Futher Meltdown at Work

[howeird]

The morning guy in tech support gave his notice Tuesday. That leaves two plus the boss in what should be a minimum four-person department.

This morning the COO calls a bunch of us together - the 2 IT guys, the two support guys + boss, Two of the SEs, and one of the developers. The developer has been named Director of Professional Services. IT and Support will report to him. SEs will report to Sales. We have no Professional Services staff per se - SEs and Support staff do that work.

Developer is a good person. He is bright, sociable, and I have first-hand knowledge of him working a 20-hour shift to help a customer. However, he is a programmer with zero management experience, and this position promotes him two levels and across to a group with which he has only been peripherally associated.

I wish him well. He may do an excellent job. But IMHO he is a thousand times more needed in his developer position than this new role, and it would have made much more sense to hire an experienced manager from outside the company to do this DPS job.

After the meeting, I had lunch with one of my co-workers who had been at the company since before the last time I worked there. This person is planning an escape. This is a Bad Thing for the company, but a wise choice for someone who has seen five years of work pretty much go down the tubes.

I'm getting my resume updated. This company had melted down on me before, it may very well do it again.

They received $15 Million in funding in September or October, and now there's a hiring freeze. Where did all that money go?

Comments

[scendan.livejournal.com]

Urk...although the guy sounds like he's nice, this could be an application of the Peter Principle...

[howeird]

This is beyond the Peter Principal. Last week the nice man was at the highest level for which his skills and training qualified him. This week he is two or three levels above that.

Dr. Peter expected people to be promoted one level at a time, which is the norm, and he also expected people to stop being promoted (and demoted) when they are just past their level of peak competence. He also expected people to be promoted within their own department, ladder style.

But in this case, the person was promoted two, maybe three levels, into a different part of the organization.

I'm guessing here, but from what I've gleaned from your posts about your workplace this would be like promoting a crisis line intern (if you don't have one, just imagine the concept for purposes of this discussion) to be in charge of everything having to do with the self-defense classes.

Depending on the intern, it could work. But it would be a Big Surprise to you, especially since (a) nobody in the organization said anything about looking for a Director of Self-Defense, and (b) nobody asked you, who are qualified, if you were interested in the position.

In my case, I'm not insulted that I wasn't asked (I'm allergic to managing) but in any normal, intelligently-run company I would have at least been told they were considering internal candidates.

[scendan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's...not great managerial handling of the situation, is it? Feh.

[farmount.livejournal.com]

After the meeting, I had lunch with one of my co-workers who had been at the company since before the last time I worked there. This person is planning an escape.
I feel for that person, since I'm doing the same thing. Get to tell Dr. Laura today that I need to take probably a Wednesday off sometime soon so I can do a working interview at Boulder Creek Vet Hospital.

[howeird]

Good Luck. It surely would minimize your commute. Did you talk to Dr. Ken?