A while ago I hooked up with an ex-colleague who organises a regular lunchtime get-together of people we used to work with. Most of them are now retired but a few continue to work, albeit no longer at "the old firm."
Since these gatherings are held during the working day and a good half-hour's drive south of here (Thursdays, as it happens) I don't normally attend, but THIS month's was their annual Christmas lunch and the combination of the first turkey dinner of the season, a few hours off work, and the chance to catch up with so many familiar faces (some of whom I haven't seen for 20 years) proved irresistible.
It was an enjoyable event. Intellectual conversation, bags of laughs, a meal that - almost unheard of for seasonal lunches - managed to combine good value, excellent quality, perfect quantity and superlative service, and best of all the chance to catch up with one of the best, if not THE best, managers I've ever had and one of the aforementioned twenty-year absentees.
I spent most of the drive home in reflective mood. It's not unusual for reunions to affect me like that. This one served to highlight the stark contrast between those I used to work with and those I work with now. And perhaps more poignantly, those I used to work for and those I work for now. Because it seems to me that the managers from those bygone days were actually capable of demonstrating some leadership skills. They recognised that their job consisted primarily of rock-moving, to allow us techies to get on with the job unhindered by any of those rocks in our paths. They nurtured, they mentored, they protected us from the shit.
Their modern-day counterparts are good at saying "go here, do this, don't do that," but that's as far as their "skills" go.
As a result, a workplace where once we could always count on having some fun alongside the serious work, and which naturally therefore made that serious work pass more quickly, enjoyably and successfully, has been replaced with one where the overriding feelings are of stress, fatigue and sullen resignation. Where every technical skill is treated as the same technical skill, and consequently every technical body is just another technical body to be shunted from one repetitive task to another, irrespective of experience, personal preference, or ability.
Back then there was pride in expertise, and time allowed to grow it. Now we're all fed through the mincer, forced to be jacks-of-all-trades and masters of none. As Squatter may once have asked: "Is this any way to run a fucking ballroom?"
It's good to be reminded every now and then how bad things have got. *cough* It's either that, or give up going to Christmas lunches.
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2 comments:
John, I had to reply to this one!
"it seems to me that the managers from those bygone days were actually capable of demonstrating some leadership skills"
I've run into the same thing. I don't think it's an insulated thing. I think "managers" nowadays are not allowed to make decisions. I believe they have become spokespeople, and blame-takers for whatever goes wrong. They don't even get the benefits of other working people.
I don't want to manage any more. I'm afraid that a lot of people like me don't. The responsibility and expectations are too much to validate wanting the job. The money's not good because you have to put so much time into it. The never-ending bottom line meetings kill you.
My biggest fear is that nobody will want to be responsible for anything, and that customer service will be dead.
Maybe it's already happened.
I know what you mean. For me, the biggest difference is in the direction of the managers' gaze. Back in the day they knew their own success depended on their people, so their focus was on us. Helping us do a better job. Victories and successes were hard-won and real, benefits from hard work were shared.
Now, their focus is on themselves and pleasing their superiors. "Doing more for less." Which means exploiting their people to the max rather than helping them, and then leaving for their next "big challenge" while those remaining pick up the shit they leave behind. Successes are hollow, because your reward for working hard and doing a good job is to work even longer hours to try and impress the next exploiter.
The sooner we all wake up to this the better as far as I can see.
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