Management Options

've decided that I should write a book on how management in business works. What do you think? There are tons of other books like that on the market but mine will be more realistic. By that I mean it will tell you exactly how to be a manager. Ok, so maybe I haven't ever been a manager, but I have infinite experience in being managed, and sometimes in my more tedious moments at work, I day-dream about what I would do if I were a manager, based on what I've learned from managers I've had so far.

Let's get down to some of the observations I've made about managers in my professional experience. I've learned that managers aren't so much concerned with fostering your development as they are with avoiding your developing. For instance, almost every single manager I've had has somehow been charged with the job of managing the development of their workers. My interpretation of development would be learning more about the business the employees are in, becoming better and more efficient workers with the potential for career growth. But managers see that as something else. I'm not quite sure how they see it except as something they need to avoid completely. This manifests itself in many ways. If I approach my manager and say I need to take a class --which I have to take 5 days of in my company--all of a sudden, I've become the only brain surgeon available. Every other day I am the most undervalued and underappreciated (and let's not forget, overworked) person in my team, but the minute I want to take a class, everything changes. I get excuses up the wazoo!

"Can any one else cover your accounts?"

"Isn't Bob out on that day?"

"Couldn't you take it at a less busy time?"

WHAT THE HECK??? It's so completely detrimental to your manager for you to be out of the office for just one day!! What happens when you tear a ligament or break a bone tripping over a small yappy dog when you're playing Frisbee in the park on Saturday and have to be out 5 days while your injury heals and you learn to hobble on crutches? Then what? It's crazy!! And that's only the first obstacle.

At least two days before said class, your boss will throw a pickup truck's worth of work on your desk so that there is no possible way for you to be able to get it all done before your class starts. This means that you have to cancel taking the class. Which ultimately costs your company money: money they then don't have to give you a raise, money they need to keep in-check-but also (and here's the real rub) money they are willing to pay, as long as you don't take the class.

At some point in time, after you haven't been able to take the class, your boss will mention that you need to take that class. Usually this casual mentioning somehow appears on your annual review. And usually it appears as something pejorative, like "Angie needs to improve her time management skills so she can take her 5 classes for the year."

Did you get a pain somewhere on your body like I did when you read that? You know, the kind that comes with its own sign saying, "insert knife into back here"? I'm just curious.

It's also amazing how, whenever Human Resources or Employee Relations says "development" to a manager, they might as well yell "fire". That's the only time managers take it seriously. But if an employee mentions it, managers suddenly get an enormous ball of wax lodged into their ear canals. I have no idea how that happens. Must be a mass wax ball hail storm happening outside that I miss every time, because I'm at my desk, working.