"I'd agree with you EXCEPT for the middle management issues the article raised."
I couldn't agree more. When I am examining my sanity and trying to decide whether I am going to work there even one more day, it is definitely NOT my salary, benefits, or even incentive comp that cause me angst. It is purely and simply the ability to get my work done, which of late (the last five years) has become increasingly impossible. We have a real problem with bureaucracy, a ton of dead weight, and a general lack of skill at "being a large company." It is precisely due to that layer of middle management, and the endless empire building they engage in, that we have such a hard time turning out good work.
You know, in 8 years there, I have never completed a single project, nor have I ever had two consecutive perfomance reviews under the same manager, primarily due to constant re-orgs, power struggles, and the circular decision-making that always happens when "the new guy" trys to solve the same problems "the last guy" couldn't solve, but using his own version of the same damn solution. When the work is actually good, we just throw it away.
Slashdot Mirror
"I'd agree with you EXCEPT for the middle management issues the article raised."
I couldn't agree more. When I am examining my sanity and trying to decide whether I am going to work there even one more day, it is definitely NOT my salary, benefits, or even incentive comp that cause me angst. It is purely and simply the ability to get my work done, which of late (the last five years) has become increasingly impossible. We have a real problem with bureaucracy, a ton of dead weight, and a general lack of skill at "being a large company." It is precisely due to that layer of middle management, and the endless empire building they engage in, that we have such a hard time turning out good work.
You know, in 8 years there, I have never completed a single project, nor have I ever had two consecutive perfomance reviews under the same manager, primarily due to constant re-orgs, power struggles, and the circular decision-making that always happens when "the new guy" trys to solve the same problems "the last guy" couldn't solve, but using his own version of the same damn solution. When the work is actually good, we just throw it away.