Funny... get into management and think you get more power. Nope... less. Nothing worse than when your boss tells you to do something you think is completely asinine and instructs you to be the face of the decision.

I've had like 3 of these in the last month, what a shitty month.

Here's an example. There is a weekly meeting that my boss asked me to call... that I didn't want to call because the meeting is pointless. It has been going on for like 3 months, and one of the other attendees sent me a note telling me to invite Person X. I know my boss hates person X. So, before inviting that person, I mention the suggestion to my boss who says, "I don't want them there." So, I visit the requestor and say, "I'm not sure it's a good idea..." and blah blah blah.

Fuck me. Is it really that hard to man up?

That's the thing, you make it so he doesn't have to.

Life is fun!

P.S. Sorry you're having a frustrating time with work

In that given situation, why can't you say, "my boss doesn't want him there?"

That would be safe to say in my work environment, anyway...

Office politics. Can't throw your boss under the bus to underlings, only to his boss.

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
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VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

Yep go to his Boss there always one above!

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"Creating Havoc and Pie Since 2001!"
My Website: http://www.anthonyhays.com
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I've yet to see anyone advance in a company by throwing thier boss under the bus, but I guess there's a 1st time for everything

Well, I can say that it's happened. At Earthlink throwing your boss under the bus was a regular practice and you sometimes got promoted to their position.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

And how's Earthlink doing these days?

Wouldn't know, I jumped ship shortly after the "merger" -- I was an old school Mindspring employee and the new atmosphere was.... not good.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

On paper, "fighting the good fight" might seem right, but it really doesn't work. Basically it's good cop / bad cop, and my boss wants me to be bad cop because he can't handle conflict.

Bottom line is, you have to pick your battles, and there is a fine line between bad leadership and something actionable. Good rule of thumb... if you're going to go after your boss, you better kill him or make sure you stop reporting to him. No matter how good of a job you think you do, if your boss wants to "get you", he'll find a way.

Anyhoo... no point.

Problem with managers is that most don't know how to manage.

That's common Leo, it's the theory (it's name is slipping my mind atm) where you promote people until they are no longer productive. I see it all the time in organizations where someone is great at thier job so you promote them. They continue getting promoted until they are no longer great, then they stay at that position and you have an organization full of non performers. It often ends up with people who have great tech skills in management positions that require a skill set they never mastered.

The Peter Principle. A person is promoted to their incompetence.

It's called Government.

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
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VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

Hardly limited to government. I've worked a few large organizations where its was an amazing place to work or a total shithole, depending on who your Director / VP was. And many amazingly awesome family businesses turn to shit when the visionary entrepreneur / founder retires or sells.

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Hope is the new black.

It couldn't be more prevalent anywhere than it is in hospitals.

I don't know. It runs pretty fucking rampant in InsertTechIndustryHere.

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Reading this, having spent most of my career as a manager or director... well, let's just say that there are way too many staff that bitch and moan about what their manager should do for them. You guys have unrealistic expectations.

I've seen so many people that have sat in the same mid-level jobs for 5+ years. Talk to them for 10 minutes and it's painfully obvious why. Bunch of whiny pussies.

You must work at IBM as a manager/director. Their job is to babysit whiny mid-level resources...rather than you know...manage them.

That horse is getting a bit high.

This is why I became a Union Rep!


I feel for you Orme, hope you make it to the top so you can improve the methods that are far too common these days.

Joxur, what you find is in

Hmm... random "submit". To continue...

What you find is there is no perfect manager, but there are some bad traits that are real killers. The number 1 I have ran into are managers who put artificial constraints on you - for whatever reason.

In this example, requiring a meeting to be called, requiring specific people to be invited, and not owning it is silly. However, if it was just this this thing, it wouldn't be a big deal - that happens. But, there are a series of events. For example, specifying that there are certain people my people aren't allowed to talk to because that might trigger.... A QUESTION (oh noze).

You have to work FOR your people, not against them. And what I see, a lot of people spend a lot of time unknowingly working against their people. Regardless, this is what happens in big companies, you just have to work thorugh it.

The reality of most organizations is that by the time you get to the position you could actually do something in, your hands are so tied by red tape and policy as to make you about as effective as complete inaction would have been.

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^^--- this is true, but I still hope he can manage.

My manager manages, but the others don't, my peers complain that they only focus on keeping their boss happy. That seems the role of mgmt, just keep the guy above you happy. In rare cases, you get a goo manager who also fights to keep his people happy, but eventually they dont move up anymore. Conflict in corporate America = career stop.

Yeah. It's hard to basically sit there and listen to complete bullshit, or to basically lie straight to someone's face because their title is 1 or more higher than yours, but it's the only way.

As a manager, I only have 3 "real" tasks:
1. Make sure my people have work to do with clear priorities
2. Get shit out of their way
3. Make sure they have reasonable opportunities for training/etc.

All the bullshit reports/meetings/whatever I go to is to do those 3 things. Don't get me wrong, I'm not super-manager, and a couple of my people hate me (the slackers).