the craziness of corporate thinking

[undeterred]

Sometimes I truly wonder what they teach people in business school.

I work on the desktop support side of an IT department at a manufacturing company. I came in as a contractor and was hired after 6 months. For me its a very good situation in which to better my skills and I have a supervisor that I really like and I can learn a lot from. Those are the reasons I keep the job. I couldn't care less what we manufacture, and I don't have any particular loyalty to the company.

They laid off 23 people in a single day during June, the month before I was hired. The company had a rough year financially. Both the director of finance and the president "retired" and were replaced by others from within the company. They have monthly employee meetings and are fairly open about major changes and policies. However after the big layoff they moved some people into the wrong positions and ended up calling others back. There was a lot of shuffling around before all the dust settled.

During all this the IT Manager found another job and was promoted. A programmer who had also been a project manager was promoted into his position, and so far its been disappointing.

My real question is this: One of my coworkers is a contractor from the same agency I came from and was also supposed to be hired after a year. She has done her job very well and everyone in the company likes her. But instead of offering the position to her, they have ignored her, and posted it on the company website and internet career sites. She asked the new IT Manager if she was being considered and he cryptically told her "now is not the time to pass on any other opportunities".

My supervisor asked the IT Manager point blank if he was going to interview her and he said that the new President of the company wants someone in that position who is interested in and capable of becoming an IT Manager. That piece of information is not posted in the job description. (The new IT Manager has been with the company since college and has no intention of ever leaving.)

I find it weird. If you're familiar with IT, you know that managers come from a wide variety of backgrounds. This particular position is for an Oracle Business Analyst. She's already been doing the job well for a year and she wants the job. I think she is no more or less qualified to be IT Manager than the person who has the position now.

The thing is that the company already has no depth. And now, instead of keeping a really good person who works hard and wants the job were going to look for someone else who may or may not work out for a reason that has no reference to the current needs of the company.

What am I missing here?

[Sherman A1]

1. Well, you are not missing anything...

you understand it perfectly well and "the craziness of corporate thinking", says it all.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. how DARE you use THINKING and CORPORATE in the same sentence ? ? ? ?

shame, shame.

[Sherman A1]

8. You are correct!

and I humbly apologize for this grievous error....... I am but a .......:dunce:

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Could this be a veiled form of discrimination?

Are there any women in management? Is this IT person who wants the job a member of a minority as well as being a woman? If so, she may wish to discreetly check into things.

[undeterred]

3. not too many minorities at this company

When I told her what I had heard she said she is sure that she has more experience superivising and managing that he does. She is 15-20 years older. My supervisor said he would be smart to hire her, because making a good hire makes a manager look good. And she's a sure thing.

But on the other hand, I think she may also work a little harder than he does and draw less attention to herself. At a gut level I think he's threatened by her.

If its really coming from the corporate president, all I can say is I can't believe we pay people so much to be incorporate the value of disloyalty. Telling a contractor you will hire them after a year and then not doing it for no good reason creates a culture of disloyalty.

[Casablanca]

5. When it comes to corporate politics, Clint Eastwood said it best.

"Deserve's got nothing to do with it."

It's an old managerial psyop I saw in my first job at a grocery store back in 1977 - the hardest working bagboy (and the friendliest) was fired with no warning and no explanation, just to put the "fear of God" into the rest of us.

It could also be that she was being too busy doing her job well and helping out her fellow workers that she wasn't able to "kiss up" quickly or often enough. Some managers look for "the killer instinct" rather than competence.

You aren't missing a thing. You're seeing what has killed the old American Protestant work ethic, and pride in one's work, over the last 30 years.

<<edit: added quote>>

"You have business students saying, 'All I'm doing is emulating the behavior I'll need when I get out in the real world.'"

-- Rutgers University professor Donald McCabe, lead author of a study that found MBA candidates the most likely to cheat among North American graduate students. Fifty-six percent admitted to copying others' work, plagiarizing, or sneaking notes into exams.

[undeterred]

6. well, I can't imagine why they expect loyalty

or why anyone ever gives it

I look at whats in it for me.

[KAZ]

7. You're not missing anything.

"from a wide variety of backgrounds" is the problem. I've been in this biz for 22 years, and believe me, since the halcyon days of the late '90s, we've been riddled with managers/directors/CIOs who seem to have a "wide variety of backgrounds". People with Chem degrees who saw all of the dollars being tossed about for Y2K remediation, jumped in with some consulting company, and then eased into a "permanent" management position once the '90s went away. They soon depart, leaving disaster in their wake.

Good luck to you. Get out.

[lectrobyte]

9. It's hard to say without actually knowing the people involved. It could be

the company wants someone who is a "take charge - type A" kind of person as a manager, and your coworker, while they may be excellent at a technical job, and possibly excellent as a manager as well, does not project this attitude. Or it could be that the folks choosing the manager can't imagine a woman in management. Or it could be something petty like she didn't want to listen to someone's Amway pitch, or made a snarky comment about George Bush, or didn't "kiss up" to the right member of the food chain. We can't know from there, though.

A little side note: From my experience of 35 years within the corporate world, any company that valued employee loyalty and would actively attempt to retain employees was rare enough to start with, and probably lost that attitude about 1990. The current trend of "a high performance business culture" seems to be to shoot for about 20% turnover yearly, even in IT.