Unfair distribution of work

Unfair distribution of work is a particular problem of teamwork and if the team leader or manager is not addressing the situation when his or her attention is drawn to it, as Anna took pains to do in her job, then there is an additional problem.

"I have a job specification, I was given good training and I am supposed to be doing the same work as everyone else for the same pay," says Anna, "so there is no excuse for an unfair distribution of work that dumps everything on me."

"I appreciate that this problem is fairly common and is not entirely related to my home circumstances," concedes Anna, "but I did hear some of the other women whispering about how awful it must be to have a disabled child -- and this hurt me terribly and I think they are dumping on me because of it."

"It's an awful situation to be in," says Anna. "I can either refuse to do the extra or menial work and suffer the consequences, or I can find a new job and not be so eager, enthusiastic, willing and open next time around."

"I definitely won't be divulging my personal circumstances to the people at work in my next job because they will inevitably treat me differently -- if not badly -- when they know my situation."

“I am convinced that letting everyone know that I had a disabled daughter acted against me,” says Anna, “and my manager seems sympathetic but has failed to address my concerns.”

“I can appreciate that sometimes this sort of thing happens because the manager just doesn't have a clue about who is doing what,” says Anna, “and this may be a fault of my manager’s, but I am beginning to believe that she is playing favorites.”

“I think it is a deliberate ploy among the existing staff members to get the new person to do everything they do not want to do, and my manager just turns a blind eye.”

Read more by Anna on this issue:

sunshine at home, doormat at work
the workplace patsy

management team means no boss

Although in partnership with her husband before their business and marriage went bust, Ivy was essentially a stay at home mom. Returning to work as a paid employee was thus a shock to her system over and above the usual return to work adjustments of a single mother but nothing prepared her for the 'management team'.

"I have two small children at home," explains Ivy, "and balancing my life between the kids and work is a constant worry I didn't have before. If that wasn't bad enough, when I last had a job at the age of 21 I remember workplaces as having one person in charge, and everybody knew exactly who the boss was. He was 'the man' and if nothing else you gave him respect."

Ivy's return to work job is with a large corporation and she has discovered that the 'boss' consists of a management team.

"Rather than one person giving orders," laughs Ivy, "I have to deal with three guys bossing me around and because each manager has his or her own personal agenda I'm having nightmares prioritizing the work I do for them. I hate being bossed around like a kid!"

Ivy is learning that 'teamwork' is responsible for so many bosses around workplaces these days.

Unfortunately, most of the factors relevant to how teamwork became adopted by management gurus as the perfect way to run a commercial organization apply not only to staff, but management, too.

"The theory behind teamwork - that nobody is indispensable, that we are all replaceable cogs in a machine and are unlikely to be given an area of work over which we have total control - is relaxed a fair bit when it is applied to management," says Ivy.

"Managers very clearly do have an area over which they have control - managing staff," says Ivy, "but they are also required to act in cohort with other managers - as well as reporting to their superiors - and this is where I often find myself between a rock and a hard place."

"I understand the business side of this, " says Ivy. "Basically, the shareholders in any publicly listed company determine a great deal of what goes on in the coalface. Profits must be maximized and losses minimized. The company directors are the slaves of the shareholders, the management team is the slave of the company directors, and staff members like me are the slaves of the management team."

It is a very clear pecking order and Ivy is at the bottom of it.

"Because the lowlife slaves like me are considered to be dispensable and not likely to be in a job for long," says Ivy, "there is very little camaraderie between managers and staff and the company directors are all but invisible people."

"I hate the 'them and us divide' in the company, "says Ivy. "When my ex-husband and I ran a small business we were on very good terms with our employees. I would never dream of putting myself above someone who worked for me. That's abominable. But I put up with it every day where I work."

"While the 'management team' arrangement has an advantage in that you are not stuck with one person whom you may not like," says Ivy, "it has far more disadvantages."

"As with all teams there are personality clashes," says Ivy, "and I've discovered that management teams are likely to have far bigger personality clashes than staff teams because their egos are bigger."

"Each manager will have his or her own personal agenda, so getting to know how each member of the management team ticks takes a lot more time and energy than applying this exercise to one person."

"Working for a management team," sighs Ivy, "is a real nightmare because I have to prioritize and decide who is more important. If I please X and do his work first, Y and Z are going to dislike me - and so it goes on."

Ivy has been told that managers are not as pleasant to work for as their superiors - the directors - but being a return to work mother made her ineligible for a job higher up in the pecking order.

"It's a bit like the division between generations," says Ivy. "My kids tend to get on a lot better with their grandparents than they do with my ex-husband and I, and that's just as well because my mom looks after them for me before and after school."

Ivy has had a job offer from a couple she once knew while running her own business.

"The pay would be much more than I'm getting now, and I know that this family business treats staff as part of the family rather than as a 'servant'," says Ivy. "But, I also know that the couple are having marital problems and while the business is likely to last the marriage won't and I don't really want to get involved. Been there, done that!"

"Also," adds Ivy, "I've heard from one of their employees that the couple tend to keep staff back working late until they are ready to keep some fancy restaurant appointment, and this is a bit gross because I need to get home, cook dinner for my kids and get them to bed."

Having too many people bossing you around at work is really not a good scene but Ivy thinks it is probably better than working for a family business.

"In a big organization," says Ivy, "there’s a grievance system in place to sort out any problem with the management team. In a small business, there is nobody 'higher up' to complain to. I guess I just have to knuckle down and do my time until I can move up into an executive position where I'll have one boss - not a team of them!"

untouchable managers

Rosemary is back home being a stay-at-home mom after six months of working in a high pressure, high stress job with a manager who pushed her around like she was a bit of dirt and she's so upset by the experience that right now she's not sure how long her 'between jobs' period is going to be.

"I suppose that manager treated me badly because he thought that with my qualifications I would be coveting his job one day," says Rosemary, "and I suppose I was - that's natural - but when I couldn’t bear it any more, I was in a dilemma about the correct protocol for resigning."

"We all know what the employment gurus advise about resigning," laughs Rosemary, "but all that crap about a desire to expand one's horizons and regret about leaving such a wonderful job with wonderful managers and co-workers - is absolutely and totally anathema to me."

"Because of this admonition to tell lies and protect future career prospects," says Rosemary, "nobody will ever know the truth about why people quit jobs and nothing will ever get done about removing the problems that cause resignations."

"Why are these lies perpetrated? asks Rosemary. "Why is it not okay to tell the truth?"

Rosemary makes the point that when relationships come to an end, it is very rare that two people have anything good to say about each other and that is perfectly acceptable.

"If the two people still liked each other, they would not be splitting up, would they?" asks Rosemary. "So why is it unacceptable, for instance, to resign a job on account of 'irreconcilable differences' with one's boss or co-worker?"

Rosemary feels that irreconcilable differences is a wonderful explanation for job quitting, expressing a perfectly understandable human condition, without getting down and dirty about the specifics.

"The employment gurus say that you will be branded as someone unfit for teamwork - and will not find another job easily - if you even hinted that you had an interpersonal problem at your last job," says Rosemary, "but I reject this."

"I cannot believe that employers and their HR departments are so naive that they do not understand that just about everybody resigns a job because of some interpersonal problem."

"If it is not the main reason," says Rosemary, "then it is definitely a very close secondary reason."

"Basically," says Rosemary, "jobs are relationships. Forget about the product, the pay, the building and other window dressing. It is the people you will be working for, and with, that make or break a job. And, it is far more apparent now than it ever was because of the increasingly competitive job market."

"These days," says Rosemary, "both staff and management work in team structures and individuality is no longer a prized characteristic. With shared tasks and sometimes being within elbow's reach of adjacent co-workers, we must bury all that primitive individualism that once separated us from the apes."

Very few people are naturally and overwhelmingly 'people' persons - team players - and Rosemary is one lady who knows only too well that it is a very thin veneer of civility that we affect in order to get through the day at work.

Eventually that veneer cracks.

"Most people are smart enough to keep their cool and plan their resignation," says Rosemary, "but it is not always possible to find a new job before an explosion occurs."

Rosemary agrees that married women like herself, with a working husband, are greatly advantaged in being able to quit lousy jobs while they are ahead and still in control of their faculties.

"I have single friends, especially single working mothers," says Rosemary, "who are badly disadvantaged in the workplace because employers and co-workers know that they can't quit jobs easily."

"Some people get a real kick out of making life hell for the poor single mothers," says Rosemary, "and when workplace scenes do occur it is often some poor single woman breaking under the strain."

"There was a single mother who ended up in hospital in her first week at my old workplace because she was too stressed by one of the stinking managers to attend to a medical problem," says Rosemary, "and when she returned to work he continued to harass her - because he knew how desperately she needed the job."

Rosemary admits that she has never yet come across a person who did not resign a job under suspicious circumstances.

"If honesty were a prized characteristic in the workplace," says Rosemary, "then irreconcilable differences would become as common and acceptable in resignation matters as it is in divorce and there would be no more suspicious circumstances."

"The reason for resignation is a stock interview question for both parties," says Rosemary, "and it’s about time it was dropped. Pick up most interview preparation books and the guru will tell you to rehearse the following silly scene:

'Why did you resign your last job?' asks the Interviewer.

You dutifully reply: 'I needed to broaden my horizons.'

Then you ask: 'Why did the person resign this job I'm applying for?'

The Interviewer dutifully replies: 'Ms Smith needed to broaden her horizons.'

It is an utterly ridiculous question for both parties to ask and someone has to stop this madness."

"When interviewers say that the previous person resigned because she wanted to work overseas, or spend more time at home, or broaden her horizons," claims Rosemary, "the truth is that very few people quit a job for the reasons they state."

"Some people may actually go overseas on an extended holiday to justify giving 'working overseas' as an excuse to quit a job," says Rosemary, "but I know from asking around that everyone’s main reason for quitting a job - not the only one - is that they were being harassed by a manager or co-worker."

"Enough of these lies!" screams Rosemary.

"Does it not occur to management that one bad apple - even within its own management team - is often the cause of many good workers quitting?

"If a three-strikes-you-are-out policy were adopted in workplaces - for both management and staff - then these bad apples can be removed legally from their jobs."

"When staff members do not tell the truth about why they are quitting, these bad apples are given carte blanche to continue their bad behavior," says Rosemary. "They thrive and bask in our lies to the point where they may actually believe that they are 'wonderful' managers and co-workers."

"I refused to perpetuate this madness," says Rosemary. "My resignation letter stated 'irreconcilable differences' and if my next employer doesn't accept that reason as being good enough then I'll find one who does."

"As you can tell," sighs Rosemary, "I'm very upset by my experiences in that job and I'm going to need as much time as necessary to recover from it. I can't apply for another job when I'm so stressed out, so it looks like my time 'between jobs' is going to be weeks if not months and that means money lost and this makes me angrier than ever because that jerk of a manager is still raking in his dough."

brazening out a bad fit

Vivienne is 43, a millionaire's wife working for pocket change, and she was selected from 165 applicants for a basic team position in a large, high profile organization. Co-workers whose friends had been rejected for the job are, understandably, hostile to her and make it plain that she's a bad fit for the position.

"Most of the applicants were single mothers desperate for a decent job," explains Vivienne, "and when it became known that I was a millionaire's wife with grown-up children, and only wanted the job for fun and a bit of pocket change, the mood in my team was black."

"I work with very poor women," explains Vivienne, "and I guess they just don't like working with a lady who looks like a million dollars - and can afford to look that way. They call me a rich bitch."

"I believe I was selected because I would be a great asset to the company image-wise," says Vivienne, "but everyone tells me that it was unfair to select me because I wasn't the most qualified or experienced applicant."

The advertisement for the position emphasized qualifications and experience and mentioned absolutely nothing about appearance, so everyone wanted to know why Vivienne was given preference over single mothers who had worked hard to gain qualifications and experience and desperately needed a better paying job in order to improve themselves and the lot of their children.

"It's true that the income I receive from this job will be spent wholly on beauty parlors, clothes and shoes," confesses Vivienne, "but I see no reason to feel guilty about spending my money on looking good."

"My spending habits are keeping beauticians, hair-dressers, garment and footwear manufacturers and retailers in business," explains Vivienne, "so I see no injustice in giving me the job even though I was not only one of the least qualified and experienced of the applicants but also the least needy of them all."

"There's talk that I got the job because of a bit of string-pulling at the top," laughs Vivienne, "but I didn't. My husband doesn't play golf with one of the directors and my luncheon companion is not one of the wives of one of the directors."

"I am well aware that thousands of single working mothers, through divorce or unexpected pregnancy, are often left with the sole responsibility of raising and financially supporting their children," says Vivienne.

"I am also well aware that these women are desperate for a decent job and yet are often forced by their vulnerable circumstances into accepting menial low-paying jobs, totally incongruous with their education and experience."

"It is far too facile to say that women like me are taking jobs away from the women who need them," says Vivienne.

"It was a management decision to give me the job. I did not pull strings to get it and if my co-workers want to vent their spleens they should do so to management, not me."

"I have grown up children living independently," explains Vivienne, "and it's quite likely that the company simply saw me as a good employment risk."

"Everyone knows how working mothers, especially single mothers take time off at the drop of a hat when their kids are sick or something is happening at their schools," says Vivienne. " I don’t pose that sort of risk."

Vivienne is also very stable emotionally. Nothing fazes her - she believes that stress is very aging and avoids it like the plague - and in that respect she is a good balance for a team of younger and poorer working mothers who are easily stressed and prone to sickness.

And, of course, Vivienne is well presented.

The women on her team chuck together whatever clothing is clean and relatively uncrumpled in the mornings. Vivienne, on the other hand, looks like she has a maid lay out everything for her. No creases, no crumples, no color clashes. Everything is perfect.

And while the rest of the women can only find time to smear a bit of lipstick on breakfast egg-stained lips, Vivienne has time for a total make-up routine.

And hair?

"Well, one of the women on my team was seriously thinking of affecting the look of a Moslem woman so that she can wear that wonderful scarf that hides everything," laughs Vivienne

"Yes," says Vivienne, "I suppose I put the women on my team to shame in many ways. My hair is glorious. Even when the wind blows it, it looks perfect. But I look at it this way - I am a role model they can aspire to. I am not a threat."

"I am a fun lady and I do my fair share of work - and the other women do like me, albeit begrudgingly," says Vivienne, "and I take with a pinch of salt their remarks about my being exceptionally vain and shallow."

"They tell me that I should stop play-acting as ‘Barbie the Working Girl’ and go back home to Ken so that my job can be given to a woman who really needs it," laughs Vivienne, "but I just tell them 'tough'!"

"Until employers are made responsible for social problems by being forced to give preference to the needy," says Vivienne, "I feel that I have every right to the job."

replaceable teamwork cogs

In her new workplace, Janice's greatest woe is excessive teamwork where nobody is indispensable and everybody is required to be able to do everybody else's work.

"I couldn't believe that I had no work that I could claim as my own," says Janice, "but job rotation or whatever they call it seems to be the new big thing in workplaces these days and as such it's pointless moaning about it or trying to find a position where I can have total control over what I do."

"Women who really hate the teamwork principle should start their own business - if they can - or change their attitude," advises Janice. "The rise of rotating teamwork and the fall of 'individuality ' seems to be a plain fact of working life these days."

"It has always been part of certain occupations - particularly the military - but now that management gurus have adopted it as the perfect way to run a commercial organization I suppose it is difficult to find a company that does not run on teamwork principles."

"While teamwork is absolutely necessary in occupations that require relying on another person for your life, such as space exploration," says Janice, "I am not so sure that it is the perfect way to run a commercial organization - but that's the way things are and I am coping with it as best I can."

"The theory behind teamwork - as applied to organizations - is that nobody is indispensable," explains Janice. "We are all cogs in a machine, and as such we are replaceable."

"Being considered replaceable means that we are unlikely to be given an area of work over which we have total control. No work will be identifiably ours."

"The advantage for management in having an organization run on these principles is clear," adds Janice. "If one person needs to be dropped from the team, the others can take over the workload."

Janice sees the whole purpose of teamwork as an attempt to take control away from individuals.

"You are expected to be versatile, capable of filling-in for anybody in your team," says Janice. "Decisions are made by team consultation, and tasks are rotated in order to ensure that nobody 'hogs' any particular job."

"With high staff turnover in workplaces it is vital that the show continues without interruption - and teamwork is how management ensures that the show does go on, with or without you."

"The disadvantage for management in having an organization run on excessive teamwork -- like the place I'm working in," says Janice, "is that very little gets done and what does get done is often shoddy. Nobody takes personal responsibility for anything they do. The old adage 'too many cooks spoil the broth' applies tenfold."

"I believe that when staff members do not have work that is identifiably theirs for which they are totally responsible they are not committed to the job, they are not interested in doing a good job and they will dump work on others without caring."

"Sure, working in a teamwork environment means that you get to pick up a lot of skills," says Janice. "This is a decided plus in an age where jobs might only last a very short time. The more skills you have, the more employable you become."

"If you are naturally versatile, like I am, then you will enjoy multiple tasks. If you aren't - and you are slow at learning new skills - then you will find it very difficult to fit in with a team."

With decisions being made by team consultation, Janice warns that you will find yourself attending a never-ending sessions of meetings, at the end of which nobody is really sure what the outcome was.

"If you are a go-getter, like I am," says Janice, "teamwork has the disadvantage in that it holds me back. It slows me down."

"Also, if you have a brilliant idea, and it is put into practice, you will not get credit for it. It is a team effort, remember?"

"Funnily enough, though," adds Janice, "when a mistake is found it is always sheeted home to one person - usually the fall guy in the team - whether or not he or she made the mistake."

"With teamwork there will always be one or more person who slacks, and there will always be one or more person who does twice as much as anybody else," sighs Janice. "And that person always seems to be me because I am a fast worker and believe in putting in a day's work for a day's pay."

Janice is convinced that most people are temperamentally unsuited for teamwork.

"Some people work better alone, some people enjoy doing their own work within a team structure and some people need the group dynamics to get them in a mood for work," explains Janice.

"It defies logic why a management system that suits only a small percentage of individuals is now in vogue in just about every organization worldwide," laughs Janice, "but since businesses are run to make a profit - not to suit the temperament of workers then I accept that it makes sense."

"Our task is to cope as best we can with a system of working together that may not come naturally to us," says Janice, "and if workplaces are becoming a nest of vipers, gossips, back-stabbers and slackers then we only have the misguided philosophy of teamwork to thank for this."

"While I appreciate that 21st century management prefers short-term employment contracts and favors staff that are versatile, highly skilled in many areas and totally replaceable," sighs Janice, "I still believe that there is nothing to compare with dedicated people doing one particular job that is identifiably theirs."