One of my neighboring peons in the sales department who I'm having a friendly relationship since earlier who's having a really hard time with her manager came to me for advice on how to deal with the situation. For quite some time she's been suffering from "Power harrassment" as it's commonly called here in Japan. She asks me for advice on how to deal with the situation and asks for my help to try and intervene, something I might possibly be able to do to some extent. So I gave some advice and promised to do what I could, but the start of the exchange went something like this;
Exhausted Peon: (said with desperation) He keeps having me making these pointless charts and doesn't explain properly what it is he wants and then he takes a look at them late in the evening and makes me do them all over again but they're not used for anything, I'm just so tired now, it's been going on for weeks...
Salaryman: (slightly shocked) That's really bad, I always knew he was an idiot, but not mean like this...
Exhausted Peon: (briefly lights up) Yeah! He's an evil mean idiot!!
(Wikipedia defines power harrassment as:
"Many workers are forced by their superiors to perform tasks outside of their job description and working hours. It is common for workers to be fired or suffer severe repercussions if they do not satisfy their superior's orders, despite there being no justifiable basis for such orders.")
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5 comments:
Perhaps the manager also found that definition on Wikipedia like any idiot.
Or did he come up with the power technique by himself? Then he might be an evil genius and not an idiot.
Someone "power harassed" me on my blog recently, they wanted me to make more pointless posts. Or something.
Raise the amusement level of your posts by 5.5% (no more, no less) or I will stop visiting.
Well Penguin, the problem is that I am in no position of power over you, I would love to be but this is unfortunately not the case at this stage. We should try and formalize things though to sort that out.
jlpt2kyu - well, what can I say, you get what you pay for!
Does that constitute a formal job offer? Be aware I refuse to consider anything less than Executive Peon.
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