[ericssonjohn]

Hi All

I have a question about how to deal with people like work colleagues that always disagrees.
I had a boss that never ever agrees with anything a suggest, yet my other boss is completely opposite and is very encouraging to my suggestions that are often very good according to others. I got so fed up with this so I quit. But after a few years I came to another place to do a job and came across another person who was just the same, and I noticed that if I came with a direct suggestion it was never ever approved, but if I put it in a different way such as "I knew a guy who did a job this way..." and left it like that, he would come back after a day or two and "telling me how to solve the problem" just the way I said "the guy I knew" had done it.

I'm sure I have seen a word for this, something like "reverse polarity personality" or something like this.
My questions are these: How do you deal with these persons?
What causes them to act like this?
Is it a common thing?
It is almost as if they cannot accept that someone younger can suggest anything at all, like a complex to always know better. I don't know but it is extremely tiering to work like this and you often stop having any input at all, cause all your ideas will get shot down anyway.

Thanks for the word:

John

[Stratmando]

"reverse polarity personality" is one word, I call them an or Jerk.
I encourage anyone trying to better themselves or what they are doing. I am still trying to figure how to deal with these FREAKs. They are counterproductive and aggrivating. If you HAVE to work with them you have to deal with it. It does make you not want to suggest things.
You can rearrange it to where they make others think they thought of it, so they don't look stupid and you have intelligence.
They are still Jerks.
Hope you don't have to deal with them too much. Good Luck.

[Scleros]

How do you deal with these persons?... Is it a common thing?

I encounter this type of mentality regularly. A client will hire you to solve a problem, and then tell you how they want you to fix it. The way I deal with it is to not become emotionally involved in their business. It's their organization, their money, and ultimately their responsibility. The monetary reward for me is the same either way (and that's what you are after by working right?). Often the reward can actually be more if I present my recommended options, have them select their way anyway, have it all go kablooey, and then get to do it over again the way it should have been done first at the normal billable rate.

What causes them to act like this?

I believe it is the way their mind works. It seems most prevalent in folks who cannot think logically and rationally and instead make decisions based on judgments and beliefs. Lacking firsthand experience or technical knowledge about the problem also seems to contribute, which when you consider it, makes some sense. If faced with multiple options and lacking any criteria that would give a single option more merit than the others, all the options are essentially equal and one could be picked at random. And so one is. Then human nature sets in; to change course or one's mind is to admit mistake. We are programmed from birth that mistakes are bad and are to be avoided. Fear of the unknown results in momentum to do things the way they have always been done, but by understanding that "someone else has already done it this way" the solution is vetted.