Tag Archives: management

Message received…

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As much as I try to be a good trooper, there’s just something in my personality that seems to pick up on the snarky, the jaded, and the slightly bitter. What can I say; government service brings out the best in my inner malcontent. That makes it hard not to pick out and focus on the little sound bites that hit your ear on a daily basis. Like first thing this morning, when I heard a snipped of conversation between a vexed young line employee and a not particularly grizzled officer turned civilian. She was asking why things needed to be done a certain way, which based on my understanding of the issue seemed like a perfectly reasonable question. His response, though, was telling: That’s the guidance we got from higher; we don’t ask questions, we just do what it says.

That pretty much tells me what I need to know about how to go along to get along in this little part of Uncle Sam’s extended family.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Welcome to Thunderdome…

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We had a meeting a few days ago about what each of us would be doing in the event a major natural disaster hit while we were at the office. I think it’s sort of cute that the powers that be are planning on people staying at their desks for the first hour of a catastrophic event. Sure it would be nice to think that everyone was an automaton who would run the checklists, rationally assess the situation, and make good decisions based on available facts… but lets face it, you’re flying against the strong wind of human nature. In those first minutes, assuming the building hasn’t fallen on our heads, you’re going to see a mass exodus as people’s flight instinct kicks in. During times of real crisis, we’re hard wired to think to hearth and home, not the office and redundant backup. I wouldn’t want to be the brave and crazy soul who tried standing in the doorway blocking the flood tide of people on their way out. Getting trampled isn’t really my style.

I suppose it’s a good enough plan if you aren’t bothered by considerations such as reality and basic human nature. The best I can hope for in these meetings is that I’m sitting far enough back in the room that most people won’t see me rolling my eyes and sketching out my own plan to escape, evade, and recover from whatever big nasty event ultimately befalls us.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of previously de-published blogs appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Telework…

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Not long ago We received the following message from our Operations office: The facility will remain closed today. By direction of the Uberboss, no one will report to work. Personnel can work from home. Please check Facebook in the morning to find out if we will be open tomorrow.

This is fine, except for two issues. The first and easiest to address is that I’m pretty sure 60% of the people in this office don’t know Facebook from Foosball. It works fine for those of us who aren’t horrified by the very thought of the internet, but for the rest, well, I guess they’ll figure it out when they show up and the lights are off.

The second issue is more telling. Feeling cheeky (imagine that), I asked simply, if “personnel can work from home” means we are authorized to telework. No, came the response from the Uberboss, it means you’re authorized to work from “an alternate workplace. We don’t telework. I don’t believe in telework.” So, yeah, we’re authorized to work from home – as long as we don’t call it telework, apparently. This would be more reassuring if it wasn’t coming from the guy who thinks you need to have paper on your desk to actually qualify as doing work.

Why on earth someone would think that an information age employee needs to be physically located in an office during pre-determined hours is simply beyond me. We don’t create physical products. Our office isn’t open to customers – We’re behind a locked door, behind a security guard, behind a fence toped with razor wire for God’s sake. It’s not like a customer is going to accidentally wander in and discover that none of the project managers were actually there. The fact is we don’t telework because then the Uberboss can’t see us and would actually have to rely on managerial skill to make sure projects were being finished well and on time. Easier to just wander by, ask why there isn’t paperwork on your desk, tell you do do something random and unrelated to your primary function, and wander off to annoy the next employee.

At least I’ll never have to wonder what it’s like living in the 19th century. From where I’m sitting it seems to be filled with a whole bunch of stupid.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of previously de-published blogs appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

General alarm…

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For the record, when the building is locked down and employees have been told to “shelter in place,” it’s not a good idea to send people out of the designated safe zones to track down people elsewhere in the building. We have these fancy things called telephones on our desks that are like search parties, but not as apt to end up getting you smashed on the head or eviscerated by flying debris. Also, your senior staff and supervisors all are issued cell phones/blackberries. Texting and email works pretty well on those even when you can’t get a call out. Plus, you’re paying like $10k a month for them so why not given them a workout?

I won’t even go into how we heard nothing from your vaunted security and operations staff. MIA. The whole time we were locked down. I have to admit that telling the director of the organization with which we share the building that we didn’t want to talk to them about what went well and what didn’t was a nice touch… Especially since we’re technically their tenant. I mean we certainly wouldn’t want to consider ways we could do things more effectively in the future. Way to make friends and influence people. The two senior people in the building continuing their urination contest during a period of crisis is sure to fill the workforce with a sense of confidence in their leaders. Nice work, Captain Queeg.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of previously de-published blogs appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Friendly advice for the young and ambitious…

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I was once like you. I was young and ambitious. I wanted to streak up the career ladder further and faster than anyone. For those out there who want to climb, you’re eventually going to reach the point where you’ll be required to make a life-altering decision. You’re going to have to reconcile a nominal pay increase with the enormous pain in the ass that is becoming a first line supervisor.

If you’re even hesitating for a second in deciding whether that’s something interesting to you, let me key you into a secret – It’s not worth it. It’s not worth it at twice the pay. Sure, if you’re lucky there are going to be one or two hard chargers in your group, but most of the rest are going to be average at best and you’ll land an unholy sprinkling of dregs, sociopaths, malcontents, and those whose best service would have been to retire a decade or two ago.

Take a bit of advice from someone who was ambitious before you came along. Find yourself a nice mid-level position, gather the reins of a couple of projects, and enjoy a fruitful career concerned with meeting your own deadlines and being limited mostly by only your own capacity to work. Don’t, under any circumstances, allow them to make you a supervisor, team leader, or any other euphemistic term for becoming part of the problem rather than its solution. You’ll end up looking back at what started out as a promising career and wondering when it became a low-budget shitshow.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of previously de-published blogs appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

ESP…

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Contrary to popular belief, I don’t have ESP, clairvoyance, or the ability to teleport back in time to set right things that once went wrong. When an email sits in your inbox for 12 days and misses a key suspense to echelons higher than reality, no matter how frantic you sound at my desk, I can’t magically manufacture correctly updated data for you to use in a report. If it was due on the 8th and it’s now the 11th, you’re pretty much hosed no matter how brilliant I make the numbers look.

I’m not going to point out that you, as the high and mighty Uberboss, have two administrative assistants who sit right outside your door and are theoretically supposed to keep track of your email and calendar. I know the three of you are probably overwhelmed by the number of messages slipping stealthily into your inbox undetected. Email is sneaky like that. New messages are rarely boldly highlighted in any way and it’s so easy to overlook the little red exclamation point… or the fact that the message title turned red when it was close to becoming past due.

I know your wandering around issuing a slightly different version of the same random task to every third person who’s unfortunate enough to cross your path keeps you awfully busy, but Uberboss or not, when you behave like a petulant child, that’s pretty much how you’re going to be treated.
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Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of previously de-published blogs appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Clock watching…

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Some supervisors live and die by the clock. I’m not one of them. If you get your job done, why should I care if it takes you five hours or eight? Of course if I know it takes you five, I’m going to find something else for you to do, but if you’re quiet about it and don’t draw attention to yourself, what’s it to me if you check in on Facebook or look up the afternoon’s scores on ESPN?

I’ve never understood the people who live to catch someone taking a long lunch or coming in a handful of minutes after their scheduled start time. If the work is getting done, who’s being hurt? Seriously, if you have nothing better to do than run a stopwatch on your colleagues, maybe it’s time to take a look at your own workload and see if you’re doing all you can. More importantly, if you want to continue keeping the official shot clock for the office, remember that it’s very likely someone just might start watching you and waiting for an excuse to follow your example.

Payback is what it is, so don’t be surprised when you get got.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of previously de-published blogs appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Happy birthday: or Here’s your letter of depreciation…

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My birthday is right around the corner and there’s no way I’d rather celebrate than by receiving a condescending form letter from the executive suite telling me how great an opportunity it is for me to be a part of the team. Seriously? I’m sure that someone at echelons above reality thought that this sounded like a good idea. A real morale booster for the Uberboss to “recognize” the line employees’ ability to stay alive and employed for another year while reminding them “how good they have it.” Yep. That’s the ticket!

When you combine the condescension with the truly monumental management failures we’ve see on a daily basis, it’s really more like a letter of depreciation than anything else. If you really want to congratulate me, how about a “59 minutes” and letting me head home early to celebrate my “big day” in the company of people who actually give a rat’s ass. That I’d appreciate.

But your letter? You can go ahead stuff that in your inbox.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of previously de-published blogs appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Well trained…

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As a matter of policy, we want a well trained and highly educated workforce to carry out the agency’s business. One of the great military-as-management-philosophy aphorisms is that an organization should “train as it fights.” That is to say, it should build its training program based on situations and circumstances it will encounter in the real world. Of course that’s not the standard we train against.

Our training is driven by a “points” system. Each of several hundred real world and online courses are valued as a specific number of training points. Once you reach the prescribed number of points for the year, you are, by definition, “well trained.” This is great if your objective is to be well trained in as short a time as possible; not so much if you actually want to learn something. Then again, learning something isn’t actually part of the training requirement so if it happens, that’s mostly just a bonus.

On a recent morning I had a few hours of unplanned free time, I racked up more than half of my required yearly points after about three hours of clicking through various PowerPoint slides and Flash presentations… while also having discussions with other staffers, answering the phone, sending email, and monitoring breaking news on Charlie Sheen. I don’t think that was necessarily the kind of quality learning the training office hoped to achieve, but that’s what happens when you base the requirement on earning a fixed number of points rather than on actual knowledge gained or skills needed to stay current in your career field. This is doubly true when you write off professional pride as a motivating factor.

Fortunately, I’m now officially “well trained” for 2011… so I can put this sad, sad experience out of my mind for another 11 months.

Editorial Note: This is part of a continuing series of previously unattributed posts appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

When the shoe is on the other foot…

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From time to time you’ve seen me rail against the incompetence of management, their unresponsiveness to questions, and their apparent lack of interest in much of what’s going on around them. Well, with 10 days into my stint as a supervisor, I’ve already found myself hopelessly overwhelmed with paperwork, dangerously close to missing key milestone dates, and utterly annoyed at the ability of a supervisor to actually direct any work. For the last ten days, I’ve managed to call meetings, beat my BlackBerry to near unconsciousness, and not personally do any actual work. It’s a vicious cycle really; the more I engage in a project, the less I am able to actually do with it… and lord, don’t even get me started on the information papers, memos, and policies I’m supposed to be reading and approving. But damn don’t I hate it now that the shoe is on the other foot.