Management
Posted July 18, 2010 by Mr. GuapoI’m at this weird point in my work life — I still feel like too much of a kid to use the word “career” — where I could take a job that involves me managing as few as four and as many as 12 people. This is something that I understand that You’re Supposed To Do. At some point you get a job (check), a spouse (check), a kid (check) and finally you get the yoke of management.
I really, really, really don’t want to do it. Being boss fills me with dread akin to public nudity and Bette Midler. What’s bugging me is that I don’t know whether I don’t want to do it because it’s a challenge, or I don’t want to do it because it sucks. And what bugs me more is this idea that it’s something I should do, like there’s only one road to adulthood.
I have another option. The job is powerless, and in fact somewhat politically complicated, in a corporate sort of way. But it could be pretty cool work.
Are you guys managers, anyone? Am I just chickenshit, or is this the kind of job you should really want to do to do well?
And yes, I’m aware this sounds whiny when unemployment is so high. These are good problems.
- Shortlink:
Which job would make you the better dad?
That is an excellent question.
Down the road, the management job is more likely to make me a good provider. Which is part of, but not the whole, of being a parent.
Neither job will have pleasant hours.
For whom would you rather work: a reluctant manager, or someone who wanted to be your boss?
Management is the perfect job–you don’t have to do any work. When something comes up, delegate it to your staff. If it’s more than they can handle, spin it into something more than it actually is and kick it upstairs for someone else to deal with.
My stint in management was mixed. On the one hand, my 20 or so direct reports were a pretty professional and independent lot (all consultants that we were billing out at $150+/hour – they had better be professional at that rate). That made the actual personnel management aspect minimal. Along with the usual shielding of my reports from the whims of upper management, I actually had a lot of time to work towards improving the organization as a whole, which is ideally what middle management should be about. Most places, middle management isn’t given enough slack time to effectively do this.
The part that was soul-sucking was the layoffs. I went into IT management in late 2000 right as we started to lay off 40% of our staff (in 3 waves). The first batch wasn’t so hard as we were able to fire the non-professional (and less than fully competent) people. Later waves were no fun at all. Given the trajectory of your industry, I don’t know whether you might be put into a similar situation.
I’m completely paranoid about becomming a department chair. Had I not been on maternity leave last year, it would have been asked of me (not because of any great aptitude on my part, but because of weird politics making me a competent neutral choice. The ego bust of going from being the senior member of the biology faculty with the corner officee at my old institution to “Lisa 3″ at my new institution with a interior basement office is well worth having no chance of department chair for a long time.
One (very small) reason I went back to school to earn my doctorate was to avoid middle management (I couldn’t live long term off of my botanic garden job and I didn’t want my boss’s).
Not that that’s useful advice, but just letting you know you aren’t alone.
Looks like I’m avoiding management, or at least trying to. Still might happen, but there’s a bit of relief it most likely won’t.