Marcel wrote the following in my comments on yesterday's post about my evaluation:
Reading this post reminds me of why I'm glad I started my own business 25 years ago. I don't have to deal with idiots like your CDSM, and I don't have to tolerate smart assed malcontents like GOC, either. I'd fire your ass in a minute in my work place with that attitude. I don't have "sensitivity" shit to get in my way. :-)
Let's see if I remember anything from the management courses I took in college. Wait. I don't have to do that. I can do a Google search on Type X managers, which I think Marcel may be. Damn! I just love the internet! I'm so glad that Algore invented it!
Type X managers are authoritarians. They can be described as having these thoughts:* The average person dislikes work and will avoid it if they can.
* Most people must be threatened with punishment to work toward organizational objectives.
* The average person prefers to be directed, to avoid responsibility, is relatively unambitious, and wants security above anything else.
Marcel sounds like a Type X manager. To deal with a malcontent like me he would fire my ass in a minute. Marcel obviously must run a business where not much training and initiative is involved. He probably does sumpin' like urinal cleaning. He can just drive by the local Home Depot and crook his finger at the illegal aliens hanging around and hire 'em on the spot. If they don't do a good job, he can fire their asses in a minute.
Let's discuss why Marcel is full of shit and why he would be totally incapable of running a successful high tech company. Ya see, smart people do not respond well to Type X managers. They prefer Type Y managers.
Conversely, Type Y managers are participative managers. They generally feel:* Effort in work is as natural as work and play.
* People will apply self-control and self-direction in the pursuit of organizational objectives, without external control or threats.
* Commitment to objectives is a function of rewards associated with their achievement.
* People usually accept and often seek responsibility.
* The capacity to use a high degree of imagination, ingenuity, and creativity in solving organizational problems is widely - not narrowly - distributed in the population.
* In industry, the intellectual potential of the average person is under-utilized.
In my almost 31 years at TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name) all but three of my managers have tended to be Type Y types. And the most amazing thing is (Not really, but it will probably amaze Marcel), my best performance was for the manager who most fit the Type Y definition. For this manager I worked 60 hour weeks. I came in weekends on my own time. He would give me projects and get the fuck out of my way. He did not hold a lot of useless meetings. He let me achieve my full potential and he also gave me my best raises. I got at least one award every year I worked for him. He gave me the best promotion I ever received in my entire career. He took care of me and I took care of him.
My current manager, on the other hand, is not necessarily a Type X, but he is a consummate ass kisser. Let me further expand on how I got in trouble with him. It was an ongoing saga that built upon itself.
It started with my first project with the Germans. We were supposed to come up with a common development platform. We had a conference call every Friday to discuss this. After the third call, it was obvious that we were going nowhere. For us to adopt their standards, we would have to completely rewrite our software infrastructure. I pointed out that it would take an additional two programmers on our staff to do this. This at a time when we were laying people off. We didn't have the manpower to change, and the Germans refused to change. Stalemate. A smart manager would have listened to his techies and suspended the project, but CDSMŽ (Clueless Dipshit Manager) insisted on going ahead.
So every Friday I had to sit through the same time wasting conference call. One Friday, I came in (hungover) and exploded on the conference call and went on a five minute raging tirade about how the Germans were socialists and had to keep their staff employed doing things the hard way and how we managed to do the same work with half the staff. (My team members in Dallas put the phone on mute and roared with laughter) It got me kicked off the project. A year later, the project was officially terminated.
I had some problems with the Y2K project also.
The last straw was with the incompetent user. As I said, he went to my manager and complained that I had called him incompetent. Actually, I had apologized to him about his incompetence. I had given him systems that were his responsibility to test. That is our procedure. There were some problems. I'm not perfect. If I was, TCIDNN couldn't afford me. I fixed all the problems. But then, he had problems with his applications. These were his responsibility. Nevertheless, when he called me, I would fix them for him and tell him the problem and suggest he document the fix. I had to fix one particular problem on three separate occasions. I asked him why he wanted to appear stupid and have me fix the same problem which was his responsibility multiple times.
Anyway, he went to my CDSMŽ, who called me in New York, where I was attending a conference, and chewed me out and said all testing was now our responsibility. I pointed out that that had never been the procedure. He said it had changed and one of our team members would negotiate. Now a good manager, before chewing me out, would have asked for my side of the story. CDSMŽ, didn't.
When I returned from the conference, I sent out a clarifying note on the new policy (dripping with sarcasm directed at the user. In fact, I named the new testing policy after him) and informed the user and his management that I would need a detailed testing document. I copied my CDSMŽ on the note. After reading my clarification of his new policy, he realized that he had fucked up. He called me into his office and denied that he had changed the policy. Testing had always been the responsibility of the users. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. Blah. Blah. Blah.
Two months after this the user was fired. Imagine that.
I'm a smartassed malcontent. Why hasn't CDSMŽ fired me? Because I'm smart, a dynamite technician, and I have skills that are hard to replace. I am an MVS (OS/390,z/OS) systems programmer. I also do VM. I know enough to back up our VM guy. My strongest skills are ServerPac installs, hardware configuration planning and implementation, and parallel sysplex. I also have skills in RACF, SMS, VTAM/NCP/TCPIP, JCL (of course), and DB2. My REXX has atrophied but I could get it back. REXX is easy. I know a little bit of UNIX and a smattering of assembler. Most of what I know, I taught myself. It would be hard to find someone with my blend of skills. Even if they did, it would take a few months for my replacement to figger out our environment. It took my team lead at least two months to get up to speed when we hired him. So Marcel, if you were my manager, you could fire my ass, but you would be shooting yourself in the foot. Even my CDSMŽ realizes that. That doesn't mean I won't be forced to resign. No one is indispensable or irreplaceable. Things would just run a little rough for a while.
It has been said that managing programmers is like herding cats. Really creative people do not respond well to Type X managers and I'm no different. What is sad about this whole thing is that it would not have taken very much effort on CDSMŽ's part to have kept me happy. Had he rated me fairly and given me some incentives, I would have taken over the network so he wouldn't have had to worry about the IWDH (Incompetent Worthless Dickhead). I have the requisite network skills. I would have just had to have spent some extra time with the network guy and eased myself into the job and used him as a backup, but there was no incentive for me to put forth that effort. As I pointed out to my team lead, I could walk on water and CDSMŽ would still rate me the same.
Where is my incentive?
And Marcel? Good luck with your urinal cleaning business.
Posted by denny at January 9, 2004 08:49 PM