I’ve never really had the qualities needed to be a leader but sometimes life happens and you are the best candidate to take charge. I’ve worked in the service industry for about two thirds of my adult life and I’ve been promoted in every single workplace due to my ability to listen to instructions and just get on with the task at hand without overthinking. With those promotions came more responsibilities and one of the responsibilities nearly always involves giving instructions to some degree. This is a department I’ve struggled in all my life, people just won’t f’ing listen and I’ve tried every method under the sun aside from shouting or making threats but nothing has worked. At my last job I got reprimanded for taking the time to clean a dishwasher after I gave an employee instructions to rinse the dishes before chucking them in to avoid blockages, only for him to completely ignore me and then clog up the machine. I went home and immediately put my fist through a mirror. Today I politely asked my business parter to stop watching a violent movie on full volume in front of customers at our cafe, she told me to mind my business and I went outside and took my anger out by headbutting the wall at full force almost knocking myself out (somewhat funny to picture in hindsight I’ll admit)
I just feel invisible and under appreciated and every time my genuine advice falls on deaf ears a little piece of my sanity chips away. I’ve recently been grappling with suicidal thoughts and violent fantasies and at some points I wish someone would try me so that I have a genuine excuse to physically hurt them. That’s not who I am though, Ive never even been in a playground fight, I’m not a violent person but my circumstances are slowly turning me into one.
Every time I see someone ignore my advice I envision me beating their asses to a bloody pulp and I become overwhelmed with guilt and shame afterwards for letting these invasive thoughts almost get the better of me.
Comments
>and I’ve tried every method under the sun aside from shouting or making threats but nothing has worked.
Hmm. Did you pay them more? 😛
You’re frustrated. You want people to act how you would act, compliant and task oriented. That’s simple for you to understand and seems reasonable to expect because you are where you are now, so its clearly a strategy that works
You will fail with this strategy
That’s what you’re missing
Being a manager isn’t about being a good worker and following along. You gotta switch your brain on, the one that’s off when you just obey, because the responsibilities you have and the problems you deal with aren’t operator tasks anymore.
They’re management
You have to manage people, the ones you have. As they are. You are a unique snowflake, and you won’t always find you
This need for violence is a tantrum. I mean that literally, not patronisingly. A tantrum is an expression of emotion, frustration and a loss of control. You’re frustrated that no one is listening, so you feel you don’t have control… and a tantrum is that. So as the world takes your control, you too want to express how you’ve lost control and you want to feel the satisfaction of others facing the consequences of not listening as you hurt them and make them all feel as bad as you do
It’s a tantrum. Adults have tantrums sometimes
But you’re not allowed to. Not based on your contract, and you’re also somewhat limited by the law.
Speaking of that… why do you get to be angry and violent at people who just work there? You’re not paying them enough for them to be subjected to violence. I think you could get away with it if you paid 30k per incident. Could you do that?
No
You don’t have the right to express your frustration in the way you want. So you have to find something else
I think, my suggestion here, you have to realise the limit of your contract and the reality of the people you work with. Read it over, read theirs, see what you can put in place to get them to do what you want… but I think angry outburst or violence isn’t in there. So you gotta pick a different strategy and very quickly understand what you don’t have the right to do to others
Edit: all that in an effort to realise what you actually can do and start working on solutions. When you know the explicit parameters of what you cannot do, you can start being creative about what you can do
And sometimes, you just gotta find a way to get rid of people. Or sometimes, you gotta burn that margin and get some more help lol