How to hide your incompetence from the Manager you hate

If I ever meet a more incompetent worker than myself I will be truly impressed. I am notorious for my incompetence, which once saw me guess an answer to a customer’s question, interrupt his follow up questions by bellowing “GOODBYE!” and hanging up. If you have also been blessed with the incompetence gene, you will struggle to remain on the payroll of the suckers you tricked into employing you.

The main reason for my incompetence is that I just don’t care. The worst they can do is try to sack me, but I’ve recently taken on “extra work” and enticed my Manager into swearing at me (more on this in coming weeks). This sways the dismissal axe in my favour and allows for my incompetence to be tolerated. I am also skilled at assessing which of my colleagues can help me cover my tracks and then charming said colleagues to do just that. The underpaid customer service team who can channel sales my way or the IT guy who can intercept and delete my abusive emails to clients before Management see them.

I have until 9:20am before my Manager makes unreasonable demands for me to start working and asking intrusive questions like “what are you doing today?” I avoid answering this question as it’s usually very little. I have 2 good achievements stock piled and try to get one out there just before his questioning begins. I might sigh, whilst browsing the job-sites and say something like “That lucrative new chain I introduced sure is tricky to manage- but will definitely be worth it come next year”. He’ll love the fake implication that I plan to be there next year and also the use the words “sure” and “definitely”. Managers go weak at the knees at decisive, emphatic, positive words like these. Pre-empting his interrogations avoids them entirely and also goes a way to excuse my recent catastrophic errors. Stock-pile these little devils for a particularly error-strewn day.

Get inside knowledge of their KPI’s (key performance indicators) as quickly as possible and find the loopholes. Speak to the more disaffected and unambitious colleagues to get the inside track. Do your Manager’s focus on the number of calls you make? Ring some of your clients that are on holiday, wait for the voicemail and hang up. Repeat this several times a day. Time spent on the phone? On your Managers lunch call a friend or a chatty client and get 45 minutes banked.

Most importantly, do not over-perform when new to a role. They will expect you maintain and worse of all improve on this! Work at 60% of your capabilities for your first month in a job and slip in 3 deliberate errors each week. As soon as you cease to be seen as a new employee you can reduce the weekly errors to 2 and move up to 70% capability. This will look like a concerted effort and real commitment to the cause.

Next Topic: How to get away with bellowing at the Manager you hate.

By Martin Stocks (Follow him at: https://twitter.com/Stocks1986 or @stocks1986)