towelb0y

warning, office politics ahead...

So every morning at work we have a quick meeting to recap the previous day/week sales and kinda get a heads up as to what to expect for the rest of the week. Usually the assistant managers or the store manager facilitate this little get-together; occasionally one of us department supervisors will read off the numbers. Well Monday was a pretty important day for us, since it was A) beginning of the week B) beginning of the month and C) beginning of the new fiscal year. My assistant manager decides to call on one of my fellow supervisors to kick off this rather significant morning recap. Now a little back-story on this supervisor. He directly reports to my assistant manager-the one that called him up to start the meeting, he has completed the "fast-track" program (meaning he's considered management material) and he's the unofficial protege' of our store manager. So the guy starts reading the numbers, and automatically FAILS by reading the wrong numbers. Once he gets corrected, he continues to read to himself instead of his audience. In the end he had to be rescued by the store manager. All the while the assistant that called him out had the biggest grin on his face as his own supervisor failed miserably at what is probably the most important aspect of being a supervisor: speaking. Later he tells me he did it on purpose, that he wanted the guy to look bad...that he wanted the store manager that his faith in this supervisor was misplaced and that he was not fit to be a manager.

This has been bothering me all week. How juvenile do you have to be to be a salaried manager (at 55 years old at that) to not only set someone up like that, but someone who's development you yourself are responsible for? If you make him look bad intentionally and it's YOUR job to get them to the next level, who really looks stupid in the end?

Anyway heres a gift for those of you that read all that.