This time of year, a while back, I was the only area manager in the plant just before Christmas. We were in the middle of a large capital project installation. The plant was down for the holidays, except for the construction work going on in the new facility. Earlier the same morning, the millwrights had discovered that over $15,000 in hand tools and equipment had been stolen from the mechanical shop. There was too much equipment missing all at once to be anything but theft. The automation technicians had recently installed some DVR video cameras throughout the new part of the plant. These cameras were situated to allow the operators to view key parts of the process from the operating pulpit. On one of the video feeds, the senior automation tech thought that he noticed two guys moving tools out of the shop through a glimpse of the camera. The resolution wasn't very sharp, and was even worse when the footage was blown up to see as much detail as we could. Meanwhile, there
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.