Why Working with People Can be Exasperating

Why working with people can be exasperating

For 8 years I worked in a factory as a manager. And I had about 10 guys who worked under me. And those guys were not the easiest guys to work with. I could never understand why they just wouldn’t listen to what I said and instead chose to go with their own ‘brilliant’ ideas. Today working with another group of people reminded me of those exasperating days. What is it about people that we find can get under our skin sometimes? From my experience in a position of authority for all of my working life now, I can tell you some major things that can really drain a leader:-

1.       Attitude: This can get you the most. As a manager one of my beliefs with subordinates was, even if a guy was not skilled enough, he could be developed as long as his attitude was in the right place. But I had many skilled and extremely talented guys who were geniuses at what they did but had such big heads that it was almost impossible to get a single thing done without blowing your last remaining nerve. A prideful attitude is extremely hard to work with.

2.       Attention: What drains me even more is when somebody botches up something because they didn’t pay attention to the instructions I gave. Some people have a tendency to ‘blank’ out at the oddest times. I sometimes wonder what it would be like to get into their heads and see what is going on. Is it Never land, Wonderland or Disneyland, I don’t know. I am convinced you don’t need drugs to numb your mind all the time. Some people do it masterfully even without being under influence.

3.       Common-sense: There is a saying that goes ‘common sense is not that common’. I totally agree. People can do some pretty senseless things sometimes and you wonder what voice they heard in their little minds or what hallucination they saw that caused them to do what they did! And you wished they would double check their work to see if it met the required standards or needs. But nope. Usually they just want to get a job done half-baked as quickly as they can and the end result is one shoddy job.

Whatever your experience might have been, if you have ever worked in a position of authority for a while, chances are you have experienced atleast one of the above, atleast once in your life. Or if you were unfortunate enough, you may have experienced something worse. Whatever the case may be, every person is different and respond differently to different persons and situations. And while it is important to try to work with them, chances are 8 times out of 10, they will not walk that line you want them to walk. And that’s the reality of people. What can you do? All that applies to you too.