Is it just me or do others find this general practise a bit nauseating?

I’m away on a “with partners” work trip, and my new and new to the business manager has made an overt practise of ensuring he and his are having dinner with the execs

The tones of the conversation ive heard to make it happen just make me feel a bit queasy…

Isn’t is just salesmanship?

I don’t much like people, so people who like other people are doubly nauseating.

Maybe he thinks the rest of you are odious

just think of the lovely ti bikes you could have if you learnt to kiss arse.

Doesnt appeal to me at all Klunk, Id rather work my way to (relative) success, and enjoy more value to whatever that brings.

I’m always surprised by the ingratiatees not being able to see through it.

“Ingrates” Shirley ??

Oh it’s appalling and I’m terrible at it.

At a former employer your reward for going above and beyond the usual level of above and beyond would be a informal introduction to some some bigwig you’d never heard of by the most senior person you actually knew.

I worked myself to death for a few years, killing targets without being too much of a dick and generally signing from the hymn sheet, for all that hard work they gave me a project to be part of – which meant me living like Alun Partridge in hotels for 3 months, I HATED it, but I did it. At the end of it I was at some pseudo social event thing when ‘it’ happened. The Boss’s Boss introduced me to his Boss’s Boss – a man I’d never laid eyes on before and didn’t know from Adam. I shook his hand and said “all right Mate?” My Boss’s Boss went pale, and shot me a dirty look and that was it. My glorious future was sunk because I was tired from a 12 hour drive from some godforsaken office to some football stadium in Reading after not seeing home for 3 weeks and all I wanted to do was go home.

Just because someone else has different measures of success and different ways to achieve them doesn’t mean the should be treated with disdain.
I don’t think many people enjoy ingratiating themselves, it is a means to an end.

Every.

Salesman.

Ever.

doesn’t mean the[y] should be treated with disdain

I disagree. But then I’ve never got anywhere in business! 😆

The first round’s on me!

I think the first mistake was;

a “with partners” work trip

I can’t imagine anything worse TBH, I love my wife so why would I subject her to my co-workers…

Every.

Salesman.

Ever.

Except me, obvs.  I’m happy and understand being polite and making conversation with the boss – although i got politely moved on by the CEO this morning – but in wouldnt go to the nth degree to ensure i spent every social opportunity within this trip with them   He’s even using the short form name for the bosses wife now.

Brakes, I said i didnt feel comfortable with the practise, not the individual

I imagine in a corporate environment, the art of kissing ass is probably reasonably important and that one has to learn the difference between a light lick of the anus to invoke a frisson of arousal and a full-on tongueing that ends up making the receiver want to have a poo.

I can’t imagine anything worse TBH, I love my wife so why would I subject her to my co-workers

Apart from the fact we are in the same hotel, we have plenty of free time.   Its a free short Hols for her to say thanks for the work stress i bring home.

I can’t believe they’ve made you stay in the same hotel as your wife. Just appalling.

I’m always surprised by the ingratiatees not being able to see through it.

They didn’t get where they are today without knowing when they’re being brown-nosed.

If the brown-noser is in sales and good at his job they’ll probably tolerate it the same way they tolerate people with other social peculiarities who work in IT.

The Boss’s Boss introduced me to his Boss’s Boss – a man I’d never laid eyes on before and didn’t know from Adam. I shook his hand and said “all right Mate?”

A man I hadn’t seen before came into our office a couple of months ago, and went round talking to everyone else at length. After a while I put my headphones on and got back to the writing job I was doing that day.

After a while I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned round to see my boss looking bemused, with the stranger next to him.

“Hi, I’m Paul”, he said.

“Oh hi, Paul…” I replied, adding a question mark to my intonation and waiting for him to add a surname and job title.

An awkward moment followed until he responded: “Paul *surname*, I’m the CEO of *parent company name*.”

He then asked what I was listening to, so I explained it was some vintage acid house and showed him how good my noise-cancelling headphones are.

Don’t think it was his cup of tea, but fortunately it’s a pretty chilled out company for a multinational and we had a bit of a laugh about it later.

Saying that, I haven’t been promoted since then actually.

This is not the colonic irrigation thread I was hoping for

There’s a different way to do things that works well for me – talk to everyone, whether they are the cleaner or receptionist or the CEO the same. And that is polite, but straight and being aware of what they can help you with and vice versa. Works out alright. CEOs and other people high up get brownnosed a lot, probably refreshing to get straight chat.

Same here YGH.

A couple of years ago o decided my forte was integrity and politness.   Its served me well.  I know our uber boss merits results over BS.

Id rather work my way to (relative) success

Sounds like he was working

I hate any form of ‘networking’ that isn’t related to the matter at hand. As a journalist, this did rather turn me away from areas like Showbiz where you spend half your time schmoozing celebs and their entourage.

I’d much rather talk to a scientist about their area of interest and leave the smalltalk somewhere else.

Id rather work my way to (relative) success

This stops working at a certain level if you don’t brownnose…..

It’s bollocks, isn’t it? Back when I had a job we were told ‘someone very important’ was visiting that day and I asked how they’d got everyone’s mam’s phone numbers and been able to arrange it. Turned out to be some jumped up prick of a manager from Head Office or something. Meh. I think they closed the lab and laid everyone off that year come to think of it…

Dear God! A “with partners” work trip? What fresh hell is that? For everyone involved!

Surely, as far as your partner is concerned, this falls under the very definition of ‘unreasonable behaviour’ if not ‘cruel and unusual torture’ and is grounds for divorce? 😉

Id rather work my way to (relative) success

If there is one thing worse than brown nosing, it’s nepotism.

BITD I was quite high up in a Banking Corp, went through huge transformation and required extensive effort by all to achieve. It wasn’t planned particularly well, but we did complete the task in hand.

I wasn’t a supporter of the proposal, in fact during an ExCo I made my thoughts well known and effectively called the two “blokes” in charge morons for taking what was a solid business model into a TOM whereby it was a bit guess/hit and miss.

To make sure my thoughts were known, I said the same thing at a Town Hall for exec’s 6mths later and  1st quarter into the Plan…. I got pulled to one side and dragged into a board meeting where thankfully i could express my thoughts freely…. which I did. I gave them my thoughts, a raft of proposals and a HLP to support it… 3 yrs later and the business had been delivered into the new TOM.

Transformation was swift and vast. Executives came and went but I stayed and landed my bit. I was always mentioned in comms and drawn into some pretty heady stressful meetings…

Still think (and latterly proven) those two “blokes” were indeed morons and both ended up in front of a Parliamentary Committee for their actions and subsequently barred from being on any board or directorships.

Sometimes you just have to speak your mind.

Yep, if you have ambitions of climbing the ladder its not just about doing a good job…that is the absolute minimum expected and on its own wont ever get your foot in the door. As you climb that greasy pole the job is more about boarder awareness and intelligence about the business, industry and generally how things work – the softer things that you can’t learn in any university or is taught by any qualification. You either have it or you don’t…and most of us don’t. Its a grey world that relies on peoples judgement as poor judgement can cost the company big…or even sink it, so those at the top making those big decisions have to demonstrate somehow that they have the judgement, commitment, dedication and are willing and prepared to make the sacrifices. You can’t demonstrate that by just delivery task within the confines of your modest little job being a small cog in a much bigger machine, and you certainly can’t demonstrate that in a 45 minute interview. You can only demonstrate that by networking, getting to know the bosses so you can, over time, demonstrate you have a handle on it and have what it takes. It’s about person to person trust. If you were going to appoint someone to a very important job making important decisions…who could not only create chaos in the organisation by potentially making bad decisions, but in doing so will make you look bad and screw up your career, then would you employ an unknown or someone you’d known for a while and knew how they thought, worked and could trust them??

Not for me though…i’m more of a doer and can’t be bothered with the politics…and not sure i would be willing to make the life sacrifices required to earn the big bucks….the big bucks don’t come for free – they come with strings attached. So fair play to anyone who want to play that game. Good luck to you and rather you than me. I’ll think of you (or maybe not) at 5:30pm when I’ve escaped the office and out on my bike while your still toiling away with another few hours to go before you can get home and miss your kids before they go to bed (again), grab some crap dinner that’s been sat in the oven drying out before opening up your laptop to do a couple more hours work before bedtime. They must be bonkers.

Dear God! A “with partners” work trip? What fresh hell is that? For everyone involved!

Depends whose partner you get I suppose?

I think I’ll suggest to my wife she comes with me on a “with partners work trip” mainly to see how long it takes her to stop laughing…

There’s a different way to do things that works well for me – talk to everyone, whether they are the cleaner or receptionist or the CEO the same. And that is polite, but straight and being aware of what they can help you with and vice versa. Works out alright. CEOs and other people high up get brownnosed a lot, probably refreshing to get straight chat.

Exactly this. I heard a middle manager berating a cleaner because he had the temerity to ask them to move so he could hoover and clean their desk area. I stepped in and said he was only doing his job and shouldn’t be talked to like that. This was overheard by a senior manager, who didn’t interfere but later told me on he’d seen what I’d done and thoroughly approved. The middle manager went in the last round of redundancies, I don’t suppose that incident was the reason, but it didn’t help him.

@wobbliscott puts it well. It’s not so much that you need to brown nose but if higher ups are aware of you and see you as capable you’ll have more opportunities. As other posters have demonstrated that doesn’t have to be done by sucking up to them.

Of course it brings with it stress and higher expectations, I’d rather stay anonymous and not take my work home with me like everyone in management seems to.

Speed read title, clicked thread out of disgusted intrigue, prepared for the worst, had to re-read title.

On second thoughts, maybe one about irrigating oneself would have been less awful than this.

@wobbliscott puts it well

He does, and maybe in my case it’s naive to suggest I’d get any further – but I’d rather keep my integrity.  There’s another chap just like me (in respect of work) that is well known and respected amongst the higher ranks as the guy that always makes his numbers and manages the relationships with some of our most valuable and respected customers.  He’s well paid, doesn’t want to be in management yet will happily crack jokes and have a beer with the top tier.

I’ve modelled my own role on him and been giving the opportunity to form this role in my business area, turning down a Sales Director role in the process.   As above, I don’t want the politics and brown nosing, I quite like to work hard and go home at the end of the day knowing I don’t have a 9pm call with the US or need to play golf with a visiting Vice President.

HughStew post irritates me and reminds me of the NASA Janitor story.  Every job in an organisation has some value.  I’d hate to work in a shithole and therefore I value the fact that someone’s prepared so come into the office in unsociable hours and clean it.

Fortunately I work in a large company of techies, where there is a techie career progression and you can become very high up whilst still being a techie. This is good.

I gravitate to companies with techie nerdy and friendly upper management, who like to get an understanding what the rest of the company does on a daily basis. An American biotech was the best for that, always felt like I could talk to executives or heads of site when they milled about. Regular meetings with upper management where they would give updates in regards to the direction they were going in without talking bollocks, where they actually listened to feedback.

I’ll go back one day, didn’t appreciate it at the time because I’d never worked for a company run by double glazing sales type idiots like the OP describes.