be a bigger asshole than everyone else
option b: avoid conflict

3/22/2011 9:35:15 PM

I am no asshole by any means and I refuse to become one, but at the same time, I am not going to let people stomp on me either. I refuse to play that game

^And you're an engineer and probably work in an environment where you can talk all the crap you want cause you work with mainly guys. Am I right?

[Edited on March 22, 2011 at 9:46 PM. Reason : p]

3/22/2011 9:43:32 PM

If people are that much of assholes, try being brutally honest with them. If someone tries to throw someone under the bus that doesn't deserve it, speak up for them, or point out where they messed up. But if what they are saying is valid, even if presented in an asshole-ish way, acknowledge this so that you have the credibility store up later to call them out on something.

I thankfully work in an environment where most everyone is very cooperative. There are sometimes where some people create conflict, and the best strategy is to be dismissive of their antics, and don't let their ranting gain any steam.

3/22/2011 10:18:53 PM

Quote :

"i worked at a place like that, i quit"

seriously - if it's that bad you're not going to fix it. jump ship at first opportunity. there is no advice to be had other than that.

3/23/2011 9:02:58 AM

DAMN IT LOUNGE!

[Edited on March 23, 2011 at 12:21 PM. Reason : nvmnd]

3/23/2011 12:20:48 PM

I was a financial PM for 4 years and it involved overseeing about 30 consultants who were all much older than I. I never had any issues with professionalism. Despite the age and experience gap I was always treated with respect and I think that had a lot to do with the way I carried myself. I do know others who were in similar roles who did have problems.

I moved into capital investment about six months ago and it is very much different as we basically work as a large team with very little actual day to day management.

3/23/2011 1:21:58 PM

I work with a wide array of clients on a day to day basis. Some of them are quite appreciative of the help I give them and others less so. Luckily I have a pretty cool who boss who trusts my ability to handle said clients. You can't let disrespectful people get to you or you'll have a mental breakdown. You can tell which coworkers let clients get to them and the ones who let any negative comments roll right off of them. I've had clients curse, make threats, page me out at all hours of the night but regardless, they're coming to me for help and in the end none of it really matters as long as I get their application back on track.

3/23/2011 1:34:10 PM

I work for a geotechnical engineering firm. We do subsurface explorations, construction materials testing, and special inspections. I manage projects for all three.

Subsurface projects - include analyzing boring logs, soil samples, and test data; writing a subsurface report with recommendations for foundations, grading activities, or other geotechnical items that may pop up. Sometimes we meet with the design team.

CMT/SI projects - Manage field technicians. Look over field reports. Visit the site. Attend progress meetings. Talk to architects, civil engineers, structural engineers, owners, and contractors regularly.

The easiest way to deal with problems is to immediately call someone and meet up with them to talk about it.


I spend about 60-70% of my time in the office and 30-40% in the field.
We have about 10 people in the company.
Boss is a good guy.

As far as advice goes, don't bullshit people. If they ask you to answer a question, and you don't know the answer, don't make up something. Just get back to them about it. There are people out there that can easily see through a BS explanation.

3/23/2011 2:03:56 PM

I disagree about bullshit. Its the bane of most companies' existences. One should not as a rule reveal one's secrets, since one does not know if and when one may need them again. Our leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. We follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. We keep up our lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.

3/23/2011 3:15:52 PM

^^Is absolutely right and ^ doesn't have a clue in the world.

If you work for a competent company, bullshitting your way through a job will not only get you fired quickly but will create an industry reputation for yourself that will keep you out of other top tier companies.

Most of the advice in this thread is pretty good, I do have to take issue with the "just quit, you won't make it any better" advice though. That is really not true.

I think most people in most organizations are professional and want to do the right thing. It usually only takes a few people to shit it up for everyone. The "under the bus" mentality usually comes from one or two people who use it and it establishes a trend in other employee's minds. If it's made clear that such activity won't be rewarded, it usually stops pretty quick.

If you're in a position of authority, then I would suspend the employee the first time, and fire them the next. I would follow that up with training for your group on how to voice grievances and concerns in a professional manner.

If you're not in a position of authority and see this kind of behavior running rampant, I would go up your chain of management until you get to a person who has the company's interests in mind. You'd be surprised how effective this can be to voice concerns over ethics and integrity of an organization.

After that, if you do quit, do your damnedest to get the good people out with you. Again you'd be amazed how quickly an entire company can fold by hawking the few decent and honest people out to greener pastures.

3/23/2011 10:00:03 PM

I realize this thread is about being a professional in the workplace....which I am not. Hear me out, maybe I can offer some insight.

I am in outside sales, which is currently salary+commission, but will move into straight commission starting at the beginning of July 2010. I have been in this position since July 2009. I have competition from several direct manufacturing sales reps, large distributors, and local distributors. Here are the advantages and disadvantages of each:

Direct Advantages: Immediate knowledge of new technology, no middle man mark up, one shipping bill (paid by manufacturer or buyer of goods), access to larger range of non-commodity items, control inventory, have access to many distributors that can effectively sell their goods which increases market share, and set prices of commodity they manufacture.

Direct disadvantages: Typically have 1-3 sales reps per region (i.e. southeast, mid-atlantic, northeast, etc.) limiting the number of accounts they can successfully manage/cold-call, lack physical customer service or physical technical service available to or affordable for smaller users or altogether, are sometimes not trustworthy because they will go in behind their distributors that sell their commodity to one account in large quantities (i.e. they missed a big account, and have found out about it through a distributor selling their particular product) which leads to the distributor not selling their product anymore, have too many distributors selling the product ultimately driving the set price down through deviations, possibly rely on distributors to actually sell the product, and competition from other direct sources.

Large distributor advantages: have access to other commodities that go hand in hand with other manufacturers (poor example- grocery stores sell milk as well as cereal), get direct pricing, many locations regionally or nationally easing the shipping burden of buyers with multiple locations, personal service either customer or technical, many sales reps that are able to cover a broader territory, access to multiple manufacturers of the same commodity allowing to keep prices in check, service programs that smaller companies can't offer and direct providers can't match in price or value, and experts of many many commodities as opposed to one or a few.

Large distributor disadvantages: smaller local distributors creating price wars (think Michael Scott Paper Co vs Dunder-Mifflin), direct mfg's going in behind and stealing business, limited access to all of the mfg's (you won't find Harris Teeter name brands in Food Lion and visa versa), can't truly set prices because it's based on both supply and demand, territory management, and tough growth prospects in slower economies (this is true for direct as well really)

Local distributor advantages: Typically a good ol' boy setting where the seller and the buyer know each other for years (this does happen at all levels, but mostly at the local level), local folks are right down the street and can be used in emergencies, if the local guy buys at high enough volumes then there is no shipping charge to the end user, and access to both direct mfg's and large distributors.

Local distributor disadvantages: easily beaten in price, array of commodities, array of technology, lack of trained staff, low cash flow, etc etc etc.

This is what I have noticed in my six months, I am sure there are plenty more that need mentioning. The way I am setting myself apart as a sales person is this: I go after the big accounts right now while I am new. The big accounts, if I land them, will take care of me while I am new and building a customer base. The money made off of those allows me to focus free time on smaller accounts that get me higher margins. I build up big accounts, I would like to have 5-10 of these, then get 20-30 medium accounts. If I lose 1 or 2 big accounts, the 20-30 medium accounts keep me afloat while I go after new big accounts. I don't really waste time on small accounts simply because they basically pay for breakfast or something really small.

I will say this, if you can't get a big account in the first 6-8 months (assuming you have cash flow that you can ride this long) you could be in a world of trouble. If you can get one, it will really make going after the others a lot more enjoyable and less stressful. It's simply just very exhausting wasting any time on anything other than big accounts in the very beginning. You work just as hard on the medium sized accounts and see 1/3 to 1/36 of the money in my situation.

If you have any other questions, you can PM me. I hope this helps in the slightest!

3/23/2011 11:38:19 PM

^




For just professionals:
What kind of environment do you work in?
A quiet one with 1 coworker and 1 supervisor. There's probably half a dozen call center people about 50 yards away in the same building, but they rarely bother my group. I keep to myself mostly, working odd hours of 7pm to 7am (sometimes I get lucky and leave at 5am). I take care of a lot of reports and help members with fraud on their debit/credit cards. Basically, I make sure 100% of my duties are complete before I leave, every morning. I come in 10-15 minutes early and am out the door at 5:02/7:02. Very easy and laid back. Decisions are very black and white.

Do you work with a lot of people?
I deal with 3 people on a regular basis, but sometimes a few of the call center people come over asking questions or needing assistance.

Do you like your boss?
I don't really talk to my manager. My supervisor is cool. He doesn't know how to take me, so sometimes I'll fuck with him and he plays along just fine. But when it's serious time, we are both professional and complete the task at hand like nobody's business.

Have you worked with people that no matter how nice you are to them, they are disrespectful back?
Yes.

What are your thoughts?
Pick and choose your battle. Know your boundaries and what you can and cannot get away with. Think ahead and plan for the future, not just what's going on "in the moment." Let me provide some insight into what I mean by this:

Direct Advantages: Immediate knowledge of new technology, no middle man mark up, one shipping bill (paid by manufacturer or buyer of goods), access to larger range of non-commodity items, control inventory, have access to many distributors that can effectively sell their goods which increases market share, and set prices of commodity they manufacture.

Direct disadvantages: Typically have 1-3 sales reps per region (i.e. southeast, mid-atlantic, northeast, etc.) limiting the number of accounts they can successfully manage/cold-call, lack physical customer service or physical technical service available to or affordable for smaller users or altogether, are sometimes not trustworthy because they will go in behind their distributors that sell their commodity to one account in large quantities (i.e. they missed a big account, and have found out about it through a distributor selling their particular product) which leads to the distributor not selling their product anymore, have too many distributors selling the product ultimately driving the set price down through deviations, possibly rely on distributors to actually sell the product, and competition from other direct sources.

Large distributor advantages: have access to other commodities that go hand in hand with other manufacturers (poor example- grocery stores sell milk as well as cereal), get direct pricing, many locations regionally or nationally easing the shipping burden of buyers with multiple locations, personal service either customer or technical, many sales reps that are able to cover a broader territory, access to multiple manufacturers of the same commodity allowing to keep prices in check, service programs that smaller companies can't offer and direct providers can't match in price or value, and experts of many many commodities as opposed to one or a few.

Large distributor disadvantages: smaller local distributors creating price wars (think Michael Scott Paper Co vs Dunder-Mifflin), direct mfg's going in behind and stealing business, limited access to all of the mfg's (you won't find Harris Teeter name brands in Food Lion and visa versa), can't truly set prices because it's based on both supply and demand, territory management, and tough growth prospects in slower economies (this is true for direct as well really)

Local distributor advantages: Typically a good ol' boy setting where the seller and the buyer know each other for years (this does happen at all levels, but mostly at the local level), local folks are right down the street and can be used in emergencies, if the local guy buys at high enough volumes then there is no shipping charge to the end user, and access to both direct mfg's and large distributors.

Local distributor disadvantages: easily beaten in price, array of commodities, array of technology, lack of trained staff, low cash flow, etc etc etc.

This is what I have noticed in my six months, I am sure there are plenty more that need mentioning. The way I am setting myself apart as a sales person is this: I go after the big accounts right now while I am new. The big accounts, if I land them, will take care of me while I am new and building a customer base. The money made off of those allows me to focus free time on smaller accounts that get me higher margins. I build up big accounts, I would like to have 5-10 of these, then get 20-30 medium accounts. If I lose 1 or 2 big accounts, the 20-30 medium accounts keep me afloat while I go after new big accounts. I don't really waste time on small accounts simply because they basically pay for breakfast or something really small.

I will say this, if you can't get a big account in the first 6-8 months (assuming you have cash flow that you can ride this long) you could be in a world of trouble. If you can get one, it will really make going after the others a lot more enjoyable and less stressful. It's simply just very exhausting wasting any time on anything other than big accounts in the very beginning. You work just as hard on the medium sized accounts and see 1/3 to 1/36 of the money in my situation.

If you have any other questions, you can PM me. I hope this helps in the slightest!

[Edited on March 24, 2011 at 12:24 AM. Reason : .]

3/24/2011 12:22:12 AM