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Subject:Re: In the Trenches, A Bit of Venting From:Andrew Plato <gilliankitty -at- yahoo -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 14 Nov 2002 07:43:35 -0800 (PST)
> I agree with that, but if such a situation existed in the department that the
> poster is working in, would he in fact be in his present predicament? It
> sounded as if the other writer had *already* dropped the ball, that nobody but
> the poster noticed or cared, and that there was no oversight of the writers by
> anyone else.
All the more reason to distance yourself from an underperforming co-worker. If
management ever stops by to see how things are going, if they see you mired in
the same incompetence as your co-workers they may just rid themselves of all of
you and start over.
> By the time someone posts to this mailing list with a problem, I
> should think (judging my own experience only, of course) that other solutions
> were not apparent and that the poster is nearing desperation. Perhaps I
> generalize inappropriate from my own experience.
You're right that we don't know all the details. And you're within bounds to
speculate. I don't know if the poster has tried to reason with Mr. MFA or not.
But I do know that at some point, reason isn't enough to make people do their
jobs correctly.
> But what writer in a department has the authority to negotiate responsibility?
> Maybe you're talking about very small departments that have one or two people
> in them and function autonomously. That's the only situation in which I could
> see where working it out locally is the best choice.
Authority is not handed down from above, its earned. Most organizations that just
blindly hand out authority to whomever has stood around the longest usually
regret such decisions.
> But a manager's responsibility is to assure that everyone knows what's to be
> done and how to do it. A documentation manager who shuts her door and lets the
> writer's brawl over how to approach their tasks isn't much of a manager.
The poster's "get it done" attitude may very well make him manager soon.
> I wonder now if I still might have a job if I had not done exactly what you
> suggest.
> I might have been among the survivors in the department. Next time, I will not
> keep silent and wait for management to notice.
You also may have been fired even quicker. Did you ever think of that?
Andrew Plato
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