He Doesn’t Understand His Supervisor’s Staffing Decisions — His Supervisor Has No Interest in Explaining Them
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Imagine working at a job, and your supervisor makes a decision you don’t understand. Do you accept it, or do you ask him about it?
In this story, one security guard likes to understand why things are the way they are, so when he doesn’t understand, he asks questions. This seems to annoy his supervisor, and he’s wondering if he’s wrong for asking so many questions.
Personally, I don’t think it’s wrong to want to understand why his supervisor is making the decisions he’s making, but I can also understand why the supervisor might find the questions annoying. Keep reading to see if you think the security guard’s questions are worth asking or just annoying.
AITA for constantly questioning my supervisor?
I work for a police department as a security officer.
The building I work in has pretty high security, but less than an airport. So already you can probably get the armed services vibe of “do what you’re told and don’t ask questions”.
But I’m not in the military, and I don’t get paid enough to not ask questions.
He likes to understand why things are the way they are.
I always need to know the reason behind things. It’s just the way my brain works. I’m always asking “why?”.
If I am given an answer that makes sense for the results, I am great. The problem comes whenever things that I’m told to do or the way we’re doing things don’t make sense.
My supervisor has already told me I should put more trust him and not ask so many questions.
I didn’t like that.
He’s confused about his supervisor’s reasoning on a staffing issue.
Here’s the most recent situation: We’re currently short staffed. He’s taking an officer from one area and moving them to another area that already has 2 other officers. That leaves me with more work to do, and it’s barely possible to complete everything assigned.
The other person that was pulled now has no assignments. My supervisor keeps saying it’s because we’re short staffed, which is barely relevant because having more staff would just mean maybe 1 more person on shift and less overtime. So no matter what, we would have about the same amount of people on shift.
I talked to him about this, and asked him why he’d do this.
We had a civil discussion and came to the agreement that the officer would only be pulled away on days when the other building is particularly busy (day by day basis).
He’s wondering if he should stop asking questions.
However today he has ignored our conversation and left me to do everything myself while the other officer has nothing to do.
I asked my assistant supervisor why since he’s running shift today, and he said, “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask [our supervisor]”.
I want to email my supervisor asking him why he is still doing it this way, but frankly I feel like I’m coming off as TA.
I know for a fact they’re mad that I always question them, but I’m good at my job. I work hard and do a lot for the department. I try to put myself in his shoes and think about how I’d feel if I was constantly questioned. AITA for constantly questioning my supervisor?
It sounds like a frustrating situation. The employee wants to understand. The supervisor doesn’t want to explain.
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Let’s see how Reddit responded.
This person doesn’t think it’s wrong to ask questions.
But this person thinks he’ll eventually get fired.
Another person thinks he probably doesn’t understand everything going into his supervisor’s decision.
As for the last comment, I think he understands that he doesn’t see the whole picture. That’s why he’s asking questions. He’s not trying to tell the supervisor he’s wrong. He’s trying to understand why he’s making the decisions he’s making.
There’s a fine line between annoying and understanding. This guy isn’t sure which side he’s on.
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