How to Undermine, and Undervalue your Employees. Lessons from J-Cat

If you have an employee who is extroverted, a risk taker, and puts him or her self forward, the best way to undermine them is to attack their person.  Nickel and dime them for every break, every personal e-mail every time you catch them at the water cooler. Micro manage - a one line e-mail stating "I gave this to you 45 minutes ago, where is it" is a good start.  Don't even talk about performance, because these types of people, although they may be more social, may be just as good (if not more dynamic, nay better) performer than the type who stays in a cubicle and never pokes his or head out.  Don't even think about attacking their performance. This type of employee will generally take any performance based critism and run with it. Before you know it you will have a more efficient section, and remember your job as a managre is not to get hte best out of your employees, but to empire build, and to undermine those below you so that you can look good.

Okay: my day wasn't all that bad.  In fact things are going fine... but these are more observations from afar than from what I am experiencing head on. But sometimes you just have to give your head a shake and remember the public service mantra:

It's all pensionable time.