Toyman! said:
I use chat and texts with my kids and friends. If you want to do business with me, do not use those platforms. It is unprofessional and disorganized. Wandering back through a group text or chat to find information is a waste of my time. If a business sends me a text or a chat request, I usually ignore it.
If you want to contact me directly, use email, I check it every hour or so during business hours. It is a searchable platform and easily organized. If you need instant information, use the phone. If I'm not already busy, I'll answer it. If I'm busy I'll return your call as soon as I have time. If I'm too busy to talk, I'm certainly too busy to text or chat.
In the real world, I probably don't need to talk to you and you don't need to talk to me. I am probably in the middle of something that needs my undivided attention so a better bet is to send my admin an email or call her on the office line. I hired her and pay her a good salary to take care of the everyday tasks like scheduling service, invoicing, answering questions about deliveries, and weeding out the time wasters so I can spend my time on the tasks she can't do. She will get you taken care of faster than I will and won't lose the scribbled Post-it note on her desk and forget about you. There is a good chance I'm going to have to ask her to answer your questions anyway because I probably don't know. She is also smart enough to know if I need to be interrupted to handle something immediately and will do so when required.
Teams meeting have become the bane of professionals. Doubly true when dealing with government employees. How many times have you thought to yourself that this meeting should have been an email? Just about every Teams meeting I attend could have been an email. Unfortunately, it's so easy to send out the invites that's what people do. They get to feel important for 30 seconds because they called a meeting. They get to tell people they are busy in a meeting. Everyone knows that important people have meetings. I have gone from 1-2 reasonably important in-person meetings a month and 100s of emails, to 1-2 Teams meeting a week and even more emails to recap the stupid meetings. It's a waste of time. Just send me the email. I don't want to listen to you spout off all the synergistic words you learned at college about being a team player and being there for the good of the group. Think of me as Jo Friday. "Just the facts, Mam." Preferably in a set of specs, plans, or an email.
My calendar is my company's calendar. It is usually on display on a 40" TV to the right of my desk. It is also available by phone app to everyone who works for me. As is the list of every job, service call, or anything the company does. My people seldom call me wondering what to do. They have the list. They have the calendar. They call me to tell me what they are planning and ask if there is anything that needs to happen first.
As an add, our business hours are 8 am to 4 pm Monday through Friday. I work during those hours. Not before. Not after. I do not live to work. If you email me at 4:30, don't expect an answer before 8:30 am. If you call me after hours, don't expect me to answer. I pay someone to answer the office phones for after-hours emergency calls. They are who you need to talk to. Call them. If you call my cell phone thinking you will get faster service from the owner, the odds are high that you are wrong. I don't check my phone often on the weekends because I pay someone else to do that. So when you leave a message I probably won't see it for an hour or two and then I'm going to forward it to the guy you should have called in the first place.
I guess my point is, if you don't like a boss that doesn't communicate the way you do, you may have contacted the wrong person. Many bosses are purposely difficult to get in touch with or schedule with because they have someone else you should have contacted. Someone who was hired to manage and handle your problem so the boss can do other things. Don't take it personally. The boss has a limited amount of time in a day and frequently a large number of tasks to get done. I don't know about the rest of them, but I don't like working late either.
@ Toyman. I completely Agree.
To everyone else.
I am the Boss. I own the company. I took the risk and ate ramen and PB&J's. for months and years. A hot dog dinner on the grill was a luxury for me and my very young family. I was scared sh!|less but I also believed in my self. I risked it all to be where I am now. My opinion is that if you are going to come crying to me about how communications are being made get over yourself. It really sounds like you are looking for a participation trophy. It just looks to me like you have to much time on your hands worrying about this stuff.
My other statement to these types of people is if you don't like how I run my company and you think you can do it better that is great. Go start your own company. Try being the boss for a while. No hard feelings. Maybe I will apply for a job at your company and we can do it your way.
For the vast majority of those people that think that they can be better bosses / company owners, you are just so wrong. If you were correct there would be many more small successful businesses. But there are not. Why? Because running a sucessful buisness is REALLY hard and even those that are capable just have bad luck. Another thing I see alot is that those that complain the loudest about the boss / company owners just don't seem to have the intestinal fortitude to take the risk and start a business. My answer to them is nut up or shut up. Seriously try being the boss. You probably have no idea how much bosses/me really care about my employees. Because what I do not only effects them but their families their kids and so on. I have paid employees out of pocket for many months during the pandemic instead of kicking them to the curb. I did not take one single penny of the government money being handed out either. And yet here we are with those that were so scared that their next paycheck was going to be their last paycheck and are now demanding that companies and there owners change for them. WTF... .. As you can see this really pisses me off.
My reaction to the OP is to get over yourself and get back to work. Don't blame the bosses for the cluster f&*k that the workplace environment has become. You all might want to look at your own generation that has forced this mess on us owners/bosses and your co-workers while the company owners are just trying to keep everyone happy.
It is so easy to just blame other generations when the generation that is complaining the loudest really should be looking at them self as the problem and figuring out a way to fix them instead of blaming everyone else.
A funny story. A long time ago people were grumbling about things and how they wanted change in a company where I was the Sr. VP. So in the monthly staff meeting, I put it out there that I was aware of the stuff people were complaining about and that I would effectively immediately create a position as my assistant that was open to anyone to apply for. Their task would be to work with me for two weeks to learn what I do and see the inner workings of the company and then they would be tasked with addressing all the issues that people were raising and complaining about. No one applied. All they want to do is complain no one wants to be part of the solution. I think it is because they may not like the solution.
