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Arsey Attitude

Employees who don’t accept the authority of the boss, providers who think the customer is definitely not king and HR professionals who believe their advice is law. 

 

The conversation wasn’t going well. In fact it was going so badly I had to say,” Do I need to remind you who is the Director here”. It was a relatively straightforward issue. There had been a complaint, a lot of complaints from the cleaners, about the state of this individuals office. The line manager had tried and failed to get a clear out. Stacks of old files and historic reports covering every surface, the desk had long since disappeared from sight, the rows of filing cabinets were bursting at the seems and had wobbly towers of folders and files perched on top, the widow ledges were piled high with documents restricting the natural light and turning the office into a cave . The floor space was largely taken up with boxes contains paper work. No wonder the cleaners refused to enter. In frustration the line manager turned to the Health and Safety officer who had no hesitation in condemning the office as a fire hazard and issuing an ultimatum for its clearance. This is where I came in, the ultimatum  having been  ignored. I summoned the individual to instruct them to comply with the Health and Safe report. And they proceeded to tell me why they needed all the files , reports and folders. Clearly they were a hoarder unable to throw anything away but it was their arsey attitude that forced me to remind them who was in charge. 

 

You know the type, they know best, and rather than accept that their boss is telling them to do something they persist in arguing and being uncooperative. 

 

More recently I experienced the same arsey attitude as a customer. Basically I was told what I wanted couldn’t be done, wouldn’t work, and wouldn’t look right. It wasn’t clear whether this was advice based on experience and expertise or whether the provider thought it was just too much trouble. This was defiantly an example of the customer is not king. 

 

Back at work and a telephone conversation with a senior HR person about what to do next  following a serious incident resulting in the immediate suspension of an employee.  We discussed the known facts in detail. I shared some concerns. They said in view of what you have told me you should do this. I said thanks for the advice but now I have had a chance to talk it through with some one impartial I‘m going to go the opposite way. To which the rather arsey response was ,”well if your not going to take my professional advice  I really don’t know why you bothered asking for it”. 

 

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