Once upon a time in 2010 my supervisor didn't know what a polder was. It would have been a non-issue if not for his unwillingness to admit that he doesn't know everything. That, when paired with his belief that underlings can't possibly know anything made things interesting. And by interesting I mean awkward. I would not have realized his ignorance if not for the fact that he then tried to play it off poorly. The other coworker asked him if he didn't know what a polder was; she was blissfully unaware of his issues. He became patronizing in response to her offer to explain it to him and ended the meeting soon after.
Moments later he sent us an email citing an example of polder architecture that he thought we should look at. It wasn't really related to the point that I had been trying to make. At all. I Googled "polder architecture" and guess what was one first results. The other coworker thought that the email was weird as well. "Why couldn't he say that he didn't know what a polder was," she asked.
Since the minor polder incident of 2010 Supervisor found many little ways to attempt to exert his intellectual dominance over us. He seemed to go out of his way to mention obscure bits of information relating to HK codes and then became condescending when we didn't know what he was talking about. He kept dropping comments about our respective universities until the awkwardness became straight out weird.
The nonsensical appraisal of 2011 was the hole in the dike that sunk the polder. A trickle became a deluge. I could no longer understand why I was standing waist deep trying to plug the hole when there were happier polders with windmills close by. I would have told the other coworker that I was leaving but she had sent her notice of bailing out a week previously.
Moments later he sent us an email citing an example of polder architecture that he thought we should look at. It wasn't really related to the point that I had been trying to make. At all. I Googled "polder architecture" and guess what was one first results. The other coworker thought that the email was weird as well. "Why couldn't he say that he didn't know what a polder was," she asked.
Since the minor polder incident of 2010 Supervisor found many little ways to attempt to exert his intellectual dominance over us. He seemed to go out of his way to mention obscure bits of information relating to HK codes and then became condescending when we didn't know what he was talking about. He kept dropping comments about our respective universities until the awkwardness became straight out weird.
The nonsensical appraisal of 2011 was the hole in the dike that sunk the polder. A trickle became a deluge. I could no longer understand why I was standing waist deep trying to plug the hole when there were happier polders with windmills close by. I would have told the other coworker that I was leaving but she had sent her notice of bailing out a week previously.
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http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/11/be-a-jerk-the-worst-business-lesson-from-the-steve-jobs-biography/249136/