This is largely fantasy talk. First of all, companies don’t hire MBAs to do mundane repetitive tasks that can be written down on a guide sheet. They hire MBAs to document your bullshit seat of the pants process, replace it with something repetitive and quantifyable and then replace you with someone who can follow simple instructions at a fraction of the cost.
As for the VP “stealing”, if you are aware that he is stealing from the company he most likely needs you to facilitate it making you just as guilty as he is.
It’s difficult because it usually requires extensive travel and long hours. And accounting is pretty freakin tedious. They like to hire young people because it usually takes them a few years to reallize how badly it sucks relative to what you earn. I think it’s true about no one really knowing what the hell they are doing. The goal is to get to a level where you’re just basically talking with clients while the peons sift through thousands of records and papers and whatnot.
My vote for the best?
Technical trainer. Not a HR soft skills trainer, but a person that trains on the company product. The more complex the product the better.
You are not subject to outsourcing since you are the subject matter expert, and if they did outsource your job, the outsourcing firm would pretty much have to hire you cause SME in your field are hard to find.
Even better than that is that nobody in the company seems to have a clue about what you do including your boss. If you work this correctly it can be a wonderful deal.
Pay could be better, all in all I have the best job in the company.
[VP]I’m sorry, but I forgot your name since we haven’t lost any facilities this week. I guess that means you’re doing ok but it also means that your department doesn’t need any more money. Do me a favor and remind me who you are at the next review.[/VP]
EC, I agree with what the others are saying about CEOs. The department heads where I work finish with emails at 11:00PM and are prepped for the 7:00AM morning meeting. The whole site is set up for wireless and they have remote logins at home. If any of the actual officers get to sleep at night, it’s only because they have things properly delegated (not an easy thing to do) and nothing needs their attention at three in the morning.
Personally, I’m just glad that I don’t have one of those jobs where I oversee someone else’s department. We have a few people like this. They’re tasked to act as ‘traffic controllers’ for operations, but they come off as nags and don’t really have ownership over anything. They’re like lampreys, hanging off one side of the org chart. I’m quite happy that I am responsible for my own actions.
I don’t know about the best; it depends on what you like doing, what level of stress you’re comfortable with, what trade-offs you’re willing to make, and probably a lot of other intangibles.
For the worst, at my company, I’d have to say the security people downstairs have it nailed. They sit at a table all day, mostly making sure that everyone who comes in is wearing a badge. They don’t even have a computer to play Snood on. I’d slit my wrists after three days.
Amen. I hope for their sake that there’s some hidden meaning & value to that job that I don’t perceive.
I’m in IT – business intelligence, specifically. So what I produce is desirable (good) but runs no risk of blowing up in the middle of the night (very good). The only downside: waiting for the day when they decide that what I do could be done in India.
I agree; I find BI technically challenging and requiring no small amount of creativity. It also has a large “gee whiz” factor, and few people know how to do it.
In my experience the HR people at my company put up with an incredible amount of flak. They are often the bearer of bad tidings (such as unpopular new corporate policies) they had little or no control over or input on, and get caught up in a kill the messenger type dynamic. Also people don’t tend to trust them, and assume that anything they tell HR can/will be used against them in some way.
I’m not sure if this is unique to my company/industry (biopharm) or more widespread.
The rich are different from the rest of us – they have more money.
I always have that reaction when somebody starts talking about how a class of people are different or special or more deserving than others. See, people were capable of being cynical about this sort of thing a century ago.
Some “classes” of people are different depending on what class your are looking at. Those classes could be Olympic athletes or world class musicians. What is so hard to understand about that? We aren’t talking about rich people in general. CEO’s always have plenty of people fighting for their slot. Even if they have powerful friends, the buck stops there when the CEO is gambling with other people’s money.
Would you say the same thing about people that drive themselves to the top of comparable professions? How about a pro football coach? You think any high school football coach already works just as hard and is a as capable as an NFL head coach? What about a military General? Any 2nd Lieutenant could fill those shoes, carries just as much responsibility, and has built up a career of impeccable service?
My FIL is a CEO. Coincidentally he called me from the office about half an hour ago (9:00 pm EST) for guidance on something. He works that late most nights and always has (he is 72 years old BTW and will never retire). His best friend worked his way up from bag boy to CEO of a major New England supermarket chain, then an office supply chain, and then bought controlling interest in the supermarket chain after he earned over $100 million. He later sold that. You assume he would just play around then. No. He started two money companies. He doesn’t need the money, it is just that the only thing he knows is work. If you actually met any CEO’s that would be readily apparent. Money is a side-effect of who they are.
