Theatre of cruelty

[smescrater]

Finally I can blog about things. I reckon that having started my new job and having been there for three days that it’s possible OK to let the cat fully out of the bag.

You see now my faithful reader, your humble narrator is once again in full time employment. I now work for a rather large financial organisation as a project analyst. A role that combines business analysis, project support, documentation and implementation work. So far it’s been hard but fun and I have the backing of some rather good managers.

And that’s where the crux of the matter lies. Having worked for a number of organisations both small, medium and large, I am struck now by just how quickly one can accept bad infrastructure and poor management. It’s appalling how quickly one can get used to the terror of the poor manager, the oppression of the bully and just accept it. I am struck by how I have erected a cage for myself and have not dared to take a look at my own expectations of what might actually be possible.

Have I been unlucky with my data points and thus the information I have gathered is skewed? Quite possibly. I am really very surprised by just how different things can be in an organisation that actually seems to know what it’s doing. I look back with a sense of shock and awe that I actually put up with things for so long with my previous employers. However not having had the basis of comparison I accepted that what they had to offer was the norm and that no other organisation could possibly offer something different.

Oh how wrong I was.

I beat out 7 other fully competent and capable people to get this position. I work in an office where reality TV and sport are not the default conversation topics and instead intelligent and articulate and witty conversations about work occur (I am aware I’m in the honeymoon period right now, so my feelings on this are subject to change). I have managers who are supportive and who have a sense of what is realistic and are apologetic for passing on pieces of work they feel are unfair (actually the work is very reasonable, I would do the same in their position based on workload and requirements). I find my main sources of worry being what I have to learn, and learning who I need to talk to in order to find that information out. Both entirely surmountable.

What I want to do now though is go back to managers past who have beaten me senseless and decried my abilities and point out the error of their ways, and point out what it is they should have done (this extends back to my parental units, but that’s another story entirely and covered more than adequately elsewhere). Would my 437 powerpoint slide deck persuade them of the error of their ways? Perhaps now, I could hope that sometime around slide 235 when the glyph of ahn-rhu comes up I could hope their brains simply melt and I’m left with something malleable I can form into a working manager.

The theatre of cruelty is utterly pointless though. There’s no need to micro manage or to belittle or to berate. A procedure of good hiring practices, guidance and  growth and a belief in the people you invite to work with you should mean you get a workforce that wants to achieve, and does not need to be bullied into doing so.

Trusting the people who work for you. It’s a crazy idea, who knows, it might just work…

Mirrored from Tales of the gentleman misadventurer. Please leave comments there thank you!