Just saw this at reddit. Thought it was really interesting. Then saw the name of the poster and did a double take.
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GeneralMalaiseRB 803 points 2 hours ago
You don't understand.... I
am the manager.
My tale is one of an uninteresting progression through the corporate ladder. I started as a person with a skill. Sooner or later, the person who is the best at Job X gets made the manager of the department that handles X. Before terribly long, the skills fade away. This is because each year, more hours of my day are spent on manager-ish things, and not X-related things. Countless meetings that didn't need to happen. Endless reports and irrelevant paperwork as required by the execs. A couple years down the road, and there are no relevant X-related skills remaining in me. I'm behind the times. Out of practice. End up running a team full of people with all the skills. Gotta pretend that every one of them couldn't eat me for breakfast when it comes to said skills. They still know. Doesn't really matter, I guess. I'm the boss. A few more years, and I'm in far too deep to escape. The only credentials I have now are as a boss. That means something to other bosses. Doesn't mean #### to anyone who isn't a boss. That's one of the reasons most people hate their bosses. Their only capabilities are "to boss". My job is to tell you what to do. Even though you know X better than I ever will again, my allegiance is no longer "to do X as best as possible". It's "have X done in the way that will take the least amount of time and result in the highest amount of profit." A few more years go by, and now I'm just a "bigger" boss. I tell more people what to do, including people who do Y. I've never done Y in my life, so what business is it of mine to tell them how to do Y? Well, it is. Someone's gotta be your boss, and it looks like it's me now. Here's how I'm going to harvest a little bit of your soul, day by day, in order to make my department numbers look better. Don't get me wrong... I'm not an overt ####### to people. It's not that I'm malicious. I just don't have it in me to care. "This is the way it has to be." "We don't agree with that." "Well, sorry. The company blah blah blah blah blah."
So why not get out? Hell, other companies need managers, executives, etc. Surely some non-life sucking company that does cool stuff and has a fun culture and an atmosphere of good morale needs someone to be the head of stuff. Well, I suppose there's a couple answers to that. Firstly, the pay. If you do it gradually enough, you can get a pretty hefty sum in exchange for your soul. At this point, I have extreme doubts that I could jump to another company and get paid the way I am currently. Secondly, I don't think I have the ambition at this point to do it anyway. I can stay here and continue going through the motions day after day until I drop dead on the ####ter from high blood pressure and cholesterol, and I can get paid a handsome sum for doing it. My progression through the ranks over many years in this company and in this industry is more valuable than actual abilities at this point. And thirdly, I might be too far-gone at this point anyway. The Borg has assimilated me. To expand on my previous comment, half of the stuff in OP's image makes me want to shake my jowls like Richard Nixon and make everyone come in on Sunday.
I will add one silver lining of being dead inside. I don't care about much anymore. Employee is late? Eh, I'm supposed to deal with that. Maybe later. Project isn't going to reach its deadline? Blah, it's easier and arguably more effective to make up an excuse that will be perceived as outside my control than it would be to motivate or inspire my teams to work faster. So... I'm probably not specifically hurting my employees for the most part. But I sure doubt I'm helping them in any big-picture sort of way.