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Posted by meridianday on 18-07-2006 at 12:31:
It's the luck of the draw.
My current manager, and his trainee manager who's running things while he's been seconded away, are both lovely managers.
I've had other managers who've been perfectly fine too.
But I've spent the last 21 years employed, and naturally that covers quite a few different managers, since the IT world goes for promotion by job move just as much as promotion as reward for an existing job.
My first manager was the MD of the company, who believed in only ever pointing out the negatives and ignoring the positives. Which was a bit depressing but predictable, so not really all that bad. Although the criticism was never good for anyone's confidence, but perhaps that was his plan since it meant people didn't leave very often as they didn't feel up to looking for other jobs.
Then I became, effectively, my own manager for a while - I had become very trusted so clearly he could see some positives in me after all. Can't say I enjoyed my own managership, but that is largely because I was so horribly overworked and overstressed. And the main client contact was a horribly bigoted south african scotsman who really, really didn't like dealing with a woman.
So, I was given a manager (Ian) to handle client contact and so on while I carried on doing the same stuff with less of the overwork and stress. That manager was an ex-salesman who wanted to go into project management, and he generally left me to get on with things and stayed out of the team's business. I didn't mind until it turned out he'd agreed a new deadline for some work and not bothered telling anyone except the customers - he'd agreed it when the original delivery date was 8 weeks away and I only found out when the new delivery date was 2 weeks away. At that point I realised just how far out of the real world he was, when he also hadn't noticed that all the timesheets he'd been signing off showed people coming into work 7 days every week, so there was no way we could ever have worked enough extra hours to bring the project forward 2 weeks even if he'd told us at the time he agreed the new date.
So, he got shunted onto another project (where, when it started to overrun, he told the clients that one after another member of staff was off sick with broken legs - couldn't even be bothered to make up a different ailment), and I got another manager.
This one was ambitious and hungry for the MD's attention and didn't actually want a team leader since he wanted to do that job himself. So that got a bit frustrating for me, because I wasn't the one he wanted to communicate with. I'd find everything out from other team members. He'd decided to do some work unpaid for the clients as he wanted to make a huge technological leap in the product we were working on. Unfortunately, the technology wasn't mature enough for it to succeed and it never got accepted. He was very much an R&D man and moved on to that afterwards, where he did some interesting stuff, but I was glad not to have to work for him any longer.
When he moved on I'd had enough of development so I moved into analysis and then technical analysis, where I had several very nice managers. I think I had 6 separate managers during my analysis time, all of whom were really good people who cared primarily about the work rather than covering their own backsides or advancing their own careers.
Then the company got bought. New managers were brought in, lots of people got made redundant, and I got moved from analysis back into development. I took over a set of support projects from someone who wanted the redundancy, and was effectively my own manager for several months. Then I moved to the lovely Colin, mentioned in my previous post. As much as I dislike Colin, and I now realise I was uncharitable to him in giving him a score of 9.5, he was still not as bad as Ian.
Having spent a few months complaining loudly that I was going to have to make an official complaint about Colin as he was having a bad effect on my health, I got moved to my current team. Where both the team environment and the manager(s) are lovely.
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Mallanox : "My mother was Irish and my father was an alien. I was an only child and I dress funny." Posted by CricketBeautiful on 18-07-2006 at 14:32:
My bosses?
Energetic, demanding, unpredicatable (in a predicatable way), and the ones who will choose how I spend my old age.
Good thing my coworker is on my side.
__________________
Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
- Viktor E. Frankl
Posted by Metaliant on 21-07-2006 at 10:11:
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Can I come and work there then? PPPPPLLLLLEEEEEAAAASSSSSEEEE?
__________________
Eagle in Residence
Tempory Frisker
Posted by Metaliant on 21-07-2006 at 10:15:
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What can I say but blimey.
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Eagle in Residence
Tempory Frisker
Posted by Firebird on 25-07-2006 at 16:51:
I had until recently two managers. One with the people management skills of a corpse. The other who made disorganisation an art.
As you move further up the chain You have the managers that have no idea about the job they make so many decisions on and wont listen to the staff who do the job day in and day out.
I hope to meet a nice boss soon.
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Like the Phoenix I rise from the fire. Beware all who try to tame me, you may get burned 
Posted by meridianday on 25-07-2006 at 17:03:
The Peter Principle? Promotion to incompetence? That happens a lot. Then you can't get rid of them because they can't move any further up and they will fight to avoid going back down, and the chances of losing them sideways are generally remote because of all the other "Peters" in the same position.
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Mallanox : "My mother was Irish and my father was an alien. I was an only child and I dress funny." Posted by gatchgirl on 25-07-2006 at 20:30:
My wonderful place of employment takes people who are fired from there once (because of failing a drug test). Hires them again about 6months down the line and within another 6 months makes them a shift supervisor. I'm not sure if that says a lot of bad things about the rest of us or what... I do know there are a lot of people there who do more then the recently permoted but they just might not kiss up enough..... Makes me want to go screaming from the place..
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" No gratitude needs to be voiced, your mind speaks to us!"
Racer by day, Feather Thrower all the time!
Posted by CricketBeautiful on 27-07-2006 at 16:21:
Sounds like the schools around here.
Kid's got a borderline problem, a bit of help now might bring him to the normal range. But, nope, all the funding goes to kids who have definite problems. So, you're supposed to wait till he's fallen a full two years behind before getting help, when you need lots and lots of it and the results might not be as good?
__________________
Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
- Viktor E. Frankl
Posted by gatchgirl on 27-07-2006 at 21:12:
seems about the way things are going nowadays. right down the drain sometimes
__________________
" No gratitude needs to be voiced, your mind speaks to us!"
Racer by day, Feather Thrower all the time!
Posted by Firebird on 29-07-2006 at 14:56:
Alas thats true 
Would be nice to just do a condor and 
away from it all for a bit.
__________________
Like the Phoenix I rise from the fire. Beware all who try to tame me, you may get burned
Posted by Metaliant on 29-07-2006 at 16:07:
My store could be pretty damm good, but alas, Homebase has given us the shitty staff to work with and the preivous and now store managers were given to us because Homebase doesn't want them and want to kick them out.
All I ask iis "WHY US?"
__________________
Eagle in Residence
Tempory Frisker
Posted by Firebird on 02-08-2006 at 14:40:
For the same reason we get them I guess. Move them up or sideways anywhere they can upset as many as possible and where when sacked they cant say we mistreatened them.
(problem people where I work get promoted or a sideways move for career development)
__________________
Like the Phoenix I rise from the fire. Beware all who try to tame me, you may get burned
Posted by Metaliant on 04-08-2006 at 05:29:
There has been a idea for streamlined management at Homebase stores some years ago, which still doesn't make sense to me, but that didn't quite worked out.
There's another one called 300 - 1 (no idea why) where all the assistant store managers and departmental managers who are on Grade D (top wage grade) got a choice. Reaplly for an assistant store/departmental manager job or take redundancy.
I hav been told that they will do this to the supervisors who are either on Grade D or Grade C and then it will filter down to us Grade B full timers and part timers (that's me).
One department manager was given a job to look after the inventory, which would have been paid £1000 less than he's on now, which would have meant that all the supervisors would get paid more than he would. He will leave (don't blame him) and go straight into a less stressful job and better paid job by driving around delivering Galor Gas bottles.
I get paid only 5 p more than te miminal wage people and I am no better off as I was unemployed. The problem/question for me is this. Can I afford to take the redundancy or not?
__________________
Eagle in Residence
Tempory Frisker
Posted by Firebird on 05-08-2006 at 15:36:
probably not given unemployment money. What part of the Uk are you?
I know of some vacancies London way if you are not too far
__________________
Like the Phoenix I rise from the fire. Beware all who try to tame me, you may get burned
Posted by Metaliant on 06-08-2006 at 08:23:
Unfortuantly I live in the Black Country, so travel is out and also I can't move down there because I can't afford it.
__________________
Eagle in Residence
Tempory Frisker
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