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Dealing with Morons

Guest post by: Howard Miller

Article Overview: Do you ever think you’re working with people who don’t know what they’re doing?!

Dealing with Morons

I was working with a manager who bluntly said most of his wasted time was due to working with a bunch of morons.

The morons were not his direct reports, but the clients he and his direct reports had to service. They were unorganized and always had last minute emergencies. These so called emergencies cut into what he needed to do during the day, resulting in longer days for him. Most days he worked through lunch and didn't eat.

When he told me this I said: you're working through lunch, not eating, and they are the morons?!

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad he expressed his frustration exactly the way he did.

Because it showed exactly why he was in this situation.

Calling others morons takes the responsibility off you. If others are morons you can't change them, therefore you can't change anything about situations where they're involved.

There is no one solution on how to change the solution but it all starts the same:

Stop calling others morons!

These people might seem to have last minute emergencies all the time, they might be disorganized, but saying it that way is different then just being flip and calling them a name.

When you stop using the word morons and be more specific on actions they are doing which cause you frustration:

• You are narrowing your focus to see the issues, one at a time
• You stop the blame game
• You start taking responsibility on what you can do to change the situations

If you and your staff have jobs where a large part of your responsibility is customer service, whether internal or external, you should expect a good chunk of your time will be interrupted by them. Therefore you need to leave time to deal with these unknown actions.

Doing this could be one solution towards working with these morons. Then maybe they won't be morons.

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