from www.tonywublog.com Until recently, I honestly hadn't realized how much I have learned over the last 20 or so years. In my current position as a department manager, I am now responsible not only for my actions but also the actions of the team. It certainly is a departure from the days when I was a management associate (trainee) where I was told by another project engineer that my position with the company in the scheme of things was lower than whale sh*t. The other day I called up the old co-worker that I worked with during that time as a trainee. We laughed about the hours we spent filing drawings like clerks, the days we spent on top of a coke oven battery watching smoke (yes, I said watching smoke), and the months we spent working fourteen hour nights, seven days a week during the summers of 1993 and 1994 on blast furnace rebuilds. We were young, stupid, always clowning around, playing immature games; but we sure did learn some valuable lessons on m
Most of us will spend a majority of our career in Middle Management. Instead of dreading it, embrace it for what you can glean from living in the ultimate squeeze play.