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Here's an interesting observation.
A couple of months ago I was working on a project, and it seemed like
the most exciting thing *ever*. I even offered to write a piece about it
and have it published. I avidly worked on putting together the first
draft and making it as great as possible.
A week or two ago, I had to come up with the final version. And
suddenly, just a few months later, it seems like the most boring,
uninteresting project imaginable. I put all this work into writing the
original draft, but I just can't be bothered to finished it off. Even
just rereading it seems tedious and boring.
Eventually I did in fact do a final recheck and get the article
published. But it just seems strange to me that something which was so
all-possessingly fascinating a month or two ago is suddenly dull and
uninteresting today.
Maybe that's why I never actually finish anything. I get bored too
quickly...
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> A week or two ago, I had to come up with the final version. And suddenly,
> just a few months later, it seems like the most boring, uninteresting
> project imaginable.
Sounds very familiar! You say you'd hate being a manager, but if you were
you could do all the fun bits yourself, and when it gets boring delegate it
to someone else :-)
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scott wrote:
>> A week or two ago, I had to come up with the final version. And
>> suddenly, just a few months later, it seems like the most boring,
>> uninteresting project imaginable.
>
> Sounds very familiar! You say you'd hate being a manager, but if you
> were you could do all the fun bits yourself, and when it gets boring
> delegate it to someone else :-)
Heh. Delegation FTW! :-D
Nah, I still don't think I'd like that. Managers are supposed to order
people around, not do the actual technical work. (Not that all managers
seem to realise this...)
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> Nah, I still don't think I'd like that. Managers are supposed to order
> people around, not do the actual technical work. (Not that all managers
> seem to realise this...)
I don't see how if you are a manager in charge of only a few people,
ordering them around is going to take up 100% of your time. Most managers I
know that are in charge of a small number of people do plenty of technical
work themselves in addition to their managerial duties.
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scott wrote:
>> Nah, I still don't think I'd like that. Managers are supposed to order
>> people around, not do the actual technical work. (Not that all
>> managers seem to realise this...)
>
> I don't see how if you are a manager in charge of only a few people,
> ordering them around is going to take up 100% of your time. Most
> managers I know that are in charge of a small number of people do plenty
> of technical work themselves in addition to their managerial duties.
In that case, I guess it depends on company structure. Most managers
I've seen are in charge of dozens if not hundreds of people. If you're
only in charge of (say) 3 people, that makes you like more of a team
leader than an actual manager...
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> Most managers I've seen are in charge of dozens if not hundreds of people.
> If you're only in charge of (say) 3 people, that makes you like more of a
> team leader than an actual manager...
I think it's just whatever arbitrary job names the company comes up with :-)
Also the size of the company probably makes a difference as to how many job
"levels" there are and what counts as manager. Here we only have about 100
people, so it goes Engineer/Researcher --> Manager --> Director --> Managing
Director. Obviously in a larger company you need to start putting in more
levels like Team Leader and Senior Manager or whatever.
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>> Most managers I've seen are in charge of dozens if not hundreds of
>> people. If you're only in charge of (say) 3 people, that makes you
>> like more of a team leader than an actual manager...
>
> I think it's just whatever arbitrary job names the company comes up with
> :-)
Yeah, figures.
> Also the size of the company probably makes a difference as to how
> many job "levels" there are and what counts as manager.
Seems to depend on company culture more than actual size. Some companies
just seem to prefer layers and layers and layers of management, while
others seem to try to keep everything as flat as possible.
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Invisible wrote:
> Maybe that's why I never actually finish anything. I get bored too
> quickly...
Success comes from recognising that work is 80% (or more) boring crap, and
being able to do it even when you don't want to. I get tons of consulting
jobs that anyone could do but I'm the only one with the persistence to
concentrate on a tedious crap task.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
I get "focus follows gaze"?
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Invisible wrote:
> Seems to depend on company culture more than actual size.
It also depends how old the company is. "Middle management" used to do what
SAP does nowadays. The phone companies were all managerially organized like
their networks, so there was an "outside" VP and an "inside" VP, and under
each were managers of the region, the state, the area code, the central
office, and then each piece of major equipment in the CO had a manager.
Pretty fascinating, really.
It wasn't until the '90s they renamed the management to get away from the
names of the places they managed.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
I get "focus follows gaze"?
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Darren New wrote:
> It also depends how old the company is. "Middle management" used to do
> what SAP does nowadays.
What *does* SAP do?
Actually, what does middle management do? From what I can gather from
Dilbert, not a lot!
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Invisible wrote:
> What *does* SAP do?
It keeps track of *everything*.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
I get "focus follows gaze"?
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>> What *does* SAP do?
>
> It keeps track of *everything*.
So... it's the Obsidian Order?
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Darren New escreveu:
> Invisible wrote:
>> What *does* SAP do?
>
> It keeps track of *everything*.
sounds like source management control.
--
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9
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nemesis wrote:
> sounds like source management control.
You mean like programming source code revision control systems? No.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
I get "focus follows gaze"?
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Darren New wrote:
> Invisible wrote:
>> What *does* SAP do?
>
> It keeps track of *everything*.
>
A good answer Darren LOL
As a SAP functional consultant. (You must keep track of what people tell
you about themselves, Andrew. It is a way to impress the ladies ;) )
It is a management tool but that is from a management point of view and
is a good way to sell it to companies. It is also a software tool to
control most aspects of production, linking together calculating
production demand from sales to buying raw materials in time to produce
the finished goods, to delivering them to your customers. My involvement
is in the maintenance of the production facilities, buying and storing
the spare parts and controlling the labour resources of maintenance
departments. Not that I actually get my hands dirty operating the
system, you understand ;)
SAP integrates all the functions of major companies into one package so
that there is connectivity and transparency throughout the company. It
was sold to multi national companies first (Oil companies,
Pharmaceutical, Chemical, Aero-space, food and beverages etc.) Now
medium sized companies are targeted.
I could go on but I’m sure others will get the point. ;)
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:26:43 +0000, Invisible wrote:
> Nah, I still don't think I'd like that. Managers are supposed to order
> people around, not do the actual technical work. (Not that all managers
> seem to realise this...)
Well, yes and no. I do some management tasks (though I don't have anyone
who directly reports to me - I just noticed a few days ago that my
official job title in our HR system is "Project/Program Manager III" -
which floors me because I never really felt I had good project management
skills (but my public title is "Program Manager" so that fits), but my
boss and director both said they thought I had great project management
skills.
But from the standpoint of "order people around" vs "do the actual
technical work", I do a bit of both; I see my role as being the one with
the vision, but then collaborating with developers and technical people
to come up with a solution we all can live with.
But I also realised earlier this week that I've now spent half my life
working with Novell's products. That was a shocker, because it's 20
years now.
Jim
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On Thu, 28 Jan 2010 14:37:18 +0000, Invisible wrote:
> Most managers I've
> seen are in charge of dozens if not hundreds of people.
The ratio of reports:manager depends a lot on whether the reports perform
the same duties or not. You can get 20-50 people reporting to one
manager if all those people do essentially the same job (like answering
phones in a call centre). But if they all do something different, then
it can range from 5-10 at the low end to 20 at the high end, and 20
different "roles" reporting to a manager can get pretty difficult for the
manager to cope with.
My boss has a team of 11 people and a few contractors, but 4 essential
roles (though the larger part of the team who does course development
have additional roles they fill as well, so it's not a precise
measurement of the number of roles), and that seems to be a good ratio.
Jim
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On Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:12:12 +0000, Stephen wrote:
> As a SAP functional consultant.
Interesting, I didn't know that's what you do, Stephen - I may have to
learn a bit about SAP myself in the next little bit.
Jim
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On Thu, 28 Jan 2010 11:46:55 -0800, Darren New wrote:
> nemesis wrote:
>> sounds like source management control.
>
> You mean like programming source code revision control systems? No.
Well, from the standpoint of "keeping track of everything", yes. :-)
Jim
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> Well, from the standpoint of "keeping track of everything", yes. :-)
Well, no. It doesn't keep track of who supplied the computer you wrote the
code on and the model and serial numbers of every component in it, which
paycheck covered the time period when you were writing the code, the log of
the call from the customer that asked for the feature that this line of code
implements, the original estimate for the code, who was assigned to design
the feature that line implements, the list of customers who own computers
running this line of code along with their phone numbers so you can issue a
recall if the code is dangerously incorrect, etc etc etc.
Revision control systems only keep track of revisions.
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
I get "focus follows gaze"?
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On Thu, 28 Jan 2010 15:12:57 -0800, Darren New wrote:
> Well, no. [...]
Depends on how one defines "everything", I guess. My definition is "who,
what, and why" code was changed. :-)
Jim
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> What *does* SAP do?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_SAP_products
In my company I heard we mainly use it for stock control and keeping track
of deliveries to customers (across all product ranges and all sites)- not
that I'm involved in that side of the business at all.
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:12:12 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>
>> As a SAP functional consultant.
>
> Interesting, I didn't know that's what you do, Stephen - I may have to
> learn a bit about SAP myself in the next little bit.
>
> Jim
My rates are reasonable :-P
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:20:17 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>> Interesting, I didn't know that's what you do, Stephen - I may have to
>> learn a bit about SAP myself in the next little bit.
>
> My rates are reasonable :-P
LOL
I'll bear that in mind. :-)
Jim
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:20:17 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>
>>> Interesting, I didn't know that's what you do, Stephen - I may have to
>>> learn a bit about SAP myself in the next little bit.
>> My rates are reasonable :-P
>
> LOL
>
> I'll bear that in mind. :-)
>
They've just gone up (free market and all that stuff) :-)
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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Stephen wrote:
> They've just gone up (free market and all that stuff) :-)
Damn, it must be awesome being in demand! o_O
--
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*
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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Stephen wrote:
>
>> They've just gone up (free market and all that stuff) :-)
>
> Damn, it must be awesome being in demand! o_O
>
Well we will see if I’m still in demand when this contract ends.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:58:39 +0000, Stephen wrote:
> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:20:17 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>>
>>>> Interesting, I didn't know that's what you do, Stephen - I may have
>>>> to learn a bit about SAP myself in the next little bit.
>>> My rates are reasonable :-P
>>
>> LOL
>>
>> I'll bear that in mind. :-)
>>
>>
> They've just gone up (free market and all that stuff) :-)
I'm sure we can play the market. Of course, you get what you pay for,
too.... ;-)
Jim
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Wed, 03 Feb 2010 20:58:39 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>
>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> On Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:20:17 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>>>
>>>>> Interesting, I didn't know that's what you do, Stephen - I may have
>>>>> to learn a bit about SAP myself in the next little bit.
>>>> My rates are reasonable :-P
>>> LOL
>>>
>>> I'll bear that in mind. :-)
>>>
>>>
>> They've just gone up (free market and all that stuff) :-)
>
> I'm sure we can play the market. Of course, you get what you pay for,
> too.... ;-)
>
True, if you pay peanuts expect to employ monkeys.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On Thu, 04 Feb 2010 06:20:46 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>> I'm sure we can play the market. Of course, you get what you pay for,
>> too.... ;-)
>>
>>
> True, if you pay peanuts expect to employ monkeys.
Yep, but sometimes that's all management is willing to pay for.
Jim
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"Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospam com> wrote in message
news:4b6aebeb$1@news.povray.org...
> On Thu, 04 Feb 2010 06:20:46 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>
> >> I'm sure we can play the market. Of course, you get
what you pay for,
> >> too.... ;-)
> > True, if you pay peanuts expect to employ monkeys.
> Yep, but sometimes that's all management is willing to pay
for.
And sometimes they can't tell the difference between monkeys
and men anyway...
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DungBeatle wrote:
> "Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote in message
> news:4b6aebeb$1@news.povray.org...
>> On Thu, 04 Feb 2010 06:20:46 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>>
>>>> I'm sure we can play the market. Of course, you get
> what you pay for,
>>>> too.... ;-)
>>> True, if you pay peanuts expect to employ monkeys.
>> Yep, but sometimes that's all management is willing to pay
> for.
>
> And sometimes they can't tell the difference between monkeys
> and men anyway...
>
>
That says more about the managers than about anything else.
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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On Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:55:55 +0000, Stephen wrote:
> DungBeatle wrote:
>> "Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote in message
>> news:4b6aebeb$1@news.povray.org...
>>> On Thu, 04 Feb 2010 06:20:46 +0000, Stephen wrote:
>>>
>>>>> I'm sure we can play the market. Of course, you get
>> what you pay for,
>>>>> too.... ;-)
>>>> True, if you pay peanuts expect to employ monkeys.
>>> Yep, but sometimes that's all management is willing to pay
>> for.
>>
>> And sometimes they can't tell the difference between monkeys and men
>> anyway...
>>
>>
> That says more about the managers than about anything else.
It certainly does.
Jim
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Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>
>> That says more about the managers than about anything else.
>
> It certainly does.
>
:-D
--
Best Regards,
Stephen
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