Stupid Management Decision

<rant>
I hate when people get promoted to manager because they just happened to be there the longest, without having any kind of experience or knowledge or even common sense. Just p** me off right now...
</rant>

Why is that ? It is not the first time I had that happening ... Don't get me wrong, I don't actually want to be a manager myself so I don't feel left out (I am more the hands-on guy), but having to deal with people like that all the time is doing my head in ...

Phew .. now feeling better :P

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Comments

bertieb

Probably a case of 'jobs for the boys!' etc etc

Don't let it wind you up, it's wasted energy, besides - it's Friday!!!

gorebrush

bertieb wrote: »

Probably a case of 'jobs for the boys!' etc etc

Don't let it wind you up, it's wasted energy, besides - it's Friday!!!

Jobs for the boys indeed. It's just happened in my place as well

Turgon

jibbajabba wrote: »

<rant>
I hate when people get promoted to manager because they just happened to be there the longest, without having any kind of experience or knowledge or even common sense. Just p** me off right now...
</rant>

Why is that ? It is not the first time I had that happening ... Don't get me wrong, I don't actually want to be a manager myself so I don't feel left out (I am more the hands-on guy), but having to deal with people like that all the time is doing my head in ...

Phew .. now feeling better :P

If someone is there long enough they have to throw a bone. Sends a signal that loyalty is recognised and rewarded within an organisation. As for ability dont get hung up on that. Companies promote or recognise people who are mediocre all the time. It's policy in corporate life all over the world.

Claymoore

This has been an observed phenomenon for decades, and a documented and debated phenomenon for the last 40 years:

The Peter Principle states that "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence".

The principle holds that in a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently. Eventually they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their "level of incompetence"), and there they remain, being unable to earn further promotions. Peter's Corollary states that "in time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out their duties" and adds that "work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence". "Managing upward" is the concept of a subordinate finding ways to subtly "manage" superiors in order to limit the damage that they end up doing.

The Dilbert Principle takes this further, asserting the employee may never have been competent at all:

Dogbert says that "leadership is nature's way of removing morons from the productive flow". Adams himself explained,[1]

I wrote The Dilbert Principle around the concept that in many cases the least competent, least smart people are promoted, simply because they’re the ones you don’t want doing actual work. You want them ordering the doughnuts and yelling at people for not doing their assignments—you know, the easy work. Your heart surgeons and your computer programmers—your smart people—aren’t in management. That principle was literally happening everywhere.

jibbajabba

Claymoore wrote: »

This has been an observed phenomenon for decades, and a documented and debated phenomenon for the last 40 years:

The Peter Principle states that "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence".

The Dilbert Principle takes this further, asserting the employee may never have been competent at all:

Aww man I wish I could Facebook that without upsetting anyone lol

MrRyte

jibbajabba wrote: »

....Don't get me wrong, I don't actually want to be a manager myself so I don't feel left out (I am more the hands-on guy), but having to deal with people like that all the time is doing my head in....

The manager/supervisor has to deal with so many little things that it's a wonder why anyone in their right mind would want to deal with the headaches.

My approach: be at the very bottom of the boss' list of worries so that I won't have to worry about him/her.

UnixGuy

jibbajabba wrote: »

Aww man I wish I could Facebook that without upsetting anyone lol

same here ! I shared it then I deleted it !

RobertKaucher

What is the old saying about hiring from the ranks like this? "You lose your best tech, and only gain a mediocre manager."

Turgon

RobertKaucher wrote: »

What is the old saying about hiring from the ranks like this? "You lose your best tech, and only gain a mediocre manager."

One of the problems is it is quite a leap to go from a command line specialist to actually managing people, much less a department. Totally different skills come into play. Anyone can manage badly. Managing well takes a lot of work.

Turgon

Claymoore wrote: »

This has been an observed phenomenon for decades, and a documented and debated phenomenon for the last 40 years:

The Peter Principle states that "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence".

The Dilbert Principle takes this further, asserting the employee may never have been competent at all:

There's quite a lot in that. All I will say having been on both sides of the coin during my career as either a technical specialist or a manager is that managing well is an art. The IT industry is normalising now like any industry that is technical, had a boom and is settling down. As a consequence the top careers are less technical and more managerial/commercial/strategic. In other words, if you want longevity, money and a succesfull career in IT, get some. Engineers make the world work, but the world is run by managers. They get paid more too.

spicy ahi

Agree with everyone else. Don't worry about it! I've also been on both sides of the coin and I can tell you that more often than not the person who is promoted internally didn't want the promotion. As Turgon said, it is an almost complete shift of gears and it's really like starting over in a totally new type of job. I was thrown into the fire the first time around. My boss suddenly quit to pursue a higher paying job (he fit the bill of bad tech, good manager though; so he found his calling and pursued it) I was the exact opposite. I was the driving force behind a major network upgrade and because I was the project lead and already leading the team, upper management threw me into the site supervisor role. I bombed it. Trying to keep track of project timelines is one thing, but having to monitor career progression, balancing egos in disputes, having to look at your team and determine who deserves the limited number of awards and bonuses when everyone is doing a good job. Those were just a few of the headaches I encountered. I lost a lot of good techs (and good friends to boot) because I was essentially learning on the fly and didn't make the best management decisions, but I couldn't turn back the clock. I learned a lot, true, but it took so much out of me mentally that I went to my manager and asked to be moved to another site because I couldn't handle it anymore and I would probably quit if I wasn't relieved of management duties. Luckily, another guy from another contract was looking for a management position and he was in a senior network position so we did a position swap.

I vowed never again to assume a management position. I avoid it so much that I left that senior position to take my current job because my supervisor there was trying to promote me to technical lead. But his idea of technical lead was not strictly technical; he essentially wanted me to handle his managerial duties for the network employees while the systems lead did the same for the systems employees, etc. And what would he be doing? Sitting on his lazy butt collecting a paycheck. If there were a definition for promote the idiot in wikipedia, his picture should be on it.

I have to admit, though, that like Turgon said having the ability to assume management roles will go a long way to extending your IT shelf life. And there are many opportunities to be a working manager where you're still doing tech work but dabbling a bit in the management venue (hopefully with a good manager of your own to support and nurture you) Plus, there may come a day when being a server monkey may no longer appeal to me so I keep good working management opportunities in mind when looking for jobs as well so I can gain experience on both sides of the coin.