Is it really so difficult to say "no"?
I'm the content manager of my institution's homepage and "upper tier." I fondly think of myself as the "no" bitch. I see myself as the last line of defense the homepage has between being a functional portal to the rest of the website or being a confusing mass of random, meaningless links. When people ask to have stupid links placed on the homepage, I thank them for their suggestions and tell them "no." Unfortunatelty, a few people are able to overrule me and my otherwise content reign of power. "Upper Administration" or as I like to call them, the "non-thinkers," have the power to make me add links to the homepge that are useless to 99.999999999999999% of our users. A particular "non-thinker" at my institution believes that the homepage is actually her "personal favorites" page. I make my case to my immediate supervisors as to why we should explain to this non-thinker that the link she wants to add is a waste of precious real-estate. My plea always ends with me trying to figure out a way to add the useless link without completely screwing up my homepage. Why is it the lowly underling (i.e., me) is the only one who has the balls to say "no" to a bad idea?