Today the people at my company discovered that their chats between each other were being monitored by our managers. Even the chats that we had with other managers were being watched. So that means every time my co-workers have complained about a manager in chat to another manager, the manager knows about it.

This is evident of how lazy we are about our privacy. We know that there is a chance that our company email or chats can be looked at, yet we just don’t think anybody will bother. Well they do bother. Managers get bored and they are easily entertained by looking at an employees email or chat activity.

Unless the chat or email application is a part of the company infrastructure, the email or chats usually cannot be read. However, there are applications available that are able to detect your activity in your personal email such as Yahoo or Hotmail or chat applications such as GTalk or AOL. Screen recording software can also capture what you’re doing.

Don’t be lazy when it comes to protecting your privacy at work. Always assume that something you type will be seen by your manager. This will ensure you’re not on the next downsize list.

If you want to really make an impression and grow within your company, you’d better be in the right ‘click’. What do I mean by that? Well, employees tend to gather in groups. Let’s take smokers for example. My manager smokes. So he has moments where he goes outside and smokes with other smokers. This is the time when lots of talking takes place and a certain comradery develops. I am not a smoker, so I miss out on all the gossip, and my co-workers that are smokers have more of a chance to kiss-ass, or talk shit about me and other non-smokers.

Of course, your manager may be a part of more than just one click. My company also has a World of Warcraft click. The group of employees that play WOW have time with one another outside of work. They chat within the game, then arrive the next morning to talk about the game even more. This is a click I could be a part of.

I have never seen anybody get a promotion that isn’t a part of at least one of the clicks with their manager. Promotions aren’t earned by burying yourself in work at your desk and only talking with your manager during meetings. If you wish to grow, find something you have in common with your manager and build upon that. Being part of a click is essential to growth within any company.

Do you have a manager that has resorted to managing electronically? Does he scold the entire team by sending out email or announcements via chat while writing things he doesn’t have the bravery to say in person? For a manager, this is not the way to win respect. An impersonal workplace is an unhappy one. Managers that have resorted to managing electronically will never accomplish anything. Employees see these messages and look at them as clutter and often rebel.

I have a manager now that seems to send out email because it serves his ego. The email messages often contain a list of demands he expects our team to change. I think it makes him feel like he’s doing his job as a manager. This same manager’s voice often cracks though when he has to have a meeting or actually talk seriously to employees in person.

If something needs to be changed or managed, it requires a 2 way dialog, or a meeting so that both the manager and employee can be heard. Unfortunately most managers don’t see it that way. They believe their word is final, and once they broadcast their demands via BlackBerry, they are to be followed. While email and chat have their place, it just doesn’t cut it when it comes to motivation or change.

There are certain people in every organization that have made it a habit to constantly visit other employees and talk. These people talk way too much and they never get the hint that they don’t want to be talked to. They hover around your desk while you’re working, reading a book, or taking time to read your favorite blog. It’s difficult to tell these people to bug off because they are usually very nice in nature. So instead, people try to drop a hint for them to leave. These talkers however are usually clueless.

I’m always embarrassed for these poeple. Hint: if a person is not looking at you while you are talking, chances are, they don’t want to talk to you. It’s nothing personal and it doesn’t mean that you should never pay social visits to co-workers. It just means that right now is not the time to talk.

Unless you have a smart manager, which is rare, you must know that your manager is never wrong. Even if you are right and can produce proof that you are right, your manager is still right. Why? Well, because they have the power to be right. Managers set the rules and can change them at any moment. Therefore, they can be right whenever they want to be.

I’ll share a story with you for an example. I once created a software program that saved company employees tons of time processing customer files. With each file it would easily save about 1 to 2 minutes of time. My co-workers praised me for creating this tool. However, management needed to approve full use of it (even though it was so useful employees were already using it.)

I received an email from our director stating that he did not approve the software package. When I asked why he stated that the software package didn’t have any reporting built into it. I understood that, but it fixed a need and automated a process that was tedious before. We also had other software packages that could handle the reporting. When approached with this logic, he stumbled for an answer. He was unable to find an intelligible one, so he simply told me that the software tool I created was not to be used because he “didn’t like software that didn’t have built in reporting.”

Didn’t like software that didn’t have reporting? Here we have a software application that can save employees thousands of hours per year, but it’s not good enough because it doesn’t have reporting built in that we already had? Of course, the excuse was provided to me so that my director would be right. He changed the rules then and there. He couldn’t provide me with a logical answer as to why the software was rejected, so he made a new rule on the fly. NO SOFTWARE TOOLS WITHOUT REPORTING.

This same tool is still used despite all of this. Managers have somehow acquired copies and instructed their employees to use it even though THE MAN didn’t approve of it. The point is that it saves time. Employees suffer because my director just had to be right. It made absolutely no sense, but it didn’t have to. Stupid managers will always make decisions without having to provide a good reason. Fighting it is futile and will only leave you more frustrated.

Never fight the law. The law always wins.

At work, I used to get into arguments with my stupid boss all the time. He was the type that was very quick to point the finger at somebody and scream at them. Example, he accused me once of coming in late. He based this accusation on the fact that I signed into my chat application later than I came in. He saw my name appear on his screen 15 minutes later than my shift started, and just assumed that I came into the office 15 minutes late. What he didn’t know is that I was grabbed by an employee as soon as I walked in the door, and I was assisting them with an urgent matter.

I would often get confrontational with my boss in response. I would immediately point the finger back at him and explain my version of events. This approach never worked. A boss is never wrong no matter how right you might be. In the case where I was accused of coming in late, his solution was that I was to visit my desk and sign into chat first no matter who tries to grab me for help. It’s moments like these where you just want to throw your arms in the air and give up.

I have recently found an approach that works much better than confrontation. It gets you ahead of the game with any manager. You just have to act really, really dumb. After all, that’s how your boss ended up where they are. They probably discovered what I have and started acting really dumb (or just were dumb naturally) and got promoted. It really works.

In a similar scenario to the one I mentioned before, I was once accused of coming back from lunch late. Instead of being confrontational this time, I just played dumb and said “I was? I didn’t know. I thought I was back right at 1. Let me check my time card.” Instead of giving him a reason to keep firing at me, I just acted like I truly didn’t know. This response worked better as he later realized he was wrong and just kept his mouth shut.

I even use this method when I know I’ve done something wrong. “Oh, I didn’t work on that? Really? Sorry, I wasn’t aware of the deadline.” or “You wanted me at that meeting at what time? Oh sorry, I thought it was at 9.” It’s the same defense Bellichick of the Patriot’s used when he got caught. He played dumb and said “I didn’t know.” and got a slap on the wrist.

It does zero good to try to fight your boss. Even when you are right, they will twist things to make it so that they look right in the end. Just keep your head down, play dumb and hope for the best.

I have worked for companies that have merged with other companies several times in my career. Each and every time a merger took place changes were made within the organization. Drastic changes! After the mergers, there are often way too many people doing duplicate jobs within the organization. In preparation for a merger to finally go through, companies tighten performance metrics. The metrics are often very difficult for some employees to keep up with. These employees often end up leaving the organization naturally because they can’t deal with the changes. For companies, this is a way to avoid have to layoff employees. They have no interest in retaining employees that can’t perform within the tighter metrics.

One company I worked for, bought another company and gathered all the knowledge of the employees from the company. They made them train the existing employees on everything they knew. After 2 years, the company closed the location they bought down and laid off all employees for that company.

Managers get hit harder after mergers. You can’t have 2 directors in one department or 2 CFO’s. Usually these high paid people get the boot by way of a pink slip.

If you wish to survive a merge within your company, you will need to learn to adjust and perform better than the person that might be taking your job. These changes are usually temporary until the complete shakeout occurs, and that can take about 2 years. Kick up your work performance a notch until the merger blows over. New jobs are often created with mergers too, so you may be able to score a nice promotion.

What I truly love to do is create web sites. I have a few clients and I make a few extra dollars on the side being a web designer. I also blog, and I make some money from that. It’s not enough to pay all of my bills, so I work a different job during the day. It’s a job that I hate. It’s hard work and I am burned out from it. My boss is a power hungry ass, and some of my co-workers are intolerable at times.

When people would ask me what I do for a living, I used to tell them that I do computer support. Every time I told somebody what I do, it made me cringe. I am not proud of what I do at all, but it pays the bills.

After suffering an episode where I was severely discouraged about my day job, my girlfriend said something that has stuck with me and made me feel better about my career accomplishments. She said “That is only your day job. You are a web designer.” That stuck with me. It’s true, doing computer support doesn’t define who I am. I had let the job that pays me the most money define me for years, and it chained me down into a label I didn’t like.

Now I have a different state of mind. When people ask me what I do, I proudly tell them I create web sites. I feel better telling people this, and it has gained me a lot of extra business that wouldn’t have been possible had I been telling people that I do computer support. Who knows, maybe I won’t need the day job much longer.

Discover the freedom you can feel when you have the confidence to tell people who you really are, no matter how small other people might think it is. If you like to make candles by day while you work at Wal-Mart at night, tell people you are a candle maker. If you’re happier with that Wal-Mart job, proudly tell people you are a Wal-Mart associate. It can make a world of difference to not label yourself just by the job that pays the bills.

I am always full of big ideas on how to improve morale and increase productivity in the workplace. For years I would request meetings with my managers to share what I considered big ideas. I was optimistic about changing things for the better of the organization. I also thought I could make myself look better in the eyes of my managers.

Looking back, I don’t think any of these managers have ever listened to a word I’ve said. I see other employees struggling to get through to their managers without success as well. As a result, I have come to the recent realization that managers don’t really care about the opinion of the average worker. If they did care about them, I guess almost every employee would be invited to those meetings behind closed doors where all the decisions are made.

Unless you are specifically asked by your manager to find a solution to a problem, your suggestions probably will not be heard. In fact, in some cases you may be seen as a complainer if you try to make too many suggestions. Managers usually feel it’s their job to improve things in the workplace, not yours. To them, your job is to do only what your job title requires.

I’ve even had companies where I have taken the initiative and improved a process on my own. I saved hours of productivity by taking action first instead of asking permission. Instead of getting rewarded for it, I was chastised by management for not talking to somebody about it first. At the time, I knew that my suggestions would not be heard, so I made changes on my own. Two years later, my suggestions were so good that employees still use the process I introduced. Yet I have never gotten any recognition from management for it.

The illusion of the suggestion box

In some companies, there may even be the illusion of the suggestion box that may make you feel that managers really care about your opinion. I’ve worked for a number of companies that have implemented some type of suggestion box for employee feedback. I have yet to see an occasion where any of the suggestions were followed up on seriously. In other cases, I don’t even think anybody was bothering to read the suggestions.

As much as you’d like to be the employee to help improve things, it’s often better off to keep your head down and just do your job. Let the managers bury themselves or succeed with improving conditions on their own.

So your co-workers don’t do their part and your boss doesn’t have a clue. You would love your job if these people just weren’t around. Should you jump ship?

I left 2 companies that I now wish I hadn’t left. I left because I worked for bosses that didn’t have a clue. I also did most of the work while others sat around and claimed credit for my work. I put in 2 years at each company. Now that I look back I realize I would’ve been better off if I had stayed with the either of these companies.

Though you might think nobody is watching,  there usually is. Managers have ways of knowing who the dummies are and who is really doing work. They just do it quietly. The thinning of the herd eventually occurs. It’s just a matter of waiting for that time to come.

My bosses from both companies were fired months after my departure, and co-workers I disliked either met the same fate or departed on their own. Those employees that stuck it out have had several promotions. I would’ve definitely gotten a promotion or two had I stayed. Instead I started over with a new company.