Mike Mitchell wrote:


As for running my own small business, I was pushed rather than jumped.
Forced out of work by an unscrupulous employer not once but twice I
was encouraged to join the great unwashed of the IT industry -
wouldn't have gone self-employed if that hadn't happened.


"Unscrupulous" is synonymous with "employer" in my book. I wouldn't
cross the road to put the fire out in most cases.




Mmm. Never confuse he employer - the actual entity that owns the
business you work for - with the middle management tawt who has the
power to hire and fire you.

Middle managers are n a greasy pole climb. 99% of teh time they are here
because they want the extra salary, staus and power, not because they
have a clue about the job or teh first inkling of the fact that
management IS a job.

They are the Machiavellian princelings in the the country of the company.

Any employee is subcosnciously assessed on two basic parameters..nameley

(i) How much can this employee advance my career?

(ii) Whatt threat does this employee reprsent to me, in terms of me
being shown up to be relatively ignorant and useless?

Weka managers of this sort abound. A strong manager perceive no threat,
can handle criticism and admits mistakes.

Tony Bliar epitomizes a weak ambitious middle manager. Anyone who
disagrees with him, or makes him or hs government look shaky, is sacked.
Meanwhile he gathers a coterie of yes men and clever chaps around him
to blster his confidence and polish his image.

Until they et it wrong and have to go.

The difference between a strong manager and a weakone is very very sim0le.

The strong one is free to concentrate on getting the job done:
Analayisng the state of his part of the business, and working to improve
its efficiency and develop it in approprate directions.He is aslo
mindfu; of teh duty of care oqed to his employers - the shareholders -
and te staff.

A weak manager is preoccupied with gaining and maintaining his position.
To do this he feels (gernerally fairly correctly) that what is
important is creating and maintianing an illusion of competencey and
efficiency, not actally achieving it.

Of course ultimately such managers fail, or are promoted even higher to
get them out of the way (they probably have enough dirt on top
managements affairs with the tarts in typing) once the accountants have
been through the figures and worked out just how sloppy and inneficient
thay really are, or in other cases the whole company falls.

We will no doubt see sir Bliar, or Lord Bliar, in due course.

In a career of dealing wih such people I have learnt to recognise the
animal. The phrase 'no one ever got sacked for buying IBM' was invented
to describe them.



Best thing I ever did. No more of the corporate office politics for me
nor trying to climb greasy ladders for a 1% pay rise next year and
some **** writing stupid words on my performance evaluation.


Totally agree. Those ruddy appraisals year in, year out! Such a bloody
waste of time, but how good did they make management feel! Its one and
only annual attempt to meet the people.



Management hates them. It is however the one thing that they cannot
avoid. Its in the Bumper Book of What Managers Do.

Very few managers actually manage anything. Eeven if they have been on
management courses.


MM