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Subject:Back in with the group From:Ken Poshedly <poshedly -at- bellsouth -dot- net> To:Techwr-l <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Thu, 10 May 2007 11:00:56 -0400
Good morning, once more, folks.
After having participated here occasionally over
the past almost 14 months while a contract
employee to a company located in metro Atlanta,
the contract ended and I have re-subscribed to
this list from my home office terminal.
The end of contract was a mixed blessing. On one
hand, I learned a considerable amount about
cement manufacturing (really!), and had been
gainfully employed for almost 14 months.
The downside is that, like many of you I'm sure,
I was saddled with a new supervisor after taking
on the job. And in this case, it was like working
for the Mad Hatter (from "Alice in Wonderland").
Without getting into too much detail, my first
supervisor at this firm was professional,
knowledgeable and his expectations were practical
and attainable. But, unfortunately, he retired a
few months after I started only to come back as a
contract engineer with no authority to enforce
any of his previous policies on how I was to be
treated ? even though he still supported my work.
His successor was his own senior electrical
engineer who has absolutely NO project management
experience, NO people management experience, NO
people skills, is a control freak (ask him the
time and he tells you how every damn gear in a
watch is designed and made), and who has a total
of 27 years in this business. He's also neurotic,
possibly borderline psychotic and gets into
hand-rubbing and "squeaky noise" spells for 10 or
20 seconds when he stresses out. Which is most of
the time because he keeps screwing up.
The firm won't demote him or turn him loose
because they value "his experience".
After producing my first manual in a series of 10
and getting no feedback, I continued on with the
next one and the next, etc. No feedback, no
comments, even though I asked to meet with him
many times and even sent him weekly progress
e-mails. Nine months after being there, he
reviews my first manual and decides it's not what
he wants (but it was what HIS boss wanted), and
freaks out daily. Thanksgiving was miserable for
me. He's only a department head and treats all
the electrical engineers like buffoons. His own
boss and the HR department warned him to back
off, but that lasted about a month.
He arbitrarily changed the scope and purpose of
the manuals (turn-key manuals called "operating
descriptions" in this business) and would NOT
give me the training and other tools I needed to
do what HE wanted. (But I did exactly what HIS previous supervisor wanted.)
His red-line changes (I refuse to use the word
"corrections") included a healthy dose of insults
as well, again, with NO encouragement but just
the directive to "read and digest" a software
code manual from the home office. I won't repeat
here the various insults included with his text changes.
The end for me came when, after umpteen appeals
from me to both HR and this guy's own boss that
this guy stop with the insults to me (and the
rest of the department), I quietly asked him to
not include insults in his changes in the draft
copies of my books. He apologized ? sort-of.
The next day, he called me in to say that since
our talk the previous day, he had terminated the contract.
Well, thanks to him, I learned a lot, I have
jillions of professional references from the firm
(including his own boss and the head of HR) and
had a job that lasted 14 months that was supposed to end after only 7 months.
My job shop was completely supportive of me, but
just didn't have any place else to send me.
Since then (about 3 weeks ago), my blood pressure
is down and I no longer have to talk aloud to
myself in the car to calm myself down. I've had
some very promising interviews and know that none
of this was not MY fault, but that of a guy who
may someday get an employee who might just deck
him after one-too-many smart-ass remarks.
This ex-supervisor makes the office head on "The Office" look like a genius.
My own background includes, like some of you,
lots of writing background even before getting
into technical writing per se; I started off as a
newspaper reporter, then into public relations,
industrial advertising copywriting, publications
editing and, for the past 23 years, technical
writing about computer peripherals, factory
equipment, heavy earth-moving equipment, etc.
We all have our share of past "baddies", and that one is mine.
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