Thursday, May 5, 2011

Overheard at work today...

I rarely talk about work on my blog because I don't think anyone would find it particularly interesting, but today I was privy to a conversation that had me in stitches. Without going into too much detail, a dialog between a small group resulted the most junior member delivering an absolute zinger.

I should predicate this, by sharing this was a virtual meeting that took place via conference call with all parties dialing in to meet. At one point, a senior manager pushed back on a more junior member (while the request was not unreasonable, it was clearly something the senior member should be managing).

After being asked to manage the task in question the more junior member said with amazing sincerity "that type of responsibility is beyond my pay scale." -OUCH-

Perhaps if you don't work as I do with most of your meetings over the phone you cannot appreciate the type of vacuum this creates with everyone simultaneously gasping then hitting mute on their phone so they can laugh in private and not appear unprofessional. Maybe the story won't translate as hoped, but it still has me in stitches while I type this.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Phhhhfffft!! That's great!

Bob said...

I might have said something along the lines of "that type of responsibility is beyond my pay scale..............bitch" and forgotten to hit mute at the right moment and then be typing up my resume on my laptop on the way home.

Anonymous said...

I've used "that's above my pay grade" for some time. I picked it up from a an outside counsel (lawyer) whose billing rate was $775/hour at the time. You'd think at that rate there wouldn't be much above his pay grade.

SteveA said...

That junior really stuck it to the man!

Craig said...

It's a good response. Gets the message across without appearing to be too blunt (even though it was designed to be just that, but subtly). I never trust mute buttons just in case I don't hit it correctly or it somehow malfunctions!

Cobra Snake said...

thats was really great response.