Manager Sandwich: The Middle Manager's Survival Blog

Back in 1982, while I was in the 8th grade at Birney Middle School, I had my first computer class. The school had just received about twenty new Apple II+ machines and we were learning to program using AppleBasic.  I took to the Apple very quickly, and my friends and I soon developed game copying rings and programming clubs. Back in 1982, I wanted nothing else. Steven Jobs's concept of putting the computers in school classrooms at cost was genius.  Their placement was a perfect ploy to entice parents to buy them at home since their student children were already strong users from school experience.  This marketing approach was further expanded when the first Mac computers were introduced in 1984.  By the time I started college in 1986, the dorm computer centers were full of them.  The Mac was a huge step in user interface quality, being young and eager drove me to integrate the technology and to become proficient in their operation.  While in coll...

    One of my favorite books is  Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger.  I read it on my own while in middle school, a second time by assignment in High School, and a third time while I was a student in college.  Mr. Salinger succinctly illustrates a timeless picture of teenage angst and a young man's realization of his self-centered behavior.  Some of the language or descriptions slightly date the book.  However, unlike so many classics read in High School, it allows an opportunity for any young man, and young women to take a look inside themselves to see even just a sliver of self-realization.      One of the least favorite books (mainly because of the main character) is Rabbit Run  by John Updike.  I read this book about two years ago. I was travelling back from Florida with my son Alek.  We were both listening to a program on NPR (on the day of the author's birthday) which included several past interviews with John Up...

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 a...

When it comes to presentations, there is no such thing as the old "Overhead Projector" anymore.  Just about every meeting room has a computer projector, and nobody uses clear overhead film.  Just about every presentation from a classroom to a boardroom is done with Microsoft Powerpoint.  Let's just get this straight, this rant is not anti-technology.  I only aim to point out certain things to avoid when using Powerpoint with its infinite detail capabilities when giving a presentation.  Remember, just because we can do things, doesn't mean we should. When it comes to putting every bell and whistle that Powerpoint has to offer into a presentation, just use some common sense, and have some mercy on the audience with these tips: One font at a time please.  Just because there are about a gazillion fonts available, doesn't mean you need to use the goofiest one to make your point stand out.  Use simple easy to read fonts, anything Gothic, cursive, or se...

Everywhere you go, you will find people who are just dying to be in charge, that is until they have to do something with all that sought after responsibility.  Being a leader, for those of us slugging it out in the middle manager slit trenches, is all about making decisions; mostly the unpopular kind.  The easy decisions, are well, easy. As an old boss of mine would say, "That's easy, it's a no brainer!" Of course, that is assuming easily enough that I was a complete dumbass when I came to him for his infinite wisdom.  The simplicity of my challenge completely eluded my simpleton nature. I would always tell him that if it was easy, the guys doing the job would have already fixed it.  I was trying to get him to understand a much bigger problem that he was conveniently trivializing. So we all have had a boss, a middle manager who reigned over our even lower level of management, who thought our challenges and decisions were easy.  What is worse is when we are ...

During the past twelve years, I have had the fortune of working in a rural area as well as urban environments.  Each year, on my drive to work through rural areas, I notice the fields being turned over from one crop to another.  The corn is planted in the spring after the wheat harvest, and is knee-high by July.  It dries in the fall, harvested, with the long stalks used for silage to feed cattle.  During the next spring, the ground is plugged for soybeans which dry to a golden brown in the late summer.  After harvest, the fields are then planted for winter wheat, and the cycle begins again. Throughout many conversations with co-workers and prospective employees that I have met in interviews, I have learned so much about how people make their living.  They have been performing some of the most important and long standing tasks known to civilized human beings.  There is a special care that these family farmers take while they tend to the crop c...

The concept of a flat Earth dates back to the Bronze Age.  Early Greek philosophers including Pythagoras and later Aristotle were able to empirically develop the concept of a spherical Earth.  Ptolemy, hundreds of years later also used a spherical Earth model in the development of maps and the constructs of latitude and longitude.  How was it that such a developed science could be so easily dismissed in the dark ages?  For hundreds of years, the knowledge and understanding of a spherical earth was documented, yet for over 500 years you were labeled a heretic for even suggesting it.  The crews of Columbus’s initial New World Journey were terrified of the evils of over-speculated sea monsters and the inevitable fall off the edge of the world.  If you are encountering a culture shift in your workplace, then you have nothing to worry about compared what good ole’ Chris endured. Not only did Columbus need to get funding, he needed to recruit a crew of me...