Monday, November 11, 2013

Lives of the Smitten and Clueless Pt. III : The Way a Bully Works

Databases are like old people.  They contain a wealth of information.  They get slow, sick and become obsolete.  So, if we think of a manager of people who care for old people, a nursing home administrator of sorts, it is a little easier to understand this person's job would be like. For example, a nursing home administrator manages highly smart, technical people in the appearance of Nurses, Physical Therapists, and Dietitian's.  In much the same way, A DBA Manager is responsible for managing highly technical people in IT that take great care of sensitive customers.  A DBA Manager is also responsible for working with managers of other highly technical teams within the organization.  Just as you wouldn't hire a sycophantic ass-kisser to manage a nursing staff, you shouldn't do this with folks who manage your DBA's.


But it happened to me.  I've been asking myself, "Why would you want some ass-kissing novice to come in and treat your staff like a peanut gallery?"  I finally came up with the answer, because all bullies need toadies.  Yes, the most successful bullies have toadies.


Having a toady or two means you've freakin' ARRIVED!  After all, don't you need someone to hold the other kids down while you beat them up?  Beat-downs are always more effective when accompanied by a small army, aren't they? What about rushing through internal decisions so that your buddies at your previous company get a large sales contract from your new employer?  NOW yer talkin'!

So what exactly is a toady?  No, not one of my favorite Texas bands. I mean ass-kissers with no sense of mercy.  I rather like the way Google defines it:

toad·y  

/ˈtōdē/
Noun
A person who behaves obsequiously to someone important.

So how do you know if your leadership has hired a toady?

  1. Does the hired never challenge the boss on strategic issues, but liberally compliments the boss instead?
  2. Does the hired do personal favors for the boss?
  3. Do people often say of the hired "How did she get hired here?"
  4. Is the hired driven by one of the following motivations?
    • ambition
    • insecurity
    • incompetency
Did you know that new bosses often troll for toadies?  Have you ever been asked to be the one to fire someone, or "keep an eye on that guy"?  You may have been being surveyed (unbeknownst to you) for being the next wing man for a corporate bad guy.  Once, my crappy she-manager asked me to tell her the names of all the people who were causing me trouble at work.  Then, when I refused to do it, she tried to get me fired with my year-end review.  Funny how my 10 good years at a company will make a hater's crappy attempt look like a lie.  Because that's what it all was...a lie. In the end, no matter what kind of toady your crappy leadership is trolling for, the result is the same:  failure of progress in the organization.


Why? Because you can't get work done between departmental teams with someone attached to your ASS.  If your toady's one and only skill is ass-kissing, she'll soon learn that she can't kiss all the asses with her head up yours.  You need to be able to at least kiss most of the asses to make progress in an organization, or at least make others feel like you're kissing their ass.

Friday, June 28, 2013

Prediction: 6 months or less until employees start renting out spots


If there's one thing I've learned through experiencing hard times, it is to never ask, "What's next?"

If you want to know why, it's because sometimes you find out. I never imagined the drastic steps my workplace would take when the hotel next door decided they would not allow our overflow parking anymore. I don't think you will either, so let me just show you a picture.


I think the steps to create these extra spaces consisted of the following:
1) mow the grass next to the corn field
2) spray the white lines to mark the spots
3) clean off the messed up lines
4) re-spray the lines in the correct spots
5) build a ramp using gravel


Don't forget to go to Wal-mart and get some reflectors on a stick...

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Celebrations

It was a year ago this month that my life started getting a lot better here. Thank the Gawdz.

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Lives of the Smitten and Clueless - Pt II

Help!  There's a toad in my database!

(DBA's will get that joke)


Databases are like old people.  They contain a wealth of information.  They get slow, sick and become obsolete.  So, if we think of a manager of people who care for old people, a nursing home administrator of sorts, it is a little easier to understand this person's job would be like. For example, a nursing home administrator manages highly smart, technical people in the appearance of Nurses, Physical Therapists, and Dieticians.  In much the same way, A DBA Manager is responsible for managing highly technical people in IT that take great care of sensitive customers.  A DBA Manager is also responsible for working with managers of other highly technical teams within the organization.  Just as you wouldn't hire a sycophantic ass-kisser to manage a nursing staff, you shouldn't do this with folks who manage your DBA's.

But it happened to me.  I've been asking myself, "Why would you want some ass-kissing novice to come in and treat your staff like a peanut gallery?"  I finally came up with the answer, because all bullies need toadies.  Yes, the most successful bullies have toadies.

Having a toady or two means you've freakin ARRIVED!  After all, don't you need someone to hold the other kids down while you beat them up?  Beat-downs are always more effective when accompanied by a small army, aren't they? What about rushing through internal decisions so that your buddies at your previous company get a large sales contract from your new employer?  NOW yer talkin'!

So what exactly is a toady?  I like the way Google defines it:

toad·y  

/ˈtōdē/
Noun
A person who behaves obsequiously to someone important.
So how do you know if your leadership has hired a toady?
  1. Does the hired never challenge the boss on strategic issues, but liberally compliments the boss instead?
  2. Does the hired do personal favors for the boss?
  3. Do people often say of the hired "How did she get hired here?"
  4. Is the hired driven by one of the following motivations?
    • ambition
    • insecurity
    • incompetency
No matter what kind of toady your crappy leadership is trolling for, the result is the same:  failure of progress in the organization.

Why? Because you can't get work done between departmental teams with someone attached to your ASS.  If your toady's one and only skill is ass-kissing, she'll soon learn that she can't kiss all the asses with her head up yours.  You need to be able to at least kiss most of the asses to make progress in an organization, or at least make others feel like you're kissing their ass.

Bleh, I feel dirty now.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Lives of the Smitten and Clueless - Pt I

I've always believed there are 2 types of managers:
  1. Those who hire people who know something they don't, then refer to their reports to help making important decisions
  2. Those who hire people they believe to be "lesser than" themselves then proceed to bully, micromanage, and back-talk their employees into following in line with their desires
Manager type 2 is most often what fails an organization on multiple levels and drives employees to quit. Manager type 2 is what I just survived. 

It all started out very innocuously.  My company's IT department was going through multiple reorganizations within the department. I remember the crazy, willy-nilly assignment of managers like an old cartoon joke where a cat would shake a stick with a mouse on the end then two mice would appear, then three.  Managers were popping up everywhere.

Then after the managers were picked, the choosing up of sides would begin! It was funny to watch, kind of like when kids pick teams in gym class.  Everyone runs to the team they want to work for.  My team ran under another organizational umbrella and under the guidance of a man, we'll call Mr. Smith.

In all honesty, we (the talent) were all getting pretty sick of having our managers' positions changed every 2 years. It gets very hard to complete long-term projects in an organization when your managers keep changing.  The last major project we completed took 3 years from start to finish. So...what you would want to do here, is look for a type 1 kind of manager.  Well, not unless  you are Mr. Smith...and your new girlfriend needs a job.

Oh yes my lovelies!  Get ready for Lives of the Smitten and Clueless next on Work du Soleil!!