The conference call has become one of the most popular rituals of work life. And one of the most hated. Your colleagues on the line interrupt each other, forget to press "Mute" while slurping their coffee, and you zone out, questioning why this virtual meeting couldn't have been an email. And that's just the first two minutes.
But every now and then something entertaining happens during these dreadful times. For TikTok user @_wrapz5, this came in the form of their fellow team member barraging their boss for abandoning them and wasting everyone's time.
This worker was so amused by his colleague putting their boss to the test that he started recording their conference call
Image credits: _wrapz5
When the team meeting goes left.
Worker: Members are probably not happy, they're probably just desperate for a bit of money that's been promised to them. I think you should be ashamed of yourself after the training you put us through. You started at what, 09:50 today, some of us were on the laptops at 08:30. You started at 09:50 and then you rabbited on about perks for a bit.
Manager: Yeah, okay, that's your opinion, that's perfectly fine. I did not start at 09:50, I've been here well before 9 am.
Image credits: AboutImages (not the actual photo)
Worker: Why don't you start at 9 o'clock with us?
Manager: Because there's other tasks that took priority, i.e. trying to get other people.
Worker: Why didn't you explain that to us? Why did we have to waste time? Why do you go quiet when we talk? Just sitting in variable moments of silence with you throughout 7 and 1/2 hours a day for, what, 130 pounds? This is absolute rubbish. Absolute [nonsense] and it is a shambles. I wish more people here would have the guts to say that because the people have...
Stanley resigned.
Image credits: xapdemolle (not the actual photo)
Trying to be a productive and valuable employee can be difficult if you have a superior who is never in the office, doesn't answer emails in a timely manner, or doesn't pick up their phone.
In fact, when career experts at Zippia surveyed 2,000 workers to better understand "toxic employee-boss relationships," one of the things they did was ask what characteristics and behaviors people liked the least about their managers, and unavailability came in second place, ahead of rudeness (11.5%) and incompetence (13.5%), and behind only micromanagement (23%).
At the end of his rant, the frustrated employee also put the loudest exclamation mark—his resignation
Image credits: _wrapz5
However, Dutch management scholar and psychoanalyst Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries thinks that most bad bosses are not bad people; they're good people with certain weaknesses, and quitting your job on the spot shouldn't be your first reaction to their shortcomings.
Instead, it would probably be best for us to respond to these types of situations with compassion. "Research has shown time and again that practicing empathy can be a game changer in difficult boss-subordinate relationships, and not just as a top-down phenomenon," Kets de Vries wrote in Harvard Business Review. "Neuroscience also suggests that it's an effective strategy since mirror neurons in the human brain naturally prompt people to reciprocate behaviors. Bottom line: If you work on empathizing with your boss, chances are he or she will start empathizing with you, which will benefit everyone."
The TikTok quickly went viral, generating a whopping 10 million views
Investor, writer, and public speaker John Coleman believes there are six signs that are really important when considering whether or not to hand in your two weeks' notice:
- Your job no longer encourages your growth;
- You've achieved what you set out to achieve;
- You actively look for ways to avoid your job;
- You regularly approach work with exhaustion, burnout, or dread;
- It's causing you to develop bad habits;
- Your workplace has become unhealthy.
I wonder, how many of them did Stanley tick off before this call?
And people had a lot to say about it
