creative management

I've been mentoring two guys at work, trying to train them to teach classes. They are both not serious about their careers, and total screw offs at work. So annoying. I can yell at them or do other stuff, but since I'm not their manager, I have limited power over what I can do to them.

So, they were supposed to give training classes Wednesday and Thursday to some people internal to my company. They did a horrible job. When they were able to answer a question from the students, they gave the wrong answer. They hadn't gone over the software exercises and couldn't get things to work. It was a disaster, and after the class on Wednesday I was so depressed I wanted to quit my job.

I yelled at them Wednesday night, and they did do better on Thursday. But still. The class was horrible. I was stalking around outside the building where the class was held because I couldn't listen to them anymore, smoking and plotting how to kill the two of them, when their manager came out. I had a short word with him about their performance. He also was upset, and asked me what we should do. I was like "dude, I am out of ideas."

Moments later, an idea hit me. Their manager is a pretty passive guy. He never yells at anyone, and didn't want to yell at them about their abysmal performance. So I suggested to him that he call the boys and myself in for a talk after the class was over, and yell at all of us together for the horrible job they had done. I said that he should really yell as if their poor performance were my fault. He thought it was a great idea.

Then, as the afternoon wore on, I kept coming up with more and more ideas of what he should do and say in the meeting. He was really getting into it and wrote notes down on a piece of paper so we could script the whole meeting. He couldn't yell at someone in real life, but if he thought he was faking it, he was able to do it. I was hoping that he would be able to pull it off.

After the class we all got pulled into a conference room. I decided to look at the floor so I wouldn't laugh. The manager started out yelling at everyone. The two guys were shocked. Then he yelled at me. I pretended that I was about to cry because I was really about to laugh. Then he went absolutely insane and started yelling and screaming so much that his face turned red and he was spitting all over the place. It was awesome.

One of the guys, who is in his late forties and who speaks english as a second language, tried to defend himself (bad mistake). But he was rattled from getting yelled at so, in my favorite part of the meeting, he said "I know there was a large boob in my presentation", meaning, that he had a mistake in his presentation (he picked up the expression boo boo from me, which I say when I want to annoy Ireland). The manager, who also speaks english as a second language, screamed at him "There were MANY large boobs in your presentation!" I thought I was going to have to bite through my lip to keep from laughing.

The manager had fun yelling at me. He said totally insane stuff like "if you don't do what I say, you will fear me because I am like a gorilla!" After the meeting was over he told the two guys to leave so he could talk to me in private. We laughed for about 10 minutes. I was in tears I was laughing so hard which was great because the guys thought I had been crying.

In any case, the guys were in shock and it will hopefully make a difference in their work performance. We'll see what happens next week.