How to Survive Office Politics

We had one particular finance manager whom had been famous in office for his nastiness towards his own staffs. He always like to do a lot of last min works causing a lot of inconvenience to other colleagues in the company. As he is also a accountant, he was greatly valued by the management in the company, it makes him feel he is always one step higher in position that other colleagues.

I never expected that we will cross path one day. That day finally came. Yesterday, I had an interesting encounter with him. This finance manager came to see me asking for clarifications on some invoices. I told him the prices indicated are all stated in a contract and his staff had a copy of the contract. This particular staff of his are in charge of keeping a copy of all contracts in the company so that invoices can be verified against the contract copy before payments are made by the Finance Department.

But he don’t respect his staff’s role in the department. Guess what he said. He couldn’t be bother with the contract. He demanded that I should told him what are all the terms and conditions in the contract without the need to go to his staff. I told him there are too many terms and conditions to remember. We should get the contract from his staff and explain in details and he will be able to understand how the prices come about in the invoice.

Guess what he said next. He told me that I should not trust his staff. In fact, I should teach his staff on how to explain to him so that he will not need to waste time to come to me asking for clarification on the invoices. I almost laugh my teeth off. I told him since he is the HOD(Head of Finance Department) and he should be the one teaching his staff on how to go about to carry out the jobs. In fact, as a HOD, he shouldn’t even gossip about his own staff to others. He should resolve his department issues internally and not to ask other department to tell his staffs off.

The next thing, he told me made me almost fell off the chair. He told me he was teaching me how to protect myself against his staff. I thank him for his “kindness” and told him I don’t need him to teach me how to protect myself. In fact, as a manager and HOD, he should take note of his own attitude and behavior. By saying what he told me a while ago, he had already failed as a Manager and HOD. He got so pissed off with me and stormed back to his room.

In the end, I came to know this finance manager had not been too happy with this staff as the staff had been working in the company for 15 years and knew the finance procedures better than anyone. Else for him, he only joined the company one year back and understand nothing much. Hence, he had always been trying to find fault with the staff. So now, this finance manager is trying to instigate me to find fault with the staff and get rid of the staff eventually.

Smart move, by backstabbing someone through others without even the need to dirty his own hands. At the same time, he is trying to behave as though he is so kind to teach me self-defence. This is another one complicated character that you will find in the office.

So just be careful and remain alert not to fall into such trap laid by this cunning fox.

Tags: Office //