Middle Management Blues

I used to really like Dilbert until I joined the ranks of middle management. Then it stopped being funny and started becoming eerily prescient. Take, for example, the strip from 10/25 . I'd like to post it but I think Scott Adams would sue me for all my Google ad revenue. Anyway, if you substitute just two words in Asok's line in the last panel you have my boss in a nutshell. It is unbelievably uncanny. I massaged it a bit and sent a copy to an ex-coworker who agreed exactly. BTW, the reason he is an ex-coworker is because my boss is such a cliche-spewing automaton. Some folks have a very low tolerance for idiocy... Now you know why I write this thing.

My family got XM radio for me several birthdays ago and it has proven to be one of the best gifts ever. We live far from any metro area, so regular FM radio consists of a couple classic rock stations (I never thought I’d get sick of ZZ Top, but…), some Spanish/ethnic stations, and many, many country stations. AM is mostly Rush, Beck and the odd UFO enthusiast. My tastes are varied, but basically rock. Classic rock, hair metal, acoustic/folk, new wave/80s, jam bands, alternative – if it’s in the rock genre I probably listen to it regularly. One of the highlights of my day is listening to Gone Phishin on the Jam On channel on my way home. Today I worked so late I missed most of it – I’m an idiot. I have a moderately long commute, which means I get a good opportunity to listen on both legs. On the way into work I’m gearing up for the day ahead – what meetings do I have and what do I want to get out of them; what tasks do I need to complete and which deadlines can I blow off (beca...

I may have mentioned this in an earlier post, so forgive me for repeating, but I have never really fit the leadership mold of the plant where I work, and I suspect of the entire division of the company. They like the driver-driver model, type A personality. I’m not. On the Meyers-Briggs test I am right smack dab in the middle. In many places this would be a positive boon, but where I work I am considered weak, too accommodating, and a poor delegator. I would admit to the latter as something I need to improve (and would state unequivocally that it is better than delegating everything, which some of my co-workers do). I totally disagree that I’m weak (of course I do) and I’m proud that people think I’m accommodating. Ever since I started down the management track I have heard these complaints. I am certain that I was passed up for promotions because of these perceptions. I will freely admit that I have a naïve utopian worldview in which a for-profit company should be a meritocr...

As I’ve written on at least one occasion, life is a bell curve. There are a few really good bloggers, a lot of average bloggers, and a few unreadable hacks. This is a near universal rule. Statistically it’s a hard and fast rule, but have you heard of poetic license? One exception to this is consultants. Here it goes like this – there are a few decent consultants and a whole bunch of bottom-dwelling scum suckers. No disrespect intended… The plant where I work is part of a much bigger company, but we’ve been traded around like the bear in Pit. Times are tough, and sometimes it seems we’re too desperate for that magic bullet that will turn our fortunes around. Into that void leaps a host of schleps to rescue us from our money. You may have noticed that I tend to be a bit negative when it comes to the people who pay my salary. It’s true. My company is a lot like a self-obsessed teenage girl who stares into the mirror all day and wonders aloud to all her friends, “Am I pretty? ...

My boss doesn’t have the faintest freaking clue what I do all day.   He always seems astounded when I beg off assignments because I’m busier than Nathan’s hot dog chef on the 4 th of July.   Surely he must wander past my office in the middle of the morning and notice that I’m out in the plant, right?   He must read all those emails I send his way of the initiatives I’m working on and the results I’m getting.   I know he walks past my office on his way out at the end of the day and sees me in there pounding away on the keyboard.   What is he thinking? Here’s some background on this dysfunction-in-the-making.   He’s fairly new.   He’s younger than anyone in the group who reports to him.   He wants to make headlines and continue his assault on Mt. Senior Executive.   I’ve been there a while.   I’m not quite as young as he.   I want to do my job well, have a successful team, and go home to my family at the end of the day with enough en...