With a deep
sigh, its time for another installment of the one end of the managerial
spectrum to stay away from. That’s
right, time to hear more horror stories from my old manager. This time its got a positive spin on it.
In my time
as an Internet Sales Manager at the dealership I was the longest consecutive
person in that position. People had been
promoted, fired, or a combination and ended up in the same role again. The beauty of the position was it completely
ignored what you were told about how to get promoted in the company. (different blog)
We were
having our entire building renovated and we were moving offices for the fourth
or fifth time to accommodate construction.
The three of us at the time were a little upset that the process took
several hours to move and setup everything but we were still expected to make
calls and have the same response time to emails. This is kind of difficult when your computer
is in a box waiting for you to finish reassembling your desk.
This time
one of our crew was off and the remaining two were moving for the three of
us. Needless to say we were less than
excited and were having fun commiserating in the process. Out of the blue one of our junior salesman
stops in to avoid doing his work and talk to us.
“Where’s
mike?” now this salesman was a bit of an
arrogant and/or nosey person who would be upset about not getting enough deals
but spent his time playing games on his phone or hiding from customers. Frequently he would come back to our office
to kill as much time as we would let him away from the managers who could
actually fire him for this. Today he
happened to hit a nerve and I decided it was time to teach the nosey kid a
lesson.
“Mike
quit.” I looked at my buddy, who shared
the same feelings toward him, and he instantly got where I was going with
this. “Yeah, he told us he was done and
we’re just packing up his stuff for his wife.”
He gestured to all of Mikes stuff in a box on the table.
“Nuh uh”
and after a few shocked seconds he left, mission accomplished. After about 10 to 20 minutes he came
back. “Hey, um…were you guys just
messing with me?” But he was asking it
in an alarmed tone instead of a “you got me tone”.
“Yeah,
we’re tired of you coming back here and bugging us…you can’t hide from your job…”
and with that he turned ghost white. I
stopped talking and asked “Why?” feeling something was amiss.
“OH CRAP…I
just told Gene (our General Manager) he quit!” and at that point I faught the
urge to slap him, open handed, full bore as I walked out to cut off the damage
he had done.
“Justin to
Gene’s office” rang out over the PA system as I was in the doorway. I stopped dead in my tracks and hung my
head. Lets just say the words I muttered
to the junior salesman had an impact as he slowly backed away from me and never
came back to our office again.
I ran in
the door and I see my General Manager and my (evil) manager on every phone in
the office trying to reach Mike. I’m not
kidding they had cell phones and land lines ringing trying to get in touch with
him.
“I already
know…it was a prank…I was trying to teach…” and with that they pulled the
phones from their ears.
“So you’re
saying Mike didn’t quit.” I shook my
head yes. And with that it began. My general manager cracked a smile in his own
twisted way and hung his head. My other
manager turned beet red and it began.
“WHYYYYYYY
WOULD YOU DO THAT?” He ranted and raved
for a few minutes and I figured I had it coming so I didn’t say a word. “If you spent half as much time selling cars
as you do jacking around you’d be the top guy here!”
As it sat
at the time I was the number 3 guy in the dealership that month and only
because I hadn’t written any “house deals” from managers that month. So, in essence I was the legitimate top guy
that month but on my own accord without a sweetheart deal handed to me.
It was also
at this point I realized I was standing fully upright, rigid even. My jaw was clinched and my hands were in
fists. The kind of fists where you can
see the tendons and bone glowing white through the knuckles. I realized I was about to knock him out if I
didn’t change my mind, and fast.
I took a
breath and relaxed. From my time as a
bouncer I remembered the most disrespectful thing you could do to a drunk was
to put your hands behind your back. It’s
a visual que that you’re not afraid of them and you could take the hit.
I slid my
hands behind my back and looked my “evil” manager dead in the eye and said,
“Ok”. That’s it…nothing more, no
implication of evil or being upset or really engaging in any other act than
acknowledging him. “Ok” in the same tone
you’d give a grocery store clerk asking if plastic was ok.
“Noooooo…that’s
not ok…whats going on…whats wrong…what aren’t you telling me…” his tone went
from aggressive and about to lose a few teeth in the fit of rage I was going to
unleash to fearful and “in the dark”.
“I need to
get back to selling cars now…are we done?”
I looked at my General Manager who was in a state of shock. I found out later he was waiting for me to
unleash hell and had gone into “fear mode” trying to figure out how to stop
everything.
While my
“evil” manager was still trying to figure out what I meant by “OK” I walked out
the door. Not angry or upset…just
casually strolled out the door and made sure not to slam the door as I closed
it. In doing so I saw the start of an
hour long conversation between the two on what had just happened.
I realized
in a split second how to handle this jerk.
He was the kind of person who enjoyed manipulating and instigating
drama. By simply not engaging in his
games I not only pissed him off, but avoided being tied up in a aggravating
situation.
For the
next month or so I decided to take it to an extreme. I made it a point to use as few words as
possible with him as I could. “Yes” or
“No” were ideal…almost like the bit from the original Tron movie from the
70’s.
“Did you they tell you anything
about their trade?”
I nodded and said “Yes”.
“Ok…what did they tell you?” I pointed at the trade appraisal slip with
notes on it. “Are you going to talk to
me today?”
I barely smiled and said “No” and
then walked back to my customer. Its
important to note that I had given him everything he needed to complete his job
as my manager without engaging in the typical drama that came with it. It was heaven, the guy was so put off by my
activity he started avoiding me whenever possible.
To save face he even handed a few
deals off to other managers because he was “busy” when I had a deal to
work. The culmination of the over
simplified communication project was during a contest where the managers were
picking teams. I had just finished my
best month in the dealership and was the salesman of the month. Interesting how that worked out when I wasn’t
fighting pointless arguments for his amusement every 30 minutes.
“I can’t pick Justin because he’s
mad at me or something…” and the room
didn’t laugh like he hoped. It was the
awkward chuckle you give someone so it isn’t creepy quiet. Two of the other managers had to look away
because they began to laugh at the reaction of not only me, but the room.
The lesson learned in this case is
to choose your battles wisely.
Understand your “enemy” and don’t feed into their process. Use a “pattern interrupt” to get outside of
the norm. Break the cycle that gets you
worked up and, occasionally, in trouble by hyper focusing on your duties.
Had he written me up for my actions
what was he going to say? “Justin is
doing his job and won’t fight with me when I feel like being an ass.” Or “Justin is mad at me because I interfere
with his job duties on a regular basis.”
Take away the power the bully has and they become helpless.
I’m not going to lie…I’ve had some
vivid dreams since that instance where I took that shot in the office. The first punch always feels so damn good in
the dreams. It always gets way out of
hand after that and I would probably be writing this on toilet paper in my cell
had I not had that moment of clarity.
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