How do you feel about "jobsworth" people

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As Aspies, we are known for our pedantry and adherence to rules.

However, there is a particular type of jobsworth person that I find highly annoying. Where they take it too far, beyond logic, and just to make a point.

What are others' views on this type of person?

Description of a jobsworth for those who don't know the expression:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobsworth

I work in a customer service role so this issue is a little close to home for me. I think you have to bear in mind it cuts both ways, for the person on the other end they regularly face jumped up, sharp elbowed customers or clients with a self grandiose complex and a sense of undue entitlement. When someone is being a jerk, its difficult to not wear the 'jobsworth' hat. In fact if someone is being particularly obnoxious I consider it a perk.

I've worked in a few customer service roles myself. I know how difficult some customers can be and the type you mean. However, I'm talking about the type of jobsworth who excel in wielding their role like a weapon, no matter how innocent, decent or ordinary a customer is. They use it as a power control because they take their role too seriously. Do you know the type I mean?

(I have also found in past customer services roles, that when e.g. customers phone up all angry and demanding, it's because they are stressed and if you acknowledge their anger and tell them you will do what you can to help, their attitude immediately dissipates and they are grateful to be listened to.)

The only instance I would take exception with is if they are giving out wrong information or not following the company protocol.

The rest of the time, have you considered that they're just following orders and that to deviate from what they are saying would get them in trouble? As a customer you are not to know if the employee is right or not.

Just a thought. Most of the time you should blame the cowardly boss who hides behind his staff, letting them take the flack and abuse.

That assumes that every single jobsworth is not allowed to have any flexibility whatsoever in their role, not allowed to be proactive or take initiative, to try to solve a solution or to ignore something that technically they are correct in adhering to, but in reality is so trivial that it doesn't matter to anyone (e.g. the fine print things in life that are there for legal reasons only). There are very definitely jobsworth roles where they are not e.g. a shop assistant that has to behave like a robot and not think for themselves, there are jobsworths at every level and probably in every role.

It's not even about deviating, it's about measuring the importance of something in the grand scheme of things, tiny minutiae that they will focus on unnecessarily for instance, that doesn't affect anyone.

It's all about the mentality of this type of person not what their job description states. More about an Orwellian approach to their role, than the role itself. (and when it comes to customer services, someone like that is in the wrong job!)

I see you added to your prior post. I think we are at slightly crossed purposes here. I understand you are defending your own role and the times when you feel justified in using it in that way. I sense a sore point in your role with this for you. This is not what I mean though.

Please see my post above which explains it's all in the person's approach, it's not about what their role allows them to do.

When I worked as a pattern maker in the garment industry, a term was used which is not exactly about following workplace rules ('though that was sometimes part of it), but rather, doing exactly as told by bosses; spite work. The sample hands (the ladies who sewed the trial garments) used the term.

None of the sample hands ever 'spite worked' any of my projects, but I'd seen it done to other pattern makers and designers. 'Spite worked' projects took a very long time to complete to the designers' satisfaction. Spite work is uncooperative, unhelpful and obtuse indeed.

It was, in some cases, done by a type of worker but it seemed more likely to be be done situation-ally, and the reasonable workers never did it.

Wow, so they deliberately carried out their assignments to the letter of the word knowing in some places it affected the outcome because they weren't using initiative, problem-solving or on-the-job-knowledge because they didn't like the person who they were doing the work for or agree with something in their role?

moved from General Autism Discussion to Random Discussion

as to the OP's question, i prefer wholeheartedly if workers follow the rules to the letter so that i know what to expect. otherwise i would worry that exceptions would be made or that rules would be bent, and that would not feel fair to me.

...not sure why this has been moved?

The rule for General is that it has to have at least something to do with AS isn't it?

In my OP, I talked about how as Aspies we are known to be rule-bound and pedantic, and compared this to a type of person who goes even further than these Aspie traits. Therefore this thread does have a legitimate right to be in General.

Thanks for your input into the thread Hyperlexian. So if you went to a burger bar for instance, and the boss had a strict rule about only allowing 5 onion rings per burger no matter what...and your friend was the server (or decided that they'd accidentally cooked too many onions that day or whatever, or business was slow and they needed using), and therefore gave you an extra onion ring...you would ask him to take it back because the rule was 5 onion rings only and giving you an extra onion ring was not what you expected? (I know this is not the best example possible, just popped into my head - but as we are talking specifically about principles of rules here, in the finest detail, this example is equally as valid a one). Do you see what I mean, there is a limit beyond which it takes it too far. We are not machines, we are people and there will always be times where rules can be over-interpreted. Of course there will always be important rules that need to be adhered to, but there also has to be balance.

that's true. fair enough, i will move it back.


yeah, i ave taken things back if i got too much and it appeared to be an error. like one time i got a double-cheeseburger instead of a single, so i went back to the server and let them know. they couldn't take it back, but i tried to pay for it. they would not let me, which was kind of them. i didn't feel right about it, but i felt better that they at least knew what had happened.

Ah, that's true Aspie honesty for you .

I've done equally honest things, and then thought to myself afterwards, I don't know why I did it as no-one else does, but it's hard to behave differently than what is in-built in you.

(PS thanks for moving thread back).

Over here they call it "passive-aggressive", which is'nt exactly correct.

I've seen this happen before. People are encourged to take intiative, and then are hung out to dry for making decisions that turn out unpopular. Well, that never helps things, so the next thing to do is either to a) leave, or b) follow all orders and not risk rocking the boat.

During the "Great Reccesion", there wer'nt many places to go, and in some places it was percieved safer to get blamed for doing your job (and not get rewarded) than to take any intiative, which increased the risk of getting fired.

Admittedly, the cases I saw were pretty bad cases of poor leadership.