Thursday, February 15, 2007
Middle Management
One of the things that I’m not liking about my new job here at Geeks, Inc. is that I’ve officially entered middle management. For the longest time, my only concern was doing my work. We’d have a project and I had to get it done in a certain amount of time. That was it. Now I’m responsible for monitoring budgets and overseeing junior actuaries (who I will henceforth call Peons).
I like managing Peons in theory, but not so much in reality. In theory, managing Peons is like teaching. You show what you know and try to make them into full-fledged actuaries. You encourage them and get them client exposure. And in a few years, you’re kicking them out of the nest so they can fly on their own. Or something less cheesy that relays the same point.
In reality, managing Peons sucks. The problem is that in theory, Peons are all bright-eyed and eager. And more importantly, they’re competent. In reality, they’re far from it. Well, that’s not fair to all the Peons. One Peon in particular (who I’ve got the pleasure of managing on my biggest client) is vexing me, Peon RJ.
Peon RJ has a bit of an attitude problem. You see, the problem is that he doesn’t have an attitude. He doesn’t seem to care about anything. He’s Ethan Hawke in Reality Bites, only with worse facial hair. He’s apparently not the most motivated person in the world, which doesn’t bode well for being an actuary. If there’s one thing you need to be an actuary, it’s motivation. (You also need math skills and a glaring lack of a social life.)
It takes a special kind of person (using “special” in the same way that the Olympics does) to give up about 6 months a year of nights and weekends to study for actuarial exams. And to do it for 5-10 years. Not many people have the motivation to do it. And Peon RJ is not one of the few. (I think a bastardized version of the Marines saying would be great for actuaries. “The few, the proud, the dorky.”)
One of the annoying things about Peon RJ is that he tends to not answer his phone. Or return voicemails. So you can call him all day and not hear from him. Even if you tell him it’s urgent. The shocking thing to me is that his “people manager” told me this. Shouldn’t that be covered in his annual reviews? “Hey, Peon RJ, around here we answer our phones and return messages. Capiche?”
Right now I’m waiting for Peon RJ to get me some reports (no, not TPS reports). I need to figure out what’s wrong our client’s data and send them an email tomorrow. And Peon RJ keeps pushing off when he’s going to give me the reports, which is extremely frustrating. It probably says a lot about me too. I know that summarizing the reports and sending out the email shouldn’t take long. But since I haven’t seen them yet, I have no idea what’s waiting for me. And as Tom Petty brilliantly said, the waiting is the hardest part.
(By the way, I hope you now have that song stuck in your head. I do. Worse yet, it always reminds me of a Simpsons episode where Homer buys a gun. As he’s waiting for his background check to clear, he sits in front of his house and watches things go by that he’d like to shoot. Naturally, the Tom Petty song plays in the background.)
Anyway, with any luck Peon RJ will get me what I need today and I can be done with this part of the project. But since I’ll be working with him a lot over the next 3 months, you’ll probably be hearing more and more about how much he annoys me. And I know what you’re thinking. “Finally, that dork has found a legitimate complaint about his job! Welcome back to reality!”
I like managing Peons in theory, but not so much in reality. In theory, managing Peons is like teaching. You show what you know and try to make them into full-fledged actuaries. You encourage them and get them client exposure. And in a few years, you’re kicking them out of the nest so they can fly on their own. Or something less cheesy that relays the same point.
In reality, managing Peons sucks. The problem is that in theory, Peons are all bright-eyed and eager. And more importantly, they’re competent. In reality, they’re far from it. Well, that’s not fair to all the Peons. One Peon in particular (who I’ve got the pleasure of managing on my biggest client) is vexing me, Peon RJ.
Peon RJ has a bit of an attitude problem. You see, the problem is that he doesn’t have an attitude. He doesn’t seem to care about anything. He’s Ethan Hawke in Reality Bites, only with worse facial hair. He’s apparently not the most motivated person in the world, which doesn’t bode well for being an actuary. If there’s one thing you need to be an actuary, it’s motivation. (You also need math skills and a glaring lack of a social life.)
It takes a special kind of person (using “special” in the same way that the Olympics does) to give up about 6 months a year of nights and weekends to study for actuarial exams. And to do it for 5-10 years. Not many people have the motivation to do it. And Peon RJ is not one of the few. (I think a bastardized version of the Marines saying would be great for actuaries. “The few, the proud, the dorky.”)
One of the annoying things about Peon RJ is that he tends to not answer his phone. Or return voicemails. So you can call him all day and not hear from him. Even if you tell him it’s urgent. The shocking thing to me is that his “people manager” told me this. Shouldn’t that be covered in his annual reviews? “Hey, Peon RJ, around here we answer our phones and return messages. Capiche?”
Right now I’m waiting for Peon RJ to get me some reports (no, not TPS reports). I need to figure out what’s wrong our client’s data and send them an email tomorrow. And Peon RJ keeps pushing off when he’s going to give me the reports, which is extremely frustrating. It probably says a lot about me too. I know that summarizing the reports and sending out the email shouldn’t take long. But since I haven’t seen them yet, I have no idea what’s waiting for me. And as Tom Petty brilliantly said, the waiting is the hardest part.
(By the way, I hope you now have that song stuck in your head. I do. Worse yet, it always reminds me of a Simpsons episode where Homer buys a gun. As he’s waiting for his background check to clear, he sits in front of his house and watches things go by that he’d like to shoot. Naturally, the Tom Petty song plays in the background.)
Anyway, with any luck Peon RJ will get me what I need today and I can be done with this part of the project. But since I’ll be working with him a lot over the next 3 months, you’ll probably be hearing more and more about how much he annoys me. And I know what you’re thinking. “Finally, that dork has found a legitimate complaint about his job! Welcome back to reality!”
