It Makes My Head Hurt

I've had occasion to be party to some interesting conversations over the past couple of weeks. I don't suppose I'll ever be privy to the big picture on the work front---thank the Lord my personal life is perfectly clear. The conversations have made me put on my manager's hat. Now I haven't put on my manager's hat since I managed service stations for Gulf Oil back in the 70's.

Quite frankly, that job is the one that made it clear to me that I never wanted to wear the manager's hat again and as long as I worked in organizations that were small and I was a department of one, it was never an issue. It's become an issue a couple of times over the past few years as I work for a company that's gone from the Mom 'n' Pop flavor to the major regional employer flavor.

With encouragement, I have reached out into the supervisory area a couple of times in my tenure at this unnamed company. One such reach was sabotaged by another (albeit inadvertently), but I think I have to admit that there's a little self-sabotage too. After my last experience I cringe at becoming responsible for the work product of people I currently call friend. Nothing kills a friendship faster than a promotion, be it on the part of the governed or the governing. Maybe I don't have the coaching skills necessary to be a leader rather than a boss.

So it is with misgivings that I put my self in the new-new sheriff in town's shoes. I'm led to believe that the initial plan to clean up our town involved scraping all current staff and hiring from scratch. I'm also led to believe that that plan was thwarted by the noble sacrifice of someone that was let go. "Blame the problems in the department on me, not them. Give them a chance." Perhaps the slaughter of one lamb avoided the decimation of the entire herd. Only time will tell.

But as I put on the shoes of someone else and tread their path, if only in my imagination, I can't help but wonder if it wouldn't be easier to do the clean sweep thing and start afresh. The new sheriff has a bunch of deputies that have been so badly beaten down by the empty promises and bad decisions of past management that it will take something very special to get their morale and work product to the level where it should be.

Somebody get this effing hat off my head...