Illusory Superiority

The King of Moo · 13-06-2016 01:22AM

Maireadio wrote: »

This doesn't really seem to be the same thing as what the OP is talking about.

I don't care.

Maireadio · 13-06-2016 05:46AM

The King of Moo wrote: »

I don't care.

Super.

rojito · 13-06-2016 06:57AM

I recently had a similar case. What I did, whether advisable or not, was to expand any email correspondence to literally include anyone who had the slightest involvement in the project. As a technical lead having served several years almost exclusively with the particular client my word carries significant weight, so when I called him out on a slip up (and I called him out hard) the outcome was me getting the results the client wanted and him behaving like a trained puppy from there on in. I had been waiting for the opportunity.

Relatively speaking, what he did was minor but he had been working against the advice of the entire senior team and someone needed to put him in his place. If your colleague, like mine, is basically incompetent then let him dig his own grave.

OP, it sounds like you have seniority, even if means being an a--hole sometimes you just gotta flex the muscle. I just got a new dog so I`m going to repeat the same analogy - its all about tough love.

13-06-2016 09:03AM

The OP seems to be looking for a diplomatic easy way of dealing with the situation and there is none, if the person has no insight in to themselves being blunt is the only thing that could work.

Maybe the op is the sort of person who is seen as being smart, likeable and very capable at their job and they don't want to have to step outside of there nice person persona to deal with the situation.

Cathy.C · 13-06-2016 09:04AM

Oh tons of them.

It's exhausting being in their company as you have to constantly dumb yourself down otherwise you'd be in argument 24/7.

There was a guy in a well known book shop in Dublin like that also and people used go in and browse just in the off chance that they might witness him giving out to his staff as if they knew absolute nothing and he was the absolute bee's knees.

Or the chap in The Office is another. Well actually The Office had two or three characters who could possibly be described as having illusory superiority now that I think of it.

Almost like the intellectual version of Hyacinth Bucket.

Speedwell · 13-06-2016 09:19AM

This happened to me when I was sent to Abu Dhabi to train engineers to use the software I supported. The first day of class, a man stormed out and complained to his boss that he was tricked because he thought my gender-neutral first name belonged to a man. The boss took pleasure in informing me that he didn't even give the overdevout idiot time to gather his belongings from his desk before having him escorted out of the building. That's a different kind of "superiority", though.

I've had older engineers tell me to my face that the old way they were doing things before our software implementation was just fine and they intended to carry on as usual without using the software. I'd tell my boss, who would have a word with their boss, which usually sorted things. One time, though, they had to move my cubicle so I could sit next to a guy who was about fifteen months from retirement because he didn't actually refuse to use the software, he more or less passive-aggressively screwed things up so he hoped he wouldn't be required to use it anymore. While I sat next to him, he was fine. As soon as they moved me away, he started the shenanigans again. His boss called me into his office for a meeting, and I told him what was going on. The fellow's boss went a bit purple, started using words like "sabotage", and offered the fellow early retirement.

Illusory Superiority

Comments