When You Don’t Know That Your Help Is No Help At All

We have a warehouse manager who spends most of his time in the office. He’s a nice enough guy and keeps on top of all the office work, but he sometimes comes down to the warehouse to “help” and “bond with the troops”. He means well, but he’s pretty useless, and he’s a perfect example of a management type failing upward in his career path.

Manager: “I thought I’d help you guys out for a little bit. What do you need me to do?”

Internal groan.

Me: “Well, the new stock was delivered outside the loading door overnight, but no one brought it inside. We could use a hand shifting it to the inside loading area?”

Manager: “Awesome!”

And with that, he happily skips away to help out… in the completely wrong direction.

Coworker: “Where is he going?”

Me: “I don’t think he actually knows where the loading door is. He always comes in via the front.”

Coworker: “Makes sense. He drove me to work one time when my car was in the shop. He’d manage to take a wrong turn on the Talladega speedway.”