The Business Perspective
What a week it's been. People in day-job land have been checking on me and fretting about me, ever since the surprise news on Monday that I'm being replaced as Quality Manager and moved to the position of Senior Quality Engineer. Taking over the manager job will be the quality engineer from the Mexicali plant who's been coming up here periodically to help us out. I've actually been trying to get him relocated here permanently for the past year. As you might imagine, though, the way he's being moved here isn't what I expected.
I was surprised, but I'm not really all that upset. Back in 2009, I got half my department taken away was saddled with writing instruction manuals after they laid off the technical writer - that upset me a lot more. This time, I'm taking it a lot better than some of the other people I've heard from. As I said, I've been wanting this guy to move here, so I think it's a good thing for the company to do it. Many of my responsibilities aren't changing (and neither is my paycheck, so that's a good thing), and I'll get some new stuff to work on. And you may or may not be surprised to hear that I'm actually relieved, because now I won't have to do that "being a manager" stuff anymore.
Back at my last company, in oven-world, I was picked out, placed on the ladder of success, and told to start climbing. That ladder was definitely leaning against the wrong wall. Here in this job, there hasn't really been any pressure to climb, or at least there hadn't been until recently. But in recent months, there had also been talk about "lateral job development," where you take on new challenges and expand your role without necessarily moving up the managerial ranks. I'd said that sounded more like something I was interested in. I guess they listened.
Business management is completely bewildering to me. What gets me most is how much of it is just... vapor. You sit in these strategy meetings and talk about how you're going to leverage this and optimize that and collaborate on the other, and you come up with this twelve point plan for the coming year - and then you walk out of the room and act like none of it happened. Of those twelve points you mapped out, you'll really be expected to accomplish one - and nobody tells you which one. I'd much rather commit to something and then do it.
And then there's one other point:
These two tags hang on my cubicle wall, and this week I've been pointing to the one on the lower left. The one that says, "Robert Black, Author." That's the only title that's actually worth anything to me. That's the one that matters. And if working in this job enables me to keep that effort going, then the job can call me anything it wants.
Well, as long as it's not something obscene, anyway. That would make for a pretty embarrassing business card, don't you think?
I was surprised, but I'm not really all that upset. Back in 2009, I got half my department taken away was saddled with writing instruction manuals after they laid off the technical writer - that upset me a lot more. This time, I'm taking it a lot better than some of the other people I've heard from. As I said, I've been wanting this guy to move here, so I think it's a good thing for the company to do it. Many of my responsibilities aren't changing (and neither is my paycheck, so that's a good thing), and I'll get some new stuff to work on. And you may or may not be surprised to hear that I'm actually relieved, because now I won't have to do that "being a manager" stuff anymore.
Back at my last company, in oven-world, I was picked out, placed on the ladder of success, and told to start climbing. That ladder was definitely leaning against the wrong wall. Here in this job, there hasn't really been any pressure to climb, or at least there hadn't been until recently. But in recent months, there had also been talk about "lateral job development," where you take on new challenges and expand your role without necessarily moving up the managerial ranks. I'd said that sounded more like something I was interested in. I guess they listened.
Business management is completely bewildering to me. What gets me most is how much of it is just... vapor. You sit in these strategy meetings and talk about how you're going to leverage this and optimize that and collaborate on the other, and you come up with this twelve point plan for the coming year - and then you walk out of the room and act like none of it happened. Of those twelve points you mapped out, you'll really be expected to accomplish one - and nobody tells you which one. I'd much rather commit to something and then do it.
And then there's one other point:
These two tags hang on my cubicle wall, and this week I've been pointing to the one on the lower left. The one that says, "Robert Black, Author." That's the only title that's actually worth anything to me. That's the one that matters. And if working in this job enables me to keep that effort going, then the job can call me anything it wants.
Well, as long as it's not something obscene, anyway. That would make for a pretty embarrassing business card, don't you think?
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