Management Sucks

That alone is not necessarily a problem, but the younger generations are showing little interest in taking on the stresses/risks of management. They would just assume make a little bit less money and enjoy time with friends and family.

Interesting post over at Americablog. It looks like the UK is having issues with their "baby boomer" generation retiring en masse just as we do in the US.

I quoted the above because I fall into that category completely. I've mentioned that I do contract work for the VA, and a number of the VA folks have tried to get me to move onto the "management track". No thanks.

Actually, there are two reasons why I won't go into management. First, ultimately I don't think I'd be very good at it. I've done my stints of "supervising" people in the past, and despite being a tree hugging liberal, I have very little patience for stupid shit. I have a very good understanding of the difference between an honest fuckup, and a really stupid fuckup. The latter I don't deal with well at all.

Example;

In my previous job, I wrote some data interfaces. Client sends a tape with a bunch of data on it, a tech loads the tape, invokes the proper interface that I wrote, and the data gets stuffed into the database in the correct fashion. One particular tech (recent business graduate from Arizona State) walks into my office. The exchange goes like this;

him: "Something's wrong with the new Jackson accounts".
me: type type type.. "hmmm.. the data is scrambled".
him: "ya.. that's what I'm talking about."
me: "lets look at your terminal history to see what happened"
me: type type type "oh hell.. you used the USC interface to load the Jackson data"
him: "oh"
me: "I wrote step by step instructions on how to load each type of tape, so a monkey could do it. This is going to take me 4 hours to cleanup."
him: "ya.. sorry"
me: "get the fuck out of my office"

I suppose there once was a day when you could say that to somebody when they cause you a half day worth of grief. Not anymore.

Still, the bottom line is that the person that "supervises" me makes about 15% more than I do. You would have to be on crack to want that. Most people I know don't want it.. and they offered me the job, I'd decline it. It's just not worth the hassel.

Now, I do know some people who have "ambition" for whatever reason. Perhaps it's because we're conditioned to be ambitious from birth. They play the corporate game and angle to get that first level corporate management job thinking it's just a stepping stone to the top. It's not. All that's going to happen for the vast majority is a lot of stress and ultimate failure... and it's a hell of a lot harder for mid-level managers to get a new job after a layoff then it is for the people who actually do the work.

I'm not arguing that people should have no ambition. I think ambition is great.. but to focus it in corporate management is beyond stupid. The pay isn't that great, the stress is unhealthy, and the shit gets thrown from all directions. It's so much better to go do your job and then leave.. and spend your free time pursuing some ambition that might actually be enjoyable.

It certainly is a different work environment than the boomers had.