Re: When you hear the Axe in the dark...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lauren" <lt34 -at- csus -dot- edu>
> What corporate discipline does not require "reaching a balance between goals
> and resources and the willingness to adjust both when needed"?
None, but that doesn't stop some corporate types from coming up with
unrealistic goals and not providing the resources to achieve them, does it?
> I really do not want to come off sounding derogatory, I might sound a little
> harsh because it's late and I am in the middle of doing my taxes, but points
> 1 and 2 sound a little like rhetoric to me. These comments can be applied
> to many situations and not just documentation.
To a certain extent they are rhetoric, to be sure. But if you have a
dictionary, look up the definitions of "rhetoric," not all of them are
necessarily bad.
> What I get from reading this is a sense of someone who will not make waves,
> who will accept management decisions without question, who wants just enough
> support to maintain a middle of the road position, and who will probably
> shun an intense increase in workload (or leave the company because of it)
> like what often occurs after management fails to properly budget its
> resources. The last point of "having these conversations with the
> management of some other company" in the event of a lack of management
> support sounds threatening and almost inviting the axe.
Depending on what you mean by "not make waves," yes. I'm not of a
mind to do battle with management as an "advocate for the user" to
convince them we should do more documentation than they want,
especially if I know they aren't going to commit to the effort
necessary to do it. If they tell me what they want, I'll tell them
what it's going to take to get it; if they tell me what they can commit
to in resources, I'll tell them what they can get for it.
If management "fails to properly budget its resources" and the
result is "an intense increase in workload" I'm not going to just roll
over like a good yes man and tell staff to smile, be good worker
bees and plan on sleeping in the office til its done. I'll push back to
make the necessary adjustments to goals so that they're achievable
without working staff to death and push for changes in planning so
that it won't happen again. And if it becomes clear to me that it is
going to happen again because the company isn't learning from its
mistakes and isn't taking my input seriously, I probably will be
leaving.
So what exactly did you find disagreeable about that? Do you
*prefer* working for yes man slavedriver tech pubs managers
who happily lay all of the company's planning errors on your
shoulders?
Oh, and BTW, the people I had these conversations with? They
hired me.
Gene Kim-Eng
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Follow-Ups:
- Re: When you hear the Axe in the dark..., Gene Kim-Eng
References:
RE: When you hear the Axe in the dark...: From: Lauren
Re: When you hear the Axe in the dark...: From: Gene Kim-Eng
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