Why my corporate bosses hated me so

Well, now, time for a first serious post on my blog. Actually, my first blog was written on an Underwood. But then, I still answer the telephone machine with "Ahoy hoy!"

I believe my corporate bosses hated me so because we had completely different ideas on the relative importance of employees. Corporate minions believe that one's importance depends on his or her level in the organization. Middle level managers are more important than the employees they manage because, well, they're higher in the hierarchy, receive higher pay, get to suck up to higher level bosses, etc. Executives are more important than middle level managers, and the CEO is as near to God on Earth as we mortals will ever see.

I've always thought that the inverse is true. The most important employees in any organization are the customer-facing employees, and those that support them are next most important, etc., until one gets to the CEO, who is completely interchangeable with any other CEO at any other corporation. They grow CEOs in pods and should one experience a fatal accident, another is dropped in without missing a beat. Sure, your former CEO may have exhorted you to "think outside the box!" while the new one wants you to "Develop a new paradigm!" but it really doesn't matter much in the long run. The technician who sees a hundred paying customers a day, and who can either keep them as happy paying customers, or piss them off so much they leave, depending on the results of his/her favorite sports team last night, seems to me to have more impact on the bottom line.

I realize this comes from a career of having spectacularly incompetent middle-level managers. The manager who required his assistant to print out every email he got. My first boss, who on my first day at the corporation after moving 1,000 miles to work for the company, decided to take a two week vacation without telling anyone. But my favorite is my boss who was almost completely out of contact with any of her direct reports (but who spent hours on the phone with her own boss). I would go weeks without hearing from her - and I was certainly not "empowered" in the job, as I needed her approval for anything more complicated than going to the bathroom. Finally, I got her on the phone and asked her if we could schedule a half-hour every other week, just to talk on the phone to resolve outstanding issues. She called me "needy." She then retreated, and said she didn't mean that I was "needy" in a negative way. This was years ago, and I have yet to understand how someone could be "needy" in a positive way.

But upon further review, perhaps my inverse-pyramid theory of importance in a corporation needs adjustment. After all, the CEO can have impact the organization. Jerre Stead was an inspirational leader at AT&T Global Communications Systems, and actually achieved positive changes to the corporate culture (he gave his home phone number out to everyone, and told employees to leave meetings after 10 minutes if the subject was not customers or the competition). And, some CEOs have had Katrina-like impacts on corporations (I'm looking at you, C. Michael Armstrong!).

So, perhaps my theory of corporate importance should really be the "doughnut view." The customer-facing employees are extremely important, as are the very highest level of executive, while everyone in between is worthless overhead that does nothing but waste space and interfere with working employees' ability to get anything done.

Oh, and to answer the question: my corporate bosses hated me so because when they were incompetent, I let them know that I knew they were incompetent (most middle level managers secretly know that they are unqualified for their job, but can't admit it for fear of being unmasked to their employees). I never mastered the art of pretending someone was worthy of respect when they were not, and in fact I never even tried. If I had mastered that art, I would be a well-paid middle-level manager at a major corporation today! There but for the grace of God.....