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mllaneza posted:Sheer numbers. It's a big company, and there's a strong bias towards longevity. If you get in, you tend to stick around. I hope so, but I think they're going to eventually shutter my whole group.  I'm getting a sense of deja vu about how stuff feels right now, shades of PFE when they decided they'd made a strategic mistake by creating the group I was in at all.E: More content on that since this is a fresh-page quote. The company spent about $120M building my facility. In the 7 years since then, about 80% of the products we would have manufactured here have opted to go elsewhere, because they didn't want to deal with GMP requirements or they all wanted the same time-frames for manufacture without willingness to reschedule anything. Meanwhile, because we're GMP, the mothership has passed more and more rules that have reduced our flexibility. We have tons of equipment for flexible operations & ability to serve any need required, but we still only have like 9 total staff running it all, so we can't actually staff more than one project at a time and also budgetary groups keep complaining about our capital equipment accumulation vs its usage. We keep having to stop other groups from deciding to throw away our equipment "because it's idle vs its tax value." We can't help that nobody wants to run a wet granulation process, but we need to have the ability to do it for when someone decides to. The moment we get rid of any piece of equipment, a project comes in that wants it. So, nobody wants to wait around for GMP operation or in any way bend on their timelines, and they certainly aren't willing to do the necessary pre-work to make sure the GMP manufacture goes well. Half the time, they don't even run dev-scale on their projects anymore, so we have literally no data to build the batch record's critical process parameters around. Nobody will give us enough staff to run two projects in parallel, GMP requirements grow more and more stringent so that our flexibility is reduced, and projects are incentivized to go use a CMO instead of us because they're rewarded based on timeline reduction, not cost reduction. We end up with a $120M facility that generates 1-2 campaigns per year, while 3-4 other projects whine about us being too hard to work with because we won't (serious example) run a clinical batch without a batch record or cleaning recovery methods established. Or, five projects all want to manufacture in October with no flexibility for September or November, the least-valuable four get told to reschedule, and then they bitch that we refused to manufacture for them and go to a Chinese CMO. This would be handleable if we had real management who could discuss the causes with the appropriate stakeholders, but the person who would be the voice for that is literally dead and will not be replaced, nor has his role been officially reorganized six months later. There is, effectively, a dead guy in the org chart who isn't pulling his weight  It reminds me of PFE where my "quick prototype" group sat idle because easy poo poo was sent to Puerto Rico and hard poo poo was cut on budgetary/risk concerns, so our high-end SME group had nothing to do until they fired us all. We sat there screaming to people for work, but the budgetary groups who owned R&D projects would not sink a dime into anything unless it was either the cheapest option or near 100% risk free. Sundae fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Aug 4, 2023 |
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Aug 4, 2023 18:31
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Lockback posted:It also doesn't help that being a Frontline manager is the hardest job at almost every company. What is difficult of being a frontline manager? My manager has 3 direct reports (including myself) and obviously I do not have a lot of visibility into what he does but it doesn't seem like a lot of work. Honestly just seems like he's coasting.
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Aug 4, 2023 19:25
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Busy Bee posted:What is difficult of being a frontline manager? My manager has 3 direct reports (including myself) and obviously I do not have a lot of visibility into what he does but it doesn't seem like a lot of work. Honestly just seems like he's coasting. At most companies, and if they are a good manager, they are managing up so that you aren't dealing with a bunch of crap from other departments and the execs. They are handling all of the HR nonsense, dealing with budgets, making slide decks for useless middle managers to present to execs that won't understand the content but love to hold court, smashing the approve button on things, participating in coordination/planning meetings and playing audience to the regular narcissist personalities that have enough political capitol to interfere with IC work if not assuaged. If you company is small enough/not full of the typical amount of this type of dysfunction I would love to be a manager there.
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Aug 4, 2023 19:30
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Sundae posted:I hope so, but I think they're going to eventually shutter my whole group. Yikes. I hope we don't lose you over something stupid.
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Aug 4, 2023 19:40
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Guy Axlerod posted:rear end kissing isn't the right phrase. It's just the very polite office speak someone would use when meeting their new boss at their office job. But as another poster said, you know you're not one of the guys any more.
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Aug 4, 2023 19:43
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mllaneza posted:Yikes. I hope we don't lose you over something stupid. Sundae had drat well better never leave this thread again! Also, when/if they shut down his team, he'll be unemployed for about 15 minutes, unless he chooses to remain unemployed longer.
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Aug 4, 2023 20:04
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People managing is just not for me. Luckily I'm at a big enough org where there is a technical IC track which will allow my career to advance if I want to. Honestly I just don't give a poo poo about moving up anymore. I just wanna work another 20 years and retire.Motronic posted:At most companies, and if they are a good manager, they are managing up so that you aren't dealing with a bunch of crap from other departments and the execs. They are handling all of the HR nonsense, dealing with budgets, making slide decks for useless middle managers to present to execs that won't understand the content but love to hold court, smashing the approve button on things, participating in coordination/planning meetings and playing audience to the regular narcissist personalities that have enough political capitol to interfere with IC work if not assuaged. This is pretty much everything my boss does. HR nonsense, budget, making sure people do their compliance training on time, deal with other managers and higher, 1:1's, quarter,semi, and annual reviews (see HR nonsense). We generally get left alone, and my boss is probably busier than all of us. She has 11 FTE's which is a bit more than usual, I think they try to keep it around 8 or so here, but she's been doing this for a long time and we're a fairly senior level team. skipdogg fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Aug 4, 2023 |
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Aug 4, 2023 20:06
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Busy Bee posted:What is difficult of being a frontline manager? My manager has 3 direct reports (including myself) and obviously I do not have a lot of visibility into what he does but it doesn't seem like a lot of work. Honestly just seems like he's coasting.
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Aug 4, 2023 20:11
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Hate how cliche this is, but golf is a great way to pick up intel. Driving a cart for a skip level was worth more than any in-office conversations. Developing a reputation as a reliable fairway hitter likely has one of the better career ROIs so long as your upper management likes the game.
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Aug 4, 2023 20:23
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We had a new hire who in his first few days on the job went around inviting the male high level execs to go golfing with him and ignoring all the women at the company, including his direct boss. He also lied about a significant part of his resume, and tried throwing senior employees under the bus for his gently caress ups and slacking, and then doubled down by accusing them of lying when they refuted his claims to management. He was almost literally the guy from every "what not to do" HR lesson. He jumped ship just before the approval to fire him got through HR. I think he expected golf to take his career further.
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Aug 4, 2023 20:40
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Surprised he wasn’t promoted to C suite tbh
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Aug 4, 2023 20:41
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I managed to successfully pair “threaten to quit and get a raise and a promotion out of it” with “boss just sucks so much and they get fired and you end up managing”. Basically my boss sucked, I did a lot of his job. I interviewed at another agency, got an offer. Boss countered with raise and promotion to Asst. director because he didn’t want me to stop doing his job (I think). I accepted. Other agency was pissed but oh well. A month or two go by. Boss gets fired. Department is left without a director. I run the department with one or two designers under me. They hire someone at the SVP level but not the director. She comes in and goes “I think you’re doing fine”. We grow the department so there’s eventually four designers under me. And then I quit and moved across the country and went back to an IC role and probably did permanent damage to my career growth but oh well. I’m finally at a company at which I can see growing back into that role. Or maybe I’ll get fired bc I’m a big loving imposter and after my wife had cancer a couple years ago it’s hard to care very much. Either way.
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Aug 4, 2023 20:56
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Busy Bee posted:What is difficult of being a frontline manager? My manager has 3 direct reports (including myself) and obviously I do not have a lot of visibility into what he does but it doesn't seem like a lot of work. Honestly just seems like he's coasting. 3 is not much and yes, any role will have examples of people coasting. In general a frontline manager is dealing with the day to day the ICs are doing PLUS managing the stuff coming down from upper management PLUS usually having a bigger roster of people and all the HR stuff that comes with it. It's the nexus point of ICs tossing problems up and upper management tossing stuff down, usually with very little outlet for yourself. I'm in upper now and I spent a LONG time in frontline and I can say upper management is ridiculously less stressful. I had one of the most stressful couple days the last couple days because one of my frontline managers was out and I had to step in. And I think in general I do more "frontline" stuff than most directors do!
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Aug 4, 2023 23:08
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SpartanIvy posted:We had a new hire who in his first few days on the job went around inviting the male high level execs to go golfing with him and ignoring all the women at the company, including his direct boss. He also lied about a significant part of his resume, and tried throwing senior employees under the bus for his gently caress ups and slacking, and then doubled down by accusing them of lying when they refuted his claims to management. priznat posted:Surprised he wasn’t promoted to C suite tbh Same. I was on the edge of my seat for the reveal.
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Aug 4, 2023 23:36
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SpartanIvy posted:We had a new hire who in his first few days on the job went around inviting the male high level execs to go golfing with him and ignoring all the women at the company, including his direct boss. He also lied about a significant part of his resume, and tried throwing senior employees under the bus for his gently caress ups and slacking, and then doubled down by accusing them of lying when they refuted his claims to management. Dude’s either worse than he thinks or is good enough to wipe the floor with an exec and took the poo poo talking too far.
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Aug 4, 2023 23:52
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All this leadership experience talk makes me wonder: I have basically no aspirations to lead yet, but I am trying to keep my powder dry in case I change my mind. However, if I'm being honest with myself, I see myself as a worker, the guy who gets the work done and not the one managing personalities to get them to get things done. But how do you tell that this is a genuine desire and not just imposter syndrome loving everything up?
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Aug 5, 2023 12:51
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Technical IC = technical work. Sometimes a technical task will be so large that multiple people will work on it. You can be the lead. Manager = bullshit umbrella, so your reports can do their work. You also need to spend a lot of time getting your team the resources they need in order to do their jobs. Resources such as time, money, favors from other departments. As a manager you better befriend your boss's executive admin, a couple of people in finance, and a person in procurement. You will get very little time for technical focus work. A good manager gives all the credit and takes all the blame. In other words, you can lead without being a manager. One of my favorite questions is: "Who wants to take the lead on this?" But perhaps not every manager is like this.
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Aug 5, 2023 15:10
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theHUNGERian posted:A good manager gives all the credit and takes all the blame. Yes. But do this only if you're content to be a frontline manager for the rest of your life.
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Aug 5, 2023 15:15
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There seems to be a consensus that you need to have some dumb luck in to having that experience foisted on you, that you then leverage in to being higher up the management food chain. Bummer, sounds too that odds are pretty low of getting that chance once you’re mid career. All bullshit so checks out
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Aug 5, 2023 15:38
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My manager has 22 direct reports and I have no idea how he does it. And he keeps opening reqs so we get more people. I think he just really likes working
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Aug 5, 2023 15:43
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If I want to get into leadership in my division, that means a director role. My director has suggested this for me in development conversations. But the work/life balance for directors is totally hosed so I'm not very eager to jump to that.
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Aug 5, 2023 15:51
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I've probably topped out at 50% of actual work the last week because 1) I'm just about a month into this job 2) everybody else is on another continent and 3) the reporting structure is a bit strange because the people that report to me don't report to me and have been basically unmanaged for like 3 years. One of them is pretty good and very much the platform SME, but hasn't been running it strategically (which is why they hired me), one seems pretty good but I haven't spoken to them much yet. Also they absolutely hate the first person. The third seems ok but everyone else thinks he's not up to scratch. Gonna take some time to sort these politics out I think.
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Aug 5, 2023 16:03
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Tnuctip posted:Bummer, sounds too that odds are pretty low of getting that chance once you’re mid career. Not really? I mean I'd guess most managers become managers somewhere around mid-career. I think a big part of it is also where you are. If you're in a big organization that's pretty stable, then yeah it's unlikely you'll get moved up without luck. If you are taking jobs in growing organizations or ones that have a lot of volatility, then there will be more opportunities. There's pros and cons of stability vs volatility but if you want to see your career change you have to move yourself to places where there are paths for that change.
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Aug 5, 2023 16:06
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Powerful Two-Hander posted:
That's like the "Burger, Fries and a Coke" of technical team management. It's not easy to untangle. If the SME guy just refuses to run a platform in a way that is beneficial to the larger org because they want their kingdom, that guy will eventually need to go. I've had some luck turning those people around though. They usually are worried about job stability, so that's frequently a good attack vector. Drama Bombs are drama bombs, I usually have 0 patience and will happily let go of productive people just to make sure the environment isn't toxic. Unless SME guy really is that bad then 2nd person is justified. There's always the 3rd guy, but the first two archtypes are frequently awful judges of professional character.
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Aug 5, 2023 16:10
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theHUNGERian posted:A good manager gives all the credit and takes all the blame. A good manager shares credit for successes and promotes the hell out of those successes. They also share responsibility for failures and protects their team as much as is reasonable from the consequences of those failures. I’d rather have a manager who is also going to rise in the organization with me and can help carry me along.
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Aug 5, 2023 16:24
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Jordan7hm posted:... promotes the hell out of those successes ... That's right. Which is why it is so important for a manager to delegate certain tasks to their reports, tasks that are aligned with the next promotion, so when the promotion package is submitted it basically reads "they are already doing the job". Edit: And just to add as to how I became a manager. I was an IC (researcher) for 9 years. I had a great boss (my manager), and his boss was equally amazing. Over the 9 years, both had asked me if I wanted to become a manager in the long term - I had declined in all three instances. Life was good. But then my boss had to take a leave of absence, and we all concluded that I was most qualified to take over in the interim. The verbal agreement between me, my boss, and his boss was that I would step down once my boss had taken care of his [situation] in ~2 years. 2 years turned out to be 6 months, by that point my boss (who was my boss' boss) had concluded that bringing my former boss back would be a step back ("the team runs better under theHUNGERian"), and the agreement would not be honored. I had very mixed feelings about this, and I still do. I was my former boss' first hire - we started out as a team of two that then grew into a team of 9. Our initial work together brought in millions of dollars in funds for our research projects. At least once a week I still wonder if I was an rear end for not demanding (threatening to quit) that my former boss be allowed to come back. Life as a manager who gives a poo poo is not easy. theHUNGERian fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Aug 5, 2023 |
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Aug 5, 2023 16:57
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Powerful Two-Hander posted:I've probably topped out at 50% of actual work the last week because 1) I'm just about a month into this job 2) everybody else is on another continent and 3) the reporting structure is a bit strange because the people that report to me don't report to me and have been basically unmanaged for like 3 years. Speaking as someone who has usually been an IC, if they've been fine without management for that long, don't mess things up by overmanaging now. Go in, fix problems that need to be fixed - even if that includes people and how they do things - but leave the other stuff alone, at least for a while. I've had two good teams broken up by people coming in and feeling that they needed to make changes in order to be seen to be doing something.
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Aug 5, 2023 21:21
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Atopian posted:Speaking as someone who has usually been an IC, if they've been fine without management for that long, don't mess things up by overmanaging now. It sounds like their hiring him because its not being run strategically, which usually means the team is building a silo and being territorial. That is the kind of thing that seems like "it's running fine" but is actually a pretty big problem long term and I am guessing PTH is explicitly being hired to come in and change that. This is just a guess based on the comment, but its not at all unusual.
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Aug 5, 2023 22:00
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I had a pretty big win at work fairly recently. Basically managed to handle a (relatively) high value deal with a lot high level stakeholders breathing down my neck. The thing is there’s very little visibility on that for my manager because to her it’s just one more item off the tracker and our team weekly meetings are mostly about bringing up blockers. Is this one of those things where I should just be a bit more gauche and just mention it to her even if it’s just not organic?
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Aug 5, 2023 22:28
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Yes, managing up stuff like that is an important skill. Make sure to put the impact into context if they’re not as familiar with that aspect of the business. Maybe give them a nice email or slide for a deck when they’re next sharing wins up their chain.
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Aug 5, 2023 22:32
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SpartanIvy posted:We had a new hire who in his first few days on the job went around inviting the male high level execs to go golfing with him and ignoring all the women at the company, including his direct boss. He also lied about a significant part of his resume, and tried throwing senior employees under the bus for his gently caress ups and slacking, and then doubled down by accusing them of lying when they refuted his claims to management. As soon as he hits middle management he's going to do great. Lockback posted:I'm in upper now and I spent a LONG time in frontline and I can say upper management is ridiculously less stressful. I had one of the most stressful couple days the last couple days because one of my frontline managers was out and I had to step in. And I think in general I do more "frontline" stuff than most directors do! evil_bunnY fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Aug 5, 2023 |
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Aug 5, 2023 22:38
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Atopian posted:Speaking as someone who has usually been an IC, if they've been fine without management for that long, don't mess things up by overmanaging now. With that in mind, how do you successfully tell a new manager that their relentless drive to put their mark on a hitherto functional situation is the thing killing productivity? Or does it just have to blow up in their face a few times so that they learn?
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Aug 5, 2023 22:46
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dpkg chopra posted:I had a pretty big win at work fairly recently. Basically managed to handle a (relatively) high value deal with a lot high level stakeholders breathing down my neck. No, you get one of the high level stakeholders to thank you by name in a meeting your boss is in
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Aug 5, 2023 22:47
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Love too work all day on Saturday to 23:00. Highlights included someone relatively senior shouting at her boss for about 10 minutes about how a 2x8 table should be formatted, and then threatening to quit. I've just looked and there is a deluge of new comments from senior management on the work we did today that has to go back to the FDA tomorrow. it's 23:45 and I am reasonably drunk so probably time to draw a line under the day.
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Aug 5, 2023 22:48
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Car Hater posted:With that in mind, how do you successfully tell a new manager that their relentless drive to put their mark on a hitherto functional situation is the thing killing productivity? Or does it just have to blow up in their face a few times so that they learn? Learn what? When it blows up it's your fault.
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Aug 6, 2023 00:20
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CancerCakes posted:No, you get one of the high level stakeholders to thank you by name in a meeting your boss is in We're external vendors working within our customer's organization, so there's no chance of that happening. I did briefly consider asking the stakeholder I had most interaction with if he'd be willing to mention something to my manager, but it seemed over the line and that it could backfire spectacularly. brainwrinkle posted:Yes, managing up stuff like that is an important skill. Make sure to put the impact into context if they’re not as familiar with that aspect of the business. Maybe give them a nice email or slide for a deck when they’re next sharing wins up their chain. I think I'll try and find a way to do something like this, maybe forward an email or text message with a kiss-assy "notching a win for the good guys".
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Aug 6, 2023 01:36
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Eric the Mauve posted:Learn what? When it blows up it's your fault.  I just wanted to do interesting work and make enough to be comfortable without stressing about social stuff all the time. If I had known that was too much to ask I'd have gone into carpentry instead of engineering.
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Aug 6, 2023 01:41
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Car Hater posted:With that in mind, how do you successfully tell a new manager that their relentless drive to put their mark on a hitherto functional situation is the thing killing productivity? Or does it just have to blow up in their face a few times so that they learn? Is the problem your manager, or do you manage the problem manager?
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Aug 6, 2023 04:29
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Learning how to manage your manager gets pretty crucial as you start getting beyond first level stuff.
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Aug 6, 2023 05:30
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dpkg chopra posted:I had a pretty big win at work fairly recently. Basically managed to handle a (relatively) high value deal with a lot high level stakeholders breathing down my neck. Imo, yes. The longer you let it go without rubbing it in their face, the more time they have to steal the credit for it.
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