12 Career Poison Pills
Ruin your career by poisoning your relationship with your boss. They control opportunities. Ignore this reality if you enjoy career purgatory.
You don’t need an enemy at work. But you can make one if you follow these steps.
12 Career Poison Pills
- Bring up advancement during every conversation. Remind them you’re gunning for their job.
- Critique their ideas without offering solutions.
- Pout when you don’t get your way. Refuse to back any decision you didn’t make.
- Turn molehills into mountains. Feed the office drama machine.
- Pursue your personal agenda. Ignore the mission.
- Ask for favors. Complain when they don’t spend their collateral on you.
- Expect big projects before proving you can handle small ones.
- Make sure every win revolves around you. Hog the spotlight.
- Perfect the art of blame-shifting. Make, “It’s not my fault” your mantra.
- Make a list of your boss’s weaknesses. Celebrate them often. Extra points for doing it publicly.
- Go on attack when you receive feedback. Defend. Explain why they’re wrong.
- Scorch the earth when you get fired.
Bonus: Crave constant praise. Wear insecurity like a badge of honor.
If you want to sink fast, make your boss your adversary. It hurts you more than it hurts them.
How do good people poison their careers?
Think Like the Boss to Become the Boss
Why Your Relationship With Your Boss Matters So Much | Psychology Today
13. Master the art of entitlement. Expect every perk (even ones that don’t exist) without working for them.
I don’t deserve your correction! (How’s that?)
Not learning and adapting to the way your boss likes to communicate. Your boss likes face to face meetings and you continue to only communicate via emails and text messages.
People tend to give the boss the whole story. All the boss wants is the Reader’s Digest version. (At most) I’m glad you added this.
This is a great list and agree. It is interesting, I have worked in a culture where this list was actually the list that was “promoted” the most. It was not a positive experience.
Sad but true.
I was with you until #10… that just sounds healthy and cathartic.
KIDDING – but honestly, being intuitive to knowing your boss’s weaknesses can be helpful if you use that knowledge for good. You can be complementary in your role and fill in the gaps, especially if some of their weaknesses are your strengths.
I’m with you on this but what of the boss that is so intimidated by you that they think you are gunning for their job when you’re not? Their own insecurities show through every action. 5 years in I asked for a promotion and what happened – took my work form home privileges away, took my laptop and assigned me a desktop, didn’t put me on a big project when I was the only staff meme er who had real world, real life experience in performing the project, etc., etc.