How to Get Out of a No-Win Situation

I did once have a job where one of my duties was to monitor everyone in the office (an office where everyone outranked me, and was paid substantially more than me) to make sure they filed a certain report. If they didn’t complete the report, I was supposed to “get on them” about it.

Several of these people had the power to fire me.

Needless to say, they often failed to respect my authority. More than one of them responded with the helpful suggestion that I fill it out for them. When I pointed out that I didn’t have the information I would need, they tended to offer to email me the information.

One time, when I pointed out that writing the information into an email would take as much time as just filling out the form themselves, I was accused of “getting smart.”

Ever since I was in school, it has continually amazed me that teachers, parents, and employers think of being “smart” as a bad thing.

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