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Capturing some memories. This is a longer version than posted to FB.
Once apon a time in a job reasonably far away- various management people would pop into my office* and ask how things were going. I would proceed recite the current litany of problems and what we were doing to manage them, with return questions about any news on when various bits of plant were expected to be working again. It wasn’t until years later that I realised that, the more senior the person, the more likely they wanted a simple answer of “fine thanks” or maybe “we have everything under control”. They kept paying my salary for another 10-15 years so it can’t have been all bad.
A couple of related anecdotes:
- My first production manager in that role used to come in and ask why we had not requested a particular action from the plant operators. Initially I sort of ducked my head and said the equivalent of “oh, you think we should? Ok then” and try to work out what he was talking about and why. I really felt I must have learned something the day I responded with “no, that isn’t a good idea, because…”.
-Same guy** turned up one day rather later, hung his head and reluctantly asked what was going wrong today. I felt bad then for all my negative reports. He was the one that needed to know, but he wasn’t really temperamentally suited to his role. He is a deep thinker, not someone happy in the hurly burly of operations.
I hated that job, and I reckon it nearly killed me, but bizarrely, by golly it made one feel alive. Yeh, yeh, I’m still processing.
* (the only time I ever had one, though shared)
** one who’s intellect I respect more than just about any other I met in the organisation
Once apon a time in a job reasonably far away- various management people would pop into my office* and ask how things were going. I would proceed recite the current litany of problems and what we were doing to manage them, with return questions about any news on when various bits of plant were expected to be working again. It wasn’t until years later that I realised that, the more senior the person, the more likely they wanted a simple answer of “fine thanks” or maybe “we have everything under control”. They kept paying my salary for another 10-15 years so it can’t have been all bad.
A couple of related anecdotes:
- My first production manager in that role used to come in and ask why we had not requested a particular action from the plant operators. Initially I sort of ducked my head and said the equivalent of “oh, you think we should? Ok then” and try to work out what he was talking about and why. I really felt I must have learned something the day I responded with “no, that isn’t a good idea, because…”.
-Same guy** turned up one day rather later, hung his head and reluctantly asked what was going wrong today. I felt bad then for all my negative reports. He was the one that needed to know, but he wasn’t really temperamentally suited to his role. He is a deep thinker, not someone happy in the hurly burly of operations.
I hated that job, and I reckon it nearly killed me, but bizarrely, by golly it made one feel alive. Yeh, yeh, I’m still processing.
* (the only time I ever had one, though shared)
** one who’s intellect I respect more than just about any other I met in the organisation
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