Temporary insanity re: my job

In My Humble Opinion
1

At the end of August I accepted a new job after 24 years in my previous one. Deals with the exact same stuff I did before, but at a different step in the process. I’m in a brand new office, about 80 miles from my home. I drive down on Monday mornings and back Friday eves - or Thursday as my schedule allows. Right now the commute is working well. I’m enjoying my job - as opposed to simply tolerating my old one. I put in for a transfer to an office 20 min from my home, but that might come thru tomorrow or 5 years from now. And honestly, for a number of reasons I could be very happy with the current situation for a long time. The job is going very well. I’m getting more and more comfortable with it every day, and it is clear that I am going to be able to be very successful at it without too much stress.

What is really crazy is I’m considering applying for the position of running the office. Right now we have an acting chief who is also the chief at another office, and they just posted the opening for a permanent one. And I find myself seriously considering applying for the position.

Chief is kind of a weird position, in which I would get a raise, but would pretty much be responsible for doing all of my current tasks - in addition to supervisory/administrative tasks. I’ve given this a ton of thought - and still consider myself essentially ambivalent tho tending towards applying. I’ll put down some of my plusses and minuses, but to keep this OP to a reasonable length I’ll discuss more specifics to the extent anyone is interested.

Plusses:
-It is a brand new office. Half the employees are new hires, and the other half are promotions from other offices. But you do not have long entrenched folk with attitude problems.
-The office seems to be running quite well - tho it has only been open for 4-5 months.
-There is a very good administrative staff currently in place. As chief I would have considerable discretion as to how much I left the running of the office to them.
-The big corner office and the slightly higher prestige from the position would be nice - but I already have a pretty sweet gig so the increase is not a determining factor.
-There is no minimum commitment - pretty much at any time I wanted, I could step back to my present position. But realistically, I’d feel obligated to do it for at least a year or 2.
-Chiefs get preference WRT transfers.

Minuses:
-I would have people coming into my office with their complaints - and I can imagine myself not being tremendously sympathetic to many of them.
-There are currently some probationary employees - I would have to personally fire any who are not working out.
-In my current position I have considerable flexibility and unaccountability. As boss, tho I’d be able to influence my schedule, there would be other people who would be taking up my time.

I guess what is tipping things towards applying, is I think it would be an interesting life experience. In my old job, I was completely in a rut, going thru the motions to earn a paycheck. It is really weird for me to have a job I enjoy, in an office I care about. At age 50, with my kids out of the house, I’m kinda interested in seeing how I would respond to a new position. The alternative would be to simply get extremely comfortable in my current position - which ain’t at all bad. My job has about 170 similar offices, and there are always vacancies for chiefs, so I could have opportunities in the future.

Like I said - I could post tons more, but will wait to see if anyone is interested in batting this back and forth.

2

I’d say go for it. Opportunities don’t come along every day, and if you find yourself good at / enjoying the management aspects, you’re opening a ton of doors.

3

I’d say go for it, too - there doesn’t seem to be a lot of risk if you can go back to a position you enjoy at any time.

4

I’d say go for it, supervisory/management experience is always a plus.

5

I don’t know that experience for future work is all that important. My current job is extremely secure, and I can’t imagine wanting to advance further in the administration. But I acknowledge it is always best to expand your options whenever possible.

My biggest concern is whether I will be a good boss - good for the employees and the office as a whole. Where I could imagine falling short would be in terms of empathy for folk who came into my office seeking help for their concerns. I tend to be the kind of guy who just wants to be left alone to do my job, and expects nothing of his co-workers than that they do theirs. I try to avoid ever requesting special consideration, and don’t really have much interest in people who feel they need/deserve special treatment. I tend to be very production oriented. Just do your job and keep your mouth shut. And in so many situations, it seems the vast majority of the administrative work tends to involve the least productive few workers. Know what I’m trying to say?

So on one hand, maybe it would be good for flat-our whiners and goldbricks to run into an administrative brick wall, but on the other, I’m not sure that is the optimum default setting for an administrator.

Another thing is I could imagine me being lazy, and just adopting a hands off attitude, letting my administrative officer handle everything. Again, I wonder if that would be the best thing for the office.

Of course another concern is that I feel it would be far worse if some micro-manager were hired other than me.

6

If I recall, you are in the government, correct? How much more does this job pay compared to what you do now? Is the bump in salary worth the extra work and aggravation?

7

Probably not. I mean, I already make enough to live very comfortably. While it is a bit of a bump, it isn’t really enough to change my lifestyle or anything.

All it does is bump you to the next step on the pay scale - and in my position you max out in around 5 years. So in 5 years, I’ll be making my max - whether I am in mgmt or not.

8

The deciding point seems to be the personnel-management end of things.

Now me, that would cause me to run screaming in the other direction. Having to rely on ‘people skills’, mediate interpersonal disputes, hand out awards and censures, even fire or discipline someone, sounds like the perfect hell-job to me. This is why I have never made any attempt towards a ‘management’ job.

But you are not me. One of the best bosses I ever had described his job as ‘running interference’ for the department. He kept administrivia and workplace distraction from us so that we could do our jobs. He mediated between us and the Big Bosses. He prepared the reports, made recommendations, and dealt with flak.

Can you do that?

9

I like the sound of both of these. Possibly rewarding career move coupled with low risk sounds pretty darn good.

10

Plus, I just learned one of our receptionists is considerably into various traditional martial arts - with a heavy wing chun base and interest in FMA. The other day he asked if I had any experience with (what he called) “slap hands” - meaning pak sao. I guess I know what I’ll be doing over lunch hours! :smiley:

What is really cool is that this is a brand new, free standing office. And there really is little oversight - provided we make our numbers. And I personally could care less what people do, as long as they make their numbers, and don’t hold anyone else up. After 25 years of bitching about mgmt, I’d be interested to see if things HAVE to be done that way.

11

Shit, Dinsdale, is there any reason you’re asking us for permission to apply? You sound like a kid writing his Christmas list!

Apply away, and may you be a better boss than you expect and your subordinates be… less uppity than me :slight_smile:

12

You don’t mention it, so maybe it’s not even a factor, but I would think this would commit you solidly to being away from home all week. Are you planning on selling your house and moving to where your office is, and your wife along with you. It would be a deal-breaker for me, for sure, to be apart from my spouse all week.

13

I talked with my wife about it over the weekend. The current commute is really working pretty well for us. I have rented a cheap apt 5 minutes from my work, and have enough leave and schedule flexibility that I can take a Monday or Friday off at least every other week.

After 25 years of marriage, we can stand being away from each other for 3-4 days. She teaches during the week, so I am out of her hair while she preps classes and grades assignments.

I put in for a transfer to near my house, but there is no guarantee when it will come in. Could easily be a couple of years. And - here’s the weird thing, I really like the office I am in. Good people, few attitudes and NEXT TO NO TRAFFIC! :stuck_out_tongue: There is a national park 20-ish minutes from the office, so I could imagine at some time maybe even getting a little place up there, where she might want to come visit, and my kids could use it over weekends…

As my wife said this morning, she supports whatever makes me the most happy. So I figure at this point I might as well submit an app. Don’t want to go and get too invested in it, tho, as I don’t want to be ticked if they give it too someone else.

14

Dinsdale - the biggest piece of this new role you describe sounds like supervising others. People who are really good at supervising others tend to have a gift for it. People who don’t like the supervising aspect tend to be really bad supervisors.

Good supervisors need to be motivators and disciplinarians. Some people like having the responsibility of a group of employees under them. Some people like being sole performers. You are right that you will spend most of your time dealing with the poor performers. There is a tendency to keep these people around, because, most people don’t like firing other people and you believe they can get better.

Only you can decide what is best for you.

15

This is going to be an issue. As a new office, we have several folk who are on 1-year probation. Basically, if someone isn’t working out, you want to let them go before their probationary period expires because if you don’t, it gets a lot tougher to do so.

I know another of my colleagues is applying as well. I would be very pleased to have her be my chief. There are 10 of us in one job category who are eligible to be chief - as well as folk from other offices who might wish to transfer. To large extent this other person and I are applying as a defensive maneuver - the devil you know kind of thing…

I’m a very results-oriented type of person, and just about every job in our office has production goals. As long as someone is meeting their goals with acceptable quality, I’ll be the best boss you could imagine. But if you aren’t pulling your weight, and don’t tell management ahead of time or have a darned good reason, look out…

16

Well, I put in my application. Will let you know what happens. Expect a decision relatively soon.

Another person from my office also applied. I would be VERY happy to continue in my current position with her as chief - as I believe she feels with me. We both felt that it was in our office’s best interest to have one of us get the job instead of risking an outsider,

Heck, I’d almost rather NOT get the position, and be able to say, “Yeah, but I offered…” :wink:

17

Reading the OP, I get the distinct feeling you want to apply for the job.

Go ahead - you have our permission. Unless that’s not what you wanted us to tell you?

an seanchai