/rant on

I am so going to strangle someone at work today. It feels like I get "blamed" or have to take responsibility for everything that goes wrong with any system to which I'm even remotely associated. I've spent a good portion of the day telling people that I'm not completely responsible for everything. For example, the public internet is beyond my control. So is, amnazingly enough, the functioning of processes our clients designed and manage. Strange how that works.

I understand that there's history here: I tend to fix - or expedite the fixing of - most issues. So, there's a tendancy to just point at me and say, "Give it to him, he can fix anything." Which is flattering, yes, but it's also totally obnoxious as well as completely unfair when you consider that we've got employees specifically hired to work on these problems, and they're not me.

I also hate managers who try to manage by spreadsheet. If you have to go around asking your employees for a list of projects on which they're working, you have too many employees. I'm sorry, but if you can't interact with them and keep a reasonable idea of what's being done in your head, you shouldn't be managing them. Yes, this means most people shouldn't manage more than 4 or 5 direct reports.

The current director of IT wants a list of all projects by all personnel, and he wants it updated weekly. He admits this is a huge timesink but wants it anyway. To me, this says a something interesting: he doesn't trust any of his subordinate managers to - well, to do a lot of things. Like actually manage. Or to be able to accurately prioritize the tasks about which he needs to be notified. This is the sign of a director who can't do his job, and likely for a bunch of managers who either can't or aren't being allowed to do their jobs. It also means the communication structure is abysmal, which I know from other factors.

There's no reason why anyone in a management position needs to know the minutae of every single thing going on beneath him. Not only is it totally impractical - the whole point of having multiple levels of management is to filter data and manage tasks on a more relevant level - but it also sets an impossible expectation: that one can know everything that is occurring. While I agree that a manager should know, on a general level, everything about every task beneath him or her, I don't think s/he needs to be involved in every day-to-day specific.

... All in all, I need to get the fuck out of this place. My patience is almost gone. We all have bad weeks, I know, but it's hard to chug through under the banner of "it'll be better tomorrow" when you know it won't, when you know that there's a bullet in a gun with your name on it. At this point, it's probably a matter of weeks before they give me my official "xxx will be your last day" speech, and to be honest, part of me is looking forward to it: if they do lay me off, I'm pretty much set for 6-9 months. And at least I won't have to answer my cell phone at 3 o'clock in the morning.

I'm also looking around, trying to find something that'll get me out of here. One iron's in the fire, but who knows if that'll work out. I've been scanning other job openings, but I haven't found many that are in the right combination of location, pay range, and skill set requirements. Being a specialist means one is generally immune from all but the most severe of economic downturns, but it also makes it harder to find positions. My only advantage is that I don't have to be a specialist, but since that's the only way to get the salary I want, I'm still a but pigeon-holed.

(Random note - a friend of a friend did this short. It's cute.)

Maybe it's just that time of year. This is when we typically take more vacations, get more time away from the office, etc. It's also when many of the divisions of the business ramp up to "peak season", so there's a much higher chance of shit going wrong. Combine the two, and it's almost guaranteed I'm going to get harassed by coworkers during "off time" - either on vacations or just after hours. It's also the end of the fiscal year, which means this is when most major decisions about future employment are made: if they get rid of us before the end of January, they don't have to pay us our bonuses.

Not that I have a bonus agreement this year. Hell, I never even had a review or signed anything agreeing to the completion of last year's bonus or my raise (such as it was). They just pushed through paperwork and never even had us look at it, much less agree to it.

... I just put a vacation request on my boss's desk for the week between Christmas and New Years. Hopefully I won't be here by then, but if I am, I'd go over my cap. And if I'm not here, it won't matter, so no harm in doing it.

Anyway, I suppose I should "shut the hell up" and "get back to work". More worlds need saving. People better start being reasonable, though, or this Atlas will do more than shrug.

/rant off