Manager Sandwich: The Middle Manager's Survival Blog

 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

from ebonfire.wordpress.com  Recently, I accepted a position with a competitor.  The new position was a step-up in responsibility and pay from my previous employer.  Don't get excited, I am still middle management, just another bloody, sweaty rung higher.  My father would tell the joke, that management was like a tree full of monkeys;  if you look down all you see is smiling faces, when you look up, all you see are a**holes.  Not always 100% true, but true enough I suppose. I now have an opportunity to manage a larger group of co-workers that are comprised of both hourly and salaried employees.  This opportunity allows me an exposure to experiences that I wouldn't  have otherwise.  But there was something that I did four years ago that made it all possible.  My previous job, although not new in responsibility, was in a different facility than that which I had worked in before. Same company, similar job, but a whole different environment. When I moved from Fort Wayne