my colleagues were kena "buttered" by the manager. we (total 5 of us) were chatting in the pantry (aka eat snake lah!) since the manager was not in the office. i dunno how long we chatted in there but its seems quite long as my coffee turned cold when we were leaving the room hehe! anyway i walked past the manager and nothing happened. however when one of the colleagues walked past him he stopped her and scolded her in front of us...


"i notice that you (and others) have been taking long breaks recently..."

"either you all chat in the pantry or go dunno where to hide...."

"you, as a more senior personnel (engineer) should not joke around with xxx and yyy. how do you expect them to obey you when you ask them to work next time?"

"dun instigate them to go to pantry next time to take breaks..."


many many more lah i just forgotten what he said.

to be on a more neutral ground, its really our fault that we took long breaks. i mean its ok that the manager scold us as its really our fault. however, what he shouldn't have done was to scold someone in front of others. as a manager he should know about management practices, and one of the most important one is not to scold your staff in front of others. this is because it makes the staff 'lose face' in front of others, especially 'face' is such an important thing in our asian culture. another reason is that it creates a negative image for the superior as he cannot control his staff well as he needs to raise his voice to get things done. what he should have done was to talk to the staff in one corner and make the staff realise his/her mistakes and not otherwise.

did i mentioned that he did not scold me and hui but he scolded another 2 more at the production floor? anyway i'm thinking that he dun want to scold me probably because he thought that my hatred for him is not as deep as the others have for him?

i agree that management is a difficult thing. some prefer to use their position to press on others so as to get things done. i think this method works best in the army as those small flies will just have to obey the orders given to them, no matter if they are willing or not. however, i'm not so sure if this method works well in the private sector. to me i'll feel that a more cooperative atmosphere will be beneficial than using rank to step on others. my colleagues from the office and the production floor have been praising about their previous manager. according to them the previous manager was a stern person and he accepts no nonsense. however, he was able to gain their respect and they were willing to work extra hard when needed. its a total 180 degrees change for their attitude towards this manager...

anyway i'm just a small fly... one smack and i'm dead...