Derogatory comment from boss

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This happened months ago at my former job, but it still gets to me when I think about it.

I worked at a company that sells newspaper subscriptions over the phone. I'm not a natural salesman, so it was kinda tough for me to keep up. One time, a coworker was doing crappy, and a boss apparently said, "C'mon Dan, you're letting ______ outsell you." Put my name in the blank. I couldn't think of what to say when I found out, so I let it go. It sure pissed me off though. What would you have said.

I'm not sure there really is anything you could have said to make this better. If you contest what he said, or retaliate verbally in any way, it will hurt your standing. The only thing you can do is sell more newspapers, which is a hard sell in an economy where discretionary things like newspapers are being cut out of people's budgets. Also, people can go online and read the news for free, without using lots and lots of paper. The newspaper as you currently know it will be dead, so now is the time for you to be looking for another job/career, because you and those around you including your boss are all going to lose your jobs sooner or later.

Did you overhear this? Perhaps the statement was not intended to be heard by you. There's this thing called plausible deniability (google search "plausible deniability wikipedia"). Military leaders would often allow some attacks against their own people to occur, despite having intercepted and decoded messages warning of the attacks because they don't want the other side to know that the code has been broken.

To quote: "Plausible deniability in the context of espionage dates back to at least World War II and the Allies' use of ULTRA intelligence, which had secretly broken German Enigma ciphers. For example, if ULTRA revealed a U-boat position, the Allies would not simply send a ship to sink the U-boat. Instead, they might send up a search plane, which would "fortuitously" sight the U-boat, and also ensure that the U-boat saw the search plane. In other cases, the inability to provide plausible deniability forced Allied commanders to avoid taking direct action despite having useful intelligence. In this case, the purpose of going through extra steps or not taking action was to not let the Germans know that their ciphers had been broken."

Your ability to overhear messages gives you a window of insight into the office politics, and you should not let anybody know that you are overhearing things because if you do, others will be more careful and you will lose your window.

it was his way of starting a competition between the two of you. It didn't matter who 'wins' because it's the boss who will profit.

Merle

I understand. I work in what I refer to as 'telemarketing hell'. An atmosphere that is sensory overload nightmare.. eight people talking loudly on the phone all at once. When I mentioned the noise, supervisor said 'you'll get used to it'. I was three minutes late to work on my third day of employment and was 'let go'. How's this for 'derogatory comments'? I can't believe some people: The manager said, as soon as I walked in the room few minutes late, 'I decide who to hire or fire' and then he said my name. (?????) I asked 'excuse me, are you talking to me" and the other boss chimed in, unsolicited , with 'if you can't be here on time'. Remember, I am always 10-15 minutes early , the bus broke down that day, I was breathless from running 1/4 mile to get to work, and was limping on a fractured toe which has been so painful for weeks I cannot even wear a shoe without pain. What would you have said????

[q of starting a competition between the two of you. It didn't matter who 'wins' because it's the boss who will profit.

Merle[/quote]

Correct. It is a very twisted thing in sales (see my profile for 'telemarketing hell jobs') that has managers pitting workers against each other. Mine congratulated me and one other girl, no one else, for getting sales that day. This only makes the others feel angry or want to do better. In my opinion, it is no way to motivate and just another crazy way of most 'average' people.. and these companies stay in business for many yrs, so it must 'work' on most people.. not me. They play up on human's natural tendency to be competitive and 'win'. It's all nonsense. I deal with it by just ignoring the compliments or insults and concentrating all efforts on getting sales or being productive.

Hence the difficulty in working out intentions. I come out with a long explanation of plausible deniability, but it might be as simple as facilitated competition. Perhaps the boss intended for you to overhear after all, and maybe you're not really in any trouble.