Ever had a job where it seems like the longer you are there, the more you struggle?

[mrb7]

All I will say is this: As management in my industry "evolves", it is rapidly becoming more educated, while not necessarily maintaining their knowledge about a damn thing regarding any of the actual processes involved in keeping the business afloat. The people who did know all of those processes, either are retiring or dragging up. They continue to be replaced by better educated people, instead of moving up experienced workers. A lot of these engineers and project managers have the best of intentions, but again, no real idea how things actually work, and generally don't appreciate input from the unwashed masses.

I don't think this is really anything new, I am maybe just getting old.

The two wretched travesties American education has bestowed on us is first the belief that education is more important than intelligence, and second the belief that formal education is the only way to learn.

I swear that a wet young kid I once knew stayed in school because the job market sucked when he was graduating, and in order to defer his student loans he went on the get his Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering. I met him at his very first job at age 26, and he was completely lost trying to run a tank farm installation for the government. But he was the big boss. Other examples abound. This was just the worst one I ever saw.

Another great young kid I worked with, in his mid thirties, was one of the sharpest guys we had in the group I was working with at the time. We ran up onto a new twist in the system we were working on, and I expected him to try several approaches until he found a good solution. He did nothing. When I asked him what was up he said he had never been trained. His "education" had taught him "how to be taught," not "how to think."

 

[emwolf]

I work in an industry where much of the upper management were entry level at one point, worked their way up (like myself). But the industry has changed considerably since I started 30 years ago, and some of the management still think it operates the same way it did.

One thing I also have found is that from front line employees to top brass is prairie dog mentality. I ran a department that had peak hours from 5am to 8am and then 3pm to 5pm when we closed, but we were open for business the whole time. Our publisher would come to work every morning around 9:30 ish and he had to walk through our deparment to get to his office. He saw us during a down time and figured that we had too many employees in the department and set about paring us down. My point is, like a prairie dog popping its head up quickly, he was only getting a snapshot. Based on that snapshot he was absolutely correct. Based on the true work day, he scuttled the department and we were unable to deliver the service that he and I really believed we should deliver.

 

[emwolf]

This is a good place to vent my gripe. I work managing a satellite office in a smaller town, the main office in the larger town is the "big money maker" (but also the big expense). We have a special client luncheon next Tuesday my staff and I are supposed to be inviting our larger clients to attend. My problem? Even after repeated attempts, phone calls and emails, I still don't know what this luncheon is about. Do I go to my clients and say "Hey, take some time out of your schedule, drive 30 miles down the interstate and go to this mystery luncheon the main office is having. It could be worth your while."