Well, that’s how I phrased it, so no wonder you read it that way.
What I meant was a shorter version of trying to explain what middle management is, how much work it is while providing so little value, being mostly politics and very little control over the things that are important to me, and being too far removed from the actual work to feel as if I’m truly contributing in a meaningful way.
Management is necessary because we run businesses in a way that makes it necessary. And, also, because there are some shitty people out there and while most are trying, you still have that guy on your team making inappropriate comments to women in the company and that has to be dealt with. Or, you engage the contractor who didn’t bother declaring that he was an ex-felon convicted of trafficking CP, and HR didn’t get around to running the background check until you decided he was good enough to offer a full time position. Or, you have a vendor who keeps missing their deliverables, but their owner golfs with the CTO so you actually have to spend time building a case to replace them.
Anyway, I really hated it, and by the time I realized it, it was ten years after the last time I wrote code for pay, and it was too late to go back.
But that’s way more than I originally wanted to type, and still isn’t the whole story, so I condensed it down into advice: “take the first management promotion, but reject the rest, because you’ll end up hating what you do until you retire.”
Oh, also: “don’t try to start your own business, because you’ll spend even more time doing all that shit you hate, like selling your company to prospective clients, and fund raising, and ‘maintaining contacts’, while your employees get to have all the fun writing code.” Writing business fucking cases.
Well, that’s how I phrased it, so no wonder you read it that way.
What I meant was a shorter version of trying to explain what middle management is, how much work it is while providing so little value, being mostly politics and very little control over the things that are important to me, and being too far removed from the actual work to feel as if I’m truly contributing in a meaningful way.
Management is necessary because we run businesses in a way that makes it necessary. And, also, because there are some shitty people out there and while most are trying, you still have that guy on your team making inappropriate comments to women in the company and that has to be dealt with. Or, you engage the contractor who didn’t bother declaring that he was an ex-felon convicted of trafficking CP, and HR didn’t get around to running the background check until you decided he was good enough to offer a full time position. Or, you have a vendor who keeps missing their deliverables, but their owner golfs with the CTO so you actually have to spend time building a case to replace them.
Anyway, I really hated it, and by the time I realized it, it was ten years after the last time I wrote code for pay, and it was too late to go back.
But that’s way more than I originally wanted to type, and still isn’t the whole story, so I condensed it down into advice: “take the first management promotion, but reject the rest, because you’ll end up hating what you do until you retire.”
Oh, also: “don’t try to start your own business, because you’ll spend even more time doing all that shit you hate, like selling your company to prospective clients, and fund raising, and ‘maintaining contacts’, while your employees get to have all the fun writing code.” Writing business fucking cases.
IT’S A TRAP