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Our company is set up in a ranked structure. There is someone I know, when we are told to go to the back of a company or something, us senior ranked (but not too senior) employees would do what we are told and move to the back, but there is this one person who just will not do it.

Instead, he is always out at the front supervising like he is higher than he really is, when he is the same rank as us and same position as us. The higher ups don't care about it, but they won't do anything about it and he is free to just stand there while the rest of us get growled at.

No one gave him any special privileges or a specific allocation to any job in particular. He is in fact an equal to us, but thinks he is higher.

How to tell them without getting yelled at that they are not as high as they think they are, and they should do what everyone else is doing?

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  • He wasn't given anything to give him authorization to give him that sort of position. He was equal to us, I even asked one of the officers and even he said that he doesn't know why the guy stepped out and kept doing it.
    – natural
    Oct 25 '17 at 1:33
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    Perhaps you can try your luck at Workplace.se, pretty sure i've saw similar question as this before. Possible answer : workplace.stackexchange.com/a/95746/60722
    – Revol729
    Oct 25 '17 at 2:08
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    Another potentially relevant Workplace question: How to handle a coworker pretending to be my boss? (and linked q's as well)
    – Em C
    Oct 25 '17 at 12:58
  • @Revol729 - Please don't recommend crossposting. Instead, flag it for moderator attention, and if appropriate it will be migrated.
    – JohnP
    Oct 25 '17 at 15:01
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    @Revol729 - That is what I am saying. He may get a better answer on IPS, but Stack Exchange discourages cross posting to multiple sites. If it is a better fit there, flag it for a moderator to migrate it instead.
    – JohnP
    Oct 26 '17 at 1:15
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If your superiors are fine with him acting like that, then perhaps he isn't overstepping his bounds.

While he wasn't given authorization to be in that sort of position, he took it for himself, and no one stopped him. The officers know about it, but don't think negatively of it enough to try and stop him. If this continues as it is, he may very well oficially receive permission to continue what he is doing as the officers will see that he is capable of supervising.

If it really is a negative influence to the team, then it is up to the team to explain that to the officers to stop them, I think. It would be difficult to receive a positive outcome speaking to the person directly without involving any officers at this point.

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  • @natural, In addition, if there is any work or organizing that needs to get done at the very last minute and there is no officer immediately around. Someone from the rest of your team must be willing to step up and do that work before the other guy does it. And if you don't know who that's going to be, maybe your team can agree to someone in advance and have a daily rotation/weekly rotation to make sure everyone gets their turn.
    – Stephan Branczyk
    Oct 25 '17 at 8:02

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