January 23, 2007 – Avoiding the Idiot List

I have a renewed dislike for stupid drivers. A buddy and I have been carpooling. Here in Southern California the freeways have carpool lanes with limited access at well-marked areas to enter and exit and a $300 fine for violators. On heavy traffic days you can sail along past the other three lanes, which are generally standing still. That is where the stupid drivers reside with their blatant disregard for the law, safety and my sanity. Obviously the regulation must not apply to them so they swerve into the lane in front of us.

Unfortunately there are idiots at work, too. Try to avoid these annoying actions and you won’t end up on anyone’s idiot list.

Not backing your team. Two of my co-workers were complaining to me one day about their manager. She was new to the group and had a completely different philosophy of management. The previous manager focused on enforcing the standards, even when it meant standing up against upper management. The newbie correctly identified the rift between the groups but assumed it was the fault of her new team. It took the team nearly six months before she came around and started supporting them.

Playing the dumb blond. During my auditing days there were certain females that thought if they batted their eyelashes and pretended to be helpless I wouldn’t be as hard on them. Granted, not all of them had blond hair. I treated them just the same as everyone else, but I might have spoken slower and use smaller words.

Ditching your own meeting. A friend of mine had a manager that scheduled a daily 7 AM phone conference for status meetings. That might be enough to get on my list but that wasn’t the worst of it. The manager didn’t show up for the first two meetings and left everyone sitting on the phone for 20 minutes until they gave up and left. The third day he called in late and was on the freeway heading for the airport. No one could hear him and there was little chance of him remembering anything. Worse, he never even apologized. My guess is he was swerving into the carpool lane.