The Living Dilbert?

AirmanTux asks: "Next march I will be separating from the US Air Force, after six years wearing 'the uniform', working in the closest thing to IT that the military has. For certain reasons, I've come to the conclusion that I will be more effective in serving the US public out of uniform than in it. There seems to be a common belief that the civilian sector is just as disorganized and mismanaged as the uniformed services. Do you think this is true? Are there any 'honest' places to work any more (where promotions/awards are based on work preformed and bureaucracy, and politics aren't encouraged to supplant the 'mission), or has America become one big living Dilbert strip?"

Comments

No.

[avm]

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: Not really...there are places where performance and ability advance, but they are few and far between indeed, and primarily in small establishments. To most employers, employees are disposable commodity, a necessary evil that is to be pruned or removed at the earliest possible convenience. Management has become the science of keeping up appearances, with many managers being completely ignorant of the trade they are in, or the tasks of the workers they supposedly manage. Color me a pessimist, but the way I see it, Dilbert has gone from a sarcastic parody to a photorealistic portrait of the American workforce.

The world is not a Dilbert strip...

[rice_burners_suck]

If you work in a big corporation, chances are that there's an official organization chart, with personnel at all sorts of levels. Unofficially, there's a complicated web of an organization chart that goes on behind the scenes. People talk to one another. Some people work hard and do their best to do a good job, but don't get anywhere in life. Other people don't do such a great job, but spend their time figuring out how the game works at their particular organization, and then play the game and move up the corporate ladder. This is a problem if you're the former, and an advantage if you're the latter.

But that can be avoided! If, instead of working at a large company, you seek out a small fledgling business to work at, you will find that the benefits are proportional to the results and not to politics. A small business, especially one with 20 employees at the most, cannot afford to play these political games. These businesses are usually owner-operated, and the owner cares about moving forward in life. That's why he is taking the tremendous risk and creating jobs for his employees. These organizations usually have one boss, around whom the whole business revolves. There might be one other manager, but usually, everyone runs around the boss asking questions and finding out what he wants them to do. This is the perfect business to work in, if you're a people-person. You go over there, and start at whatever level you can get. Since there aren't thousands of employees, the owner of the business will quickly see how you learn and operate. If you do a good job, you'll find yourself earning a lot of trust and capability in the company. Your opinions will be heard. And if you can be a team member, not just by doing your job, but by learning a bit about everyone's job, learning how the owner thinks, what he wants to accomplish, etc., you can take a lot of that pressure off the owner.

By doing all of this, you can help the business grow in terms of profit, which will make it grow into a larger company. Eventually, that means the office will become a Dilbert strip, or something out of Office Space. You'll have a Lumberg working under you a few levels down. But who cares? At this point, you will have helped the U.S. economy, you will have created jobs, you will have grown the company into something successful and long lasting, and you will be at a high position at the top, earning a high salary, and no doubt owning a good portion of the stock. You'll be laughing all the way to the bank.

The TAO of Dilbert

[Sonyturbo]

I think I have a pretty good perspective on the "Dilbert factor". I have worked for Chevron (9 years), IBM (3 months) and McKinsey (2 years) and was 1 degree of separation from Scott Adams when he was at Pacific Bell. So there's my big company experience.

On the other side, I am the owner of a 15 person IT consulting firm which services only companies of 10 to 200, and so I have worked with over 50 companies of this size - in addition to owning one.

Here is the simple truth of the matter:

If a small company runs on politics, rather than business sense, it goes out of business. Yes there are exceptions - owner has a huge chunk of cash to burn - but this is very largely true. So there is very little b.s. in small business.

In large businesses, sad but true, it becomes very very hard to distinguish the true business contribution of one person from another. Also, the consequence of a good / bad decision may take years to come to light. So, whether people say so or not, you are judged on how well you fit into the culture. If you know this, understand it and accept it, you will do fine. If you act like a typical engineer and say "but my idea was better", you will be miserable. Instead of being upset at the fact that the MBA's are running the show, sit back and ask yourself why that is. If you are as smart as you think you are - you will figure it out.

The fact is that the success of big business depends on people working together. And this quality, one of fitting in, is easier to pick out than what the true ROI of converting all those Windows servers to Linux is.

Think really, really hard on this. Don't reject reality and say "it stinks" - use a bit of ju jitsu - accept reality, understand why this reality exists, and use that understanding in an effective way to achieve your personal vision of success.

A way of thinking

This reality stinks
It shouldn't be this way
I can't affect what happens

A better way of thinking

What is really going on here?
It is this way, why is that so?
I can affect how I react to what happens.

Do this and you may be very happy at a big business since you will learn how to rise within it to the point that you have real influence. If you don't understand this you will be frustrated regardless of where you work.

Don't Knock "Soft Skills"

[patio11]

I once knew a very talented engineer (also my supervisor) who was consistently less supported by management than his coworker Bob (not his real name). Bob was also a very talented engineer, and Bob had essentially infinite budget any time he snapped his fingers. Do you know why? Because Bob understood the rules of the game and played it like a master. Bob was aggressive about keeping his appointment book in order, was never late to a meeting, and actually bothered keeping a Rolodex with contacts inside and outside the organization. When Bob was at the meeting, rather than pretending it was a waste of his time he listened, discussed, argued, and lost the argument sometimes. Bob was as comfortable in Powerpoint as he was in his C compiler -- probably better, actually. When they'd explain project proposals my supervisor would talk about Zipf distributions, locality of reference, and cache misses and Bob would talk about "maximizing search outcomes".

When Bob got his project greenlighted when my supervisor did not, because Bob was capable of making a business case for it at a meeting chaired by the guy he'd been grooming for months, was that B.S? Seems to me like thats "creative use of resources". You can either continue to laugh ruefully at the world and scorn "small talk" and "politics" and "useless meetings and reports and that bureacratic "#$"%" or you can be like Bob.

Re:usajobs.com

[paeanblack]

is there any good jobs with job security left anywhere at all ? Or has globalization eaten them all ?

"Job security" is just another insurance policy deducted from your wages. While you may not see the line-item on your pay stub, the cost is very real and very significant.

If getting paid what you are worth is important to you, accept that you can be replaced at whim. If you want job security, be prepared to work for half of your potential wages. "Job security" just means your employer is getting a great bargain and can afford to tolerate oversight and shiftlessness on your behalf.

Rephrase your question as "are there any high-yield, zero-risk investments left anywhere at all?" if you need a rational perspective. Globalization has nothing to do with what you seek.