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Do Nice Engineers Finish Last In Tough Times?
jammag writes "As the wave of pink slips is starting to resemble Robespierre and his guillotine, the maneuvering among tech professionals to hang on to their job is getting ugly. IT Management describes the inter-office competition between the manager of a server farm and the supervisor of networks and security. One was nice, giving his team members credit, taking responsibility when something went wrong. The other was a backstabber who spent plenty of time sucking up to the management. As the inevitable cuts came, who do you think hung on to their job?"
Ability will never catch up with the demand for it.
Of course you can always find an anecdotal counterexample, but the one time I decided I wanted to get someone out of a management position that was interfering with my job, it wound up backfiring hugely (the situation was *worse* after I succeeded) and on a personal level it's something I regret to this day.
On the other hand, every time I've come into a job situation and behaved with honesty and integrity, it's worked out well for me. And I get to sleep at night.
So take your pick.
Hunh. That must explain why I'm living on the streets instead of in a nice house in a nice neighborhood. Oh, wait! No! I am living in the nice house. And I didn't stab anybody in the back to get it. Nor, for that matter, is my business acumen the reason I'm in the nice house - in fact, it's basically just good fortune.
I'm not saying that there's no value in hard work, or in any of the other things we do on the job. But I'm sufficiently ancient at this point to have seen a lot of comings and goings, and the fact is that prosperity and [insert name of business tactic here] are largely orthogonal. If you don't have any talent, sure, maybe being an asshole is your only hope. Or maybe you should just go do what you really want to do and stop screwing around in a job you aren't suited for.
Having been on a few sinking ships, I haven't found that to be the case. What I've seen, oddly, is the opposite. People get nicer once the realize there's no future in it for anyone. At that point, it becomes about who remembers you and how, and whether they can get you into wherever they land next.
At a certain point, it just becomes collecting your paycheck until its your turn. No point in being a dick about it.
P.S.
I ran into this at work. I was given a completely unrealistic goal to create a schematic in ONE week, for a project that I knew nothing about. I worked 80 hours in that single week, missed the deadline (no surprise), was threatened by my boss "If you can't do the job, I'll find somebody else who can" to which I replied, "Okay." He suddenly backed down because he didn't have anybody else, and I completed the schematic.
Long story short, I got the job done in 1.5 weeks, but the management still wanted to blame someone, so my boss took a "me first" attitude like the Doug in the article. He told everyone I was a lousy engineer and bad-mouthed him (false, HE badmouthed me), and that it was my fault the schematic did not get done in one week's time. (The fault lies with whichever idiot created the schedule, not the engineer). Anyway I got laid off on January 5. The asshole boss got to keep his job, and I, the guy thrown into a project with only one week's notice, got axed.
Yeah. Being a nice guy at work, like dating, often means you finish last. You gotta be an ass if you want to score.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I worked for a small company, which lived and died by the monthly sales numbers. I worked there for over 7 years and had survived over 5 major layoffs. (one of those included my direct report, leaving me the only IT person to support about 90 users, 20-30 being traveling sales guys who worked from their home offices, never coming to the office).
:)
The top boss was nutjob, constantly yelling at his people, belittling them and generally being an idiot. He was given a copy of the Jack Welch (the former CEO of GE) and in that book he talks about ranking his employees, and getting rid of the bottom 10% every year (the deadwood).
So of course around this time, sales went in the toilet, and there had to be layoffs. After 10+% of the employees were let go (which sucked for me the IT guy, because I knew it was coming and who they would be before it happened, but that's another story). The survivors were called to a Town Hall meeting to discuss the layoffs. Everything was going well with the Boss's speech. You know, crap like cut off the arm to save the patient. With less people we're all going to row harder to get to the finish line. Then the jaw dropper:
"I'm going to rank all of you, and post that list in the lunch room. You had better find someone above you on that list, get on their shoulders and push them down (using a motion like he's drowning someone in a pool)." We all were dumbfounded.
The first thing that went through my mind was: who's tires can I slash so they don't make it to work on time
I finally smartened up and got out of there.
"Engineer" predates locomotives. The first "engineers" were military engineers, who made siege engines. The second "engineers" were civil engineers (to distinguish them from the military ones); they built buildings. Other sorts of "engineers" came later.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
That's a leftover from when train engineers really were engineers. Coal fueled engines needed to be carefully regulated or they could explode.
As for the "Network Engineers" at least in Canada it's actually against the law to call yourself that. The engineering association in Canada put their collective feet down a few years ago about the whole MCSE thing. Microsoft of course pretends it didn't happen but just tells people to call themselves an MCSE and not spell out what it means.