Staff refuse to work without a shift supervisor on site, boss demands one employee take charge without promotion, and fails: ‘I saw nothing but eye rolls’ – FAIL Blog

To be fair, if one of your coworkers started assigning tasks to the entire staff without actually having the authority to do so, would you be willing to listen?

Gaining authority over other people at work is something you must earn, whether through the respect of your coworkers or an actual promotion and endorsement from higher-ups in the company. What is unlikely to happen is for you to march into the staff room and simply demand the authority, without anything tangible to back you up.

Which is exactly why the employee in the story below was unable to get any of the staff to follow their lead.

Despite the fact that this employee was the most responsible person on shift and the only one who cared enough to get work done even without the shift supervisor on site, they couldn’t get anyone else to listen to them. They tried to assign tasks to staff members instead of waiting for the supervisor, but no one was willing to adhere to someone who is not technically in charge. And honestly, who would blame them?