The original post pretty much took the words out of my mouth. I've also been self employed for the last year and a half.
Since the economy is somewhat in the toilet (not sure I buy into this totally) I've been reluctant to move around to other clients so I've been working at the same client now the entire time I've been independent.
I work longer hours, never want to take off work, have all kinds of BS corp taxes to fill out but I gotta say I'm more satisfied in this situation than being an employee.
Ever since I got out of college I never saw eye to eye with management and the gray hairs. Eventhough I'm not working for "the man" anymore I'm still essentially working for "the man" but making more money doing so and I have one leg out the door. I'm trying to figure out what I need to do to get the other leg out.
I feel that most managers are just "winging it" but I'm not convinced the issue is poor management... its more a lack of leadership, vision, and a lack of keeping in touch with technology in my opinion. No one wants to "own" anything, do things the "right" way, or see the big picture (3-5 years down the road).
My problem now is that eventhough I'm partially detached from all the BS since I'm an independent consultant, I find myself getting more annoyed with the BS and lack of clue. I've been thinking about pursuing some sort of management consulting career but I'm purely technical at this point and looking to improve my business skills.
The young techies at my client are all very disatisfied with their jobs and management in general. All innovasion is stifled by the gray hairs that don't even fully understand distributed computing... they're all still thinking mainframes and terminals. They're all in their middle management position making poor decisions because they've done nothing to keep up their skills and know damn well that they'll probably never be fired... they just show up, stifle innovation, and collect a paycheck. I had to explain to the "IT security officer" what an IP address was about a week ago. How they can make decisions about anything I have no clue.
There's so much fat in some of these companies and no one ever cleans house. Somehow it all translates to a price for the product or service that is being offered that we all have to pay for... this really bothers me.
So in conclusion I really don't think its "management" per se. It's that the managers lack leadership, vision, consistency, quality, and ownership. I keep having this recurring dream where I sit in all these "management" meetings but I have a gavel and exclaim "crap!! crap I tell you!" and smash my gavel on the table everytime I hear some half baked idea.
Everything's crap... and I'm having a hard time grasping this. We could have been off this planet by now if more people had more of a vision for the future instead of needing to line their pockets with the latest "get rich quick" scheme.
Slashdot Mirror
The original post pretty much took the words out of my mouth. I've also been self employed for the last year and a half.
Since the economy is somewhat in the toilet (not sure I buy into this totally) I've been reluctant to move around to other clients so I've been working at the same client now the entire time I've been independent.
I work longer hours, never want to take off work, have all kinds of BS corp taxes to fill out but I gotta say I'm more satisfied in this situation than being an employee.
Ever since I got out of college I never saw eye to eye with management and the gray hairs. Eventhough I'm not working for "the man" anymore I'm still essentially working for "the man" but making more money doing so and I have one leg out the door. I'm trying to figure out what I need to do to get the other leg out.
I feel that most managers are just "winging it" but I'm not convinced the issue is poor management... its more a lack of leadership, vision, and a lack of keeping in touch with technology in my opinion. No one wants to "own" anything, do things the "right" way, or see the big picture (3-5 years down the road).
My problem now is that eventhough I'm partially detached from all the BS since I'm an independent consultant, I find myself getting more annoyed with the BS and lack of clue. I've been thinking about pursuing some sort of management consulting career but I'm purely technical at this point and looking to improve my business skills.
The young techies at my client are all very disatisfied with their jobs and management in general. All innovasion is stifled by the gray hairs that don't even fully understand distributed computing... they're all still thinking mainframes and terminals. They're all in their middle management position making poor decisions because they've done nothing to keep up their skills and know damn well that they'll probably never be fired... they just show up, stifle innovation, and collect a paycheck. I had to explain to the "IT security officer" what an IP address was about a week ago. How they can make decisions about anything I have no clue.
There's so much fat in some of these companies and no one ever cleans house. Somehow it all translates to a price for the product or service that is being offered that we all have to pay for... this really bothers me.
So in conclusion I really don't think its "management" per se. It's that the managers lack leadership, vision, consistency, quality, and ownership. I keep having this recurring dream where I sit in all these "management" meetings but I have a gavel and exclaim "crap!! crap I tell you!" and smash my gavel on the table everytime I hear some half baked idea.
Everything's crap... and I'm having a hard time grasping this. We could have been off this planet by now if more people had more of a vision for the future instead of needing to line their pockets with the latest "get rich quick" scheme.