Summary
After 25+ plus years in the corporate world, this is the bane of my existence and as an addendum to the FAST COMPANY list, I added the types of incoherent wheel spinners the incompetant managers typically surround themselves with:
Analysis
- sycophantic cheerleaders: they mimic everything they hear, are the first to glomm onto someone else's opinion; never offer any original thoughts: love to stand around
directing traffic when there isn't any; currently skews towards either being way-too-positive junior usually hopped up on either Starbucks or Red Bull and when this shrill chatterbox
talks, its non-stop, endless and like a wall of sound collapsing on you... the old school toad/cringing bootlicker is still around but not as common since the 1980s... regardless of age, gender or otherwise, these "cheerleaders" are chronic pleasers, are useless and what little they do, they do terribly!
- preying snakes / hidden weasels: these sorry ilk of individuals bear no description because if you don't see them for what they are, they've already thrown you under the bus!
- the fear monger: makes Chicken Little look like an optimist; loves to make everyone insecure, walking on eggs shells by spreading unsubstantiated rumors about impending layoffs, pay cuts, hiring freezes, health plan cuts; typically paranoid, jumpy and self-medicated; thrives on hysteria; convinced everyone's phone calls and email are being screened by at least 8 different layers of surveillance; convinced everyone is out to get them; has a new conspiracy theory every 2 weeks; swears they knew about 9-11 being an inside job back in 1997...
- the mopes: depressed, lo-rez personality/energy/intellect/ambition and productivity; the foot soldiers of these managers; they're no threat & act like everything is killing them!
- the cheater: lives for every opportunity to stick it to "the man"; its their way to get back at the system that did them wrong; they steal anything they can, short change when the
staff goes out to lunch, eat the most and pay the least, car pools but never drives their car; comes in late & leaves early, never finishes anything they're given to do; the cheaters and
the incompetent managers have a symbiotic relationship: the cheaters really want to get caught and the managers need to feel like they are "on top" of their staff, mentoring them...
- process freaks: controlling, severe OCD, anal-retentive, never smiles, hates people, love bureaucracy, adores red tape; the more insignificant it is, the more they need to add process to it they actually believe that they are efficiency experts...
- space cadets: mistaken as nice, but function outside every need, have no concept of time or teamwork, immensely selfish, live in a dysfunctional silo & they canceled their subscription to reality many decades ago; always humming or talking to themselves; are totally oblivious to everything & everyone around them; usually have to prompt them repeatedly to get them to snap out of their catatonic stupor; time and deadlines are an abstract, vague and fuzzy concept to them; very hard to miss them as these bubble heads wither, dither & blither about...
- hijacker: that one mid level person in a critical position that can bring a company to it's knees and they never pass up an opportunity to do so! Mentally unstable, sociopathic, psychotic...
- social butterflies: believe they serve an integral purpose as the "glue" of the organization when in fact they foment office politics, cause trouble, instigate cliques and aren't happy
unless they're bothering someone; have to know everyone's business; want to run every social function - these useless individuals haven't grown up since high school and never will... typically work in HR, as social workers, recruiters, or personal assistants, and love the idea of being able to judge people like they're on American Idol; talentless, lazy, a nasty streak a mile wide, are always the first one out the door at 5! Their biggest goal in life is trying to get people think they are "cool" - see earlier point about never changed since high school!
- anti-socialists: sullen, moody, uncommunicative, uncooperative, mumbles unintelligibly, anti-social; perpetuates this act so that people will dread them and avoid them at all costs;
their goal is to become the company hijacker. Anarchist, unstable, suicidal, and borderline psychotic. Admires Lee Harvey Oswald, the unibomber, and all lone, angry gunmen!
