When You’re A Manager, EVERYTHING Is Your Problem

This story concerns a manager. At least, that’s what we called him. We never really figured out what his job was since it didn’t exist before he was here and nobody ever replaced him when he left. He had decided to move to England with his family and apparently a good chunk of money (which to be honest is how he got the job).

This being rural England and him being foreign, you can imagine why a good chunk of the workforce didn’t like him, which is sad, because there were so many perfectly good, non-crappy reasons to dislike him.

While I was getting some parts from the stores, he sauntered up next to me, leaned on the racking and, with a big smile on his face, said:

Manager: “I’m very disappointed in you.”

Me: “Why?”

Manager: “[Unimportant job that he asked me to do] hasn’t been done yet. Why not?”

Me: “I need to finish welding the parts, and the welder isn’t working right now.”

We’d just gotten a new welder and the right plug socket hadn’t been fitted yet.

Then, he said the golden line.

Manager: “That’s not my problem. I want it done.”

And he walked off.

Not your problem? Okay, I can fix that! So, I sent him an email — CCing Human Resources — that roughly read:

Email: “Hi, [Manager]. You spoke to me about [job] that you want done and I told you we’re waiting on the welder to get set up. You told me that it ‘wasn’t your problem’ and that you ‘want it done’. Since nobody in their right mind would ever speak to a coworker this way, let alone a manager, I assume it was a ‘lost in translation’ kind of mistake and you meant you want to be more involved in getting it sorted. So, from here on, I’ll be sending you regular emails for updates on the progress of the welder and when it’s sorted the progress of [job] so it can be your problem, too.”

I never heard back about it, never saw a new socket get ordered and fitted so fast in my life, and never had a problem with him again.