But organizational psychologists warn against doing nothing. Mardy Grothe and Peter Wylie, authors of Problem Bosses (Facts on File), say that doing nothing almost always leads to nowhere. In most cases, it is self-defeating.
How People Do Nothing
According to Grothe and Wylie, doing nothing takes one of the following four forms
- Complaining and Commiserating:
All in all, complaining achieves nothing. At best, it offers only temporary relief. The worst part is that it usually alienates people, especially friends and family. Who wants to listen to someone constantly complaining about the same thing?
Once in a while it's okay, but when it's incessant, you want to run the other way. Imagine if your spouse began complaining as soon as he or she walked in the door every night. "You won't believe what Carla did today. I've had it. I can't take it anymore. I'm being pushed to the limit. She was really over the top this time. You know the report I spent 3 weeks preparing? Well, she ripped it to shreds and said I did a terrible job. Then she made me rework more than half of it. Can you believe that? I swear to you, Sam, nothing was wrong with the report.
She was just being the witch she always is. She has nothing better to do than make everyone else miserable...." Listening to tirades such as this every day can be grounds for divorce. How far can love's boundaries be pushed? Besides alienating the people close to you, complaining can blow up in your face if you're not careful. One day, a chronic complainer will make a big mistake and complain to the wrong person, such as a spy, a political maneuverer, or a friend of a friend of the boss. Once you-know- what -hits -the- proverbial -fan, watch out! If the complainer is not fired, his or her life will suddenly turn far worse than before the boss heard about the kvetching.
On the other hand, commiserating, although not as annoying as complaining, achieves the same dismal results. We're all guilty of commiserating. Why, it's practically a national pas time. At any given minute, Americans can be found sitting over lunch, dinner, or having drinks and commiserating about The Dangers of Doing Nothing a boss they detest. Millions of hours are spent trading horror stories about dysfunctional bosses.
Not long ago, I was at a popular journalists' bar in Manhattan and I overheard this conversation between two reporters, whom we'll call Sal and Mike.
Sal: Ya heard what John pulled yesterday afternoon just 2 hours before deadline?
Mike: I sure did. Give the guy an A+ for consistency. If he didn't act like the consummate jerk everyone knows he is, I'd be shocked.
Sal: But how much can a sane person take? I worked my tail off on the story about the shooting in the Bronx, but he wasn't satisfied with the one source who would talk on record. It didn't matter to the nitwit that I had two excellent sources who didn't want to be identified. In fact, John knows who they are and can vouch for their reliability. Nevertheless, at the 11th hour, I had to dredge up another source that would also go on record.
Thankfully, I made deadline just in the nick of time.
Mike: He pulls that same stuff with everyone. He did it to me last month. Everyone knows he's gutless. If he wasn't a close friend of Salmaggi [the managing editor], he wouldn't have a job.
Sal: You're right on the money, Mike. He's a gutless wonder who's afraid of his own shadow. Any other seasoned editor would have the guts to stand by his reporters. But that would mean taking a chance.
Mike: One day he'll get his. He'll screw up and will be out on his butt looking for a reporter's job.
Sal: I'll give him a week on the street before he starts looking to change careers.
Mike: Amen! Let's have another round on that one, brother. I'm sure you can recall similar conversations you have heard or participated in. If I look back on the several reporting jobs I've had, I know I can pull up countless exchanges like that one. The good part about them is they have a cathartic effect.
You work off a lot of pent-up energy exchanging horror stories with fellow sufferers. But, like complaining, it goes nowhere. Once you have engaged in an energetic bout of commiserating, you're back where you started. Your situation remains unchanged.
- Goofing Off
Not only is this strategy fruitless, but it could also get you in trouble, warn Grothe and Wylie. Unless your boss is a complete moron, sooner or later he or she is going to catch on. In most lines of work, productivity is easy to measure. What will happen come performance appraisal time? Not only will you get a bad review, but you won't even receive a token raise.
- Beating Yourself Up
Doris, a clothing buyer for a large Detroit department store, wasn't even aware of what she was doing to herself until she sought professional help. Doris loved her job but was suffering from the dangers of doing nothing. After 3 years of putting up with insults, sarcasm, and bullying, she slowly started to develop back pain. First, she felt pain in her lower back when she sat a certain way. But it rapidly got worse. It developed into sciatica, which brought on shooting pains that ran from her ankles up to her neck. At first, she thought she pulled her back playing tennis, which she played religiously three times a week. She stopped playing for a while, but the pain grew worse. It got so bad she could hardly sit in a chair for more than a brief period. Driving was torture.
She visited various doctors who gave her conflicting diagnoses. One doctor put her on muscle relaxants. Another gave her painkillers. The medicines accomplished nothing other than to make her sleepy or jittery. A chiropractor cracked her back and recommended bed rest. That failed also. As a last resort, she tried acupuncture and massage therapy, both of which produced similar results.
Thankfully, she met a fellow back pain sufferer who had experienced similar symptoms. This person understood what was happening and put her on the right track. She told Doris that the pain was real, yet nothing was physically wrong with her back. It was a psychosomatic pain. Its roots were psychological rather than physiological. In short, it was all in her head. And the only way to deal with it was through psychotherapy. Doris was told she'd likely reject this explanation initially. But when she was ready to accept and tackle the problem, she could work with a psychotherapist specializing in psychosomatic disorders.
True to form, Doris at first told her friend to get a lobotomy. But she came around mighty fast. Hardly 2 weeks later the pain was so excruciating that Doris could barely sleep at night. This is when she agreed to put herself into therapy. At last Doris was dealing with the source of the problem. It was not a problem with her back, but rather with her boss. Instead of facing up to the problem, she had internalized it, taking the form of psychosomatic back pain. When she totally understood the cause of her problem, the back pain rapidly disappeared. Her next step was dealing with the real problem, her boss.
Remember: Internalizing is a fruitless method of doing nothing that can cause serious mental and physical discomfort.
- Escaping
Donald's story is a classic example. Donald was happily employed by a Chicago beverage company as chief accountant for 20 years when his job was suddenly being threatened. When he had started working for the family-run company, there were 30 employees. But over a 20-year period, the company grew to the point where it employed 200 people.
Two years ago, the president hired a CFO (chief financial officer) to oversee the company's books. This is when the winds shifted for Donald. There was no way he could have anticipated or prepared for the change. Ten years his junior, the CFO was a rigid by-the-book bureaucrat with an MBA from the Harvard Business School. In the process of overhauling the company's books, he made Donald's life miserable.
First he blamed Donald for the company's ancient method of monitoring finances. Then he burdened him with enough work for three accountants. Worse yet, he was a bit of a sadist, too. Knowing that Donald usually left work at 5:30 p.m. every day to catch a 6:10 p.m. train home, he made a point of calling him into his office at 5:20 p.m., just as he was shoving papers in his attaché case and cleaning up his desk. Then he'd talk to Donald for 40 minutes, piling on work and telling him what he had to do tomorrow. He did this at least three, sometimes, four times a week. By the time Donald got to the train station, he had already missed two trains.
After almost a month of constant stress, Donald couldn't take it anymore and started drinking during lunch. At first, it was just a beer or two with a couple of coworkers. But he The Dangers of Doing Nothing quickly discovered that he liked the effect the alcohol had on him. It helped relieve his tension and it made the rest of the afternoon bearable. But after a while, a couple of beers didn't do it anymore. He started drinking scotch. When things were really getting insufferable, he'd consume one scotch followed by two martinis. Miraculously, he still managed to function.
Every time his boss made him miss his train, Donald would promptly march into the tavern in the train station and have a couple of drinks. He kept this up for about 6 months until his work was deteriorating, his health was failing, and his marriage was shaky. He joined Alcoholics Anonymous and started to put the wheels in motion to find another job. It was no small feat considering he was preparing to leave the only job he had ever held.
Alcohol and drugs are common escape valves for workers in many difficult jobs, but especially those in high-stress ones. Drowning your sorrows in alcohol or drugs brings short-term relief when dealing with fierce deadlines, highly exacting work, and a loathsome boss.
Janet, marketing director at a Massachusetts publishing company, religiously smoked a joint during her 45-minute drive home every day. It was the only way she knew how to relieve her job stress and forget about her troubled boss, who made her life miserable.
However, all the pot she had been smoking eventually caught up with her. While driving home one day, the sky suddenly opened up and she found herself navigating through a dangerous rainstorm with little visibility. Unaware that she was careening down the highway at 90 miles an hour, she saw the car in front of her suddenly swerve to avoid a stalled car in the middle lane.
Janet, who was halfway through her joint, managed to jam on her brakes but nevertheless smashed into the car ahead. Thankfully, no one was seriously hurt. But the incident left its mark. Janet realized she could have killed someone, not to mention herself. She never smoked pot again, and she began looking for a healthy solution to her problem.
When Doing Nothing Makes Sense
Yet, at times, doing nothing is a sound strategy. Grothe and Wylie mention the following classic situations: When either you or your boss plans to retire, quit, or transfer to another job.
Imagine you have been with a company for 25 years. Through a merger or consolidation, you have inherited a boss from hell. That's the bad news. The good news is you have only 8 months away from retirement, which equates to leaving the company with a full pension, handsome severance package, and lots of accolades. Blowing your cool by getting on your bosses bad side could get you fired and disqualify you from your full severance package.
Or perhaps you are biding your time because there's a better job in the wings. Why make a scene and create bad blood when your problem is almost resolved by itself?
If the situation is reversed and your boss is about to retire or take a new job, it's the same story. Just grin and bear it until the bane of your workday existence makes his or her final exit.
Even if you have to wait 10 months, think about how wonderful coming to work will be when you no longer have to deal with this dreadful boss. That thought alone should tide you over.
One worker described the feeling of waiting for his boss to take another job as waiting to be released from prison. He equated workplace freedom with his boss's departure. But what if he gets a boss who's worse than his prior boss? Tm sure he never considered that frightening possibility.
