Management is hard, yes, but the person who posted this is a terrible manager.
They probably work at a dysfunctional company where they don't have any models for good management, and think of themselves as just doing normal management things, but they're wrong. Very little of what they describe is acceptable, and even less of it is actually good.
If your manager isn't terrible at their job, they're not working like that.
>>Everything I'm typing below is completely made up, but is based on real events
It sounds like personal experience with the names and other small details changed.
Professional management means tracking your issues in a way that your superiors can assess your performance. They don't need a bitchfest.
Use an issue tracker.
Each issue needs a one line professional description not a soap opera script. You need to assess the impact of the problem and assign a priority to it. You list who is involved in the issue. You create actions for yourself or others and then record the outcomes.
It is your job to find solutions. If there were never any problems and everything ran smoothly, you would be redundant. A lot of management are redundant because they can't solve any issues!
The maturity of management is what makes a company last a few decades rather than a few years. They have to operate professionally, following formal processes to hopefully make objective decisions.
The OP sounds devoid of objectivity and professionalism. If you want to emote you can write in your personal journal. When you go to a management meeting they don't want to see you cry about stuff. They need visibility of the issues and actions.
I don't particularly like the post, but I believe the point is to communicate the emotional tenor of the challenges and the fact that they all have nuances. While in real life what you're suggesting might be part of the solution, for many management challenges it is the essential emotions of the people involved which are the problems. Take the "bad employee" issue that he has, it's not a ticketing problem, it's dealing with a situation where he has "non-tech" constraints.
Nuances? Who cares?
All that company superiors see is that Ben worked 2 Saturdays already and he is booked for yet another this month and Mary worked zero Saturdays.
What is the explanation? "Rest of team despise Mary" does not cut it.
What sort of upgrade plan that was done 3 months in advance has zero contingencies? How do you know who could become unavailable for some reason?
Then he blames the employee for asking for leave. If you can't handle 1 person being unavailable, you are a bad manager. What if they got sick? You don't cancel.
Bad Management say they make plans all the time. Make proper plans that can adapt to risks. This is real management.
SysAdmin is crucial most tech companies. It is like the engine room. The manager has to be solid as a rock dependable. I don't care about their emotions or their staff. The customer's emotions is the priority if anything.
Lots of stuff: Issue tracker, action tracker, scheduler, budgeting tools.
Processes like:
establishing formal communication methods with others in the company - document your plans and decide who needs to read them. Review each item of work completed via a report.
Monitoring the performances of yourself and others objectively. Peer review is crap.
Risk management methods. You have to risk assess as part of planning. Then you monitor whether the risk has eventuated throughout execution of plan.
Quality control processes. Your work must improve stuff. What is the measure of improvement?
9 comments
[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 32.7 ms ] threadThey probably work at a dysfunctional company where they don't have any models for good management, and think of themselves as just doing normal management things, but they're wrong. Very little of what they describe is acceptable, and even less of it is actually good.
If your manager isn't terrible at their job, they're not working like that.
None of the story actually happened. He's painting a picture about how things can happen.
Professional management means tracking your issues in a way that your superiors can assess your performance. They don't need a bitchfest.
Use an issue tracker. Each issue needs a one line professional description not a soap opera script. You need to assess the impact of the problem and assign a priority to it. You list who is involved in the issue. You create actions for yourself or others and then record the outcomes.
It is your job to find solutions. If there were never any problems and everything ran smoothly, you would be redundant. A lot of management are redundant because they can't solve any issues!
The maturity of management is what makes a company last a few decades rather than a few years. They have to operate professionally, following formal processes to hopefully make objective decisions.
The OP sounds devoid of objectivity and professionalism. If you want to emote you can write in your personal journal. When you go to a management meeting they don't want to see you cry about stuff. They need visibility of the issues and actions.
What is the explanation? "Rest of team despise Mary" does not cut it.
What sort of upgrade plan that was done 3 months in advance has zero contingencies? How do you know who could become unavailable for some reason?
Then he blames the employee for asking for leave. If you can't handle 1 person being unavailable, you are a bad manager. What if they got sick? You don't cancel.
Bad Management say they make plans all the time. Make proper plans that can adapt to risks. This is real management.
SysAdmin is crucial most tech companies. It is like the engine room. The manager has to be solid as a rock dependable. I don't care about their emotions or their staff. The customer's emotions is the priority if anything.
Processes like:
establishing formal communication methods with others in the company - document your plans and decide who needs to read them. Review each item of work completed via a report.
Monitoring the performances of yourself and others objectively. Peer review is crap.
Risk management methods. You have to risk assess as part of planning. Then you monitor whether the risk has eventuated throughout execution of plan.
Quality control processes. Your work must improve stuff. What is the measure of improvement?