Middle Management Blues

This is a true story.  This has nothing to do with my usual manager-type ramblings, but it's so good it has to be shared.  The names have been changed because all the names get changed. To appreciate this story, it helps to know the victim, who is a sliderule-using, pocket-protector-wearing, tape-across-the-nose-of-his-glasses type of engineer.  Not a bad guy, but d efinitely a nerd .  Here we go... I was lucky enough to meet RJ Mentes at my first job.  I was straight out of college and pretty clueless in both life and plant engineering, and he was kind enough to help show me the ropes in both.  I haven’t seen him much since I took the job at the gulag, but I think of him every so often when something really funny happens, because he has a sense of humor like a knuckleball – you never knew where it was going and its effects left its victims scratching their heads. When RJ was a young man in the early 1970s, the US was involved in Vietnam , and yo...

No meetings, no vendors, I focus and things get done; Alas they have found me, I squint into sun. Sorry.  BSME, not BA – Eng. As I noted in the last post, I bailed out on the yuk of my last job and joined up with a much smaller, more electric place to ply my trade.  It’s a start-up and my responsibilities are much more diverse, which of course means I get involved in more than my title would lead one to believe.  After six months, it is beginning to get more like whack-a-mole than I’d like, though still fun as hell.  Given a few minutes for reflection, I harken back to the good old days, a few short months ago, the halcyon times when I could work, uninterrupted, not on the things I have to do but on the things I wanted to do. This is where the screen goes fuzzy…and then… My first day of work I was given a badge and a tour (which took maybe 15 minutes).  The plant manager led me back to my new office, shook my hand, and said, “Have at it.”  Th...

It’s been a good long time since I added any thoughts to this blog.  I have a couple good excuses.  I quit my job.   After years of trying to change the organization from within, I gave up.  The signs were all over all my previous posts, and I’d wager that most readers figured it out before I did.  I’m sure more spite will spittle into subsequent posts now and again.  Anyway, I spent what was left of my genius trying to find a job. If you read the posts then you know that I live in a moderately rural part of the country and jobs that fit my skills are rarer than Kobe Bryant assists.   Eventually I hooked on with a much smaller org.  In addition to responsibilities in maintenance and engineering, I became the de facto purchasing manager, warehouse manager, relief supervisor, relief plant manager, part-time receiving clerk, etc etc.  It’s as much fun as I’ve ever had working. However, people are still people, and people make orgs. ...