The Fun Guy's Journal: 191.9 Doubtful and full of doubt

Aside from my boss, no one has said anything to me about the possibility of taking over the administrative position in charge of this group. I know he met with his boss on Monday to discuss the matter of succession and continuity. As he didn't call me up to give me any "good news", I conclude that he wasn't told who it was going to be, but that he is still holding out some hope that it will be me.

Since no one else asked me to come down to one of the big corner offices for a nice little chat, I'm going to conclude that I'm not going to be tapped for this. There's a unit-wide meeting today at 2:00 to discuss succession. If my boss knew for certain that it wasn't going to be me, if he'd been given a name, I think he would tip me off beforehand, rather than spring it on me at this meeting.

Honestly, I would regard this with more relief than my boss might expect, were it not for the problems related to who might get it instead. Shadow Wrought asked about the shelf-life (or half-life) of any of the decision makers. They are all fairly new in their positions, so I would have to regard them as functionally permanent. I can only hope that whoever they get for the interim will be a reasonable person. Unfortunately, my fear is that they are going to have this guy do it. My boss approved his participation in a months-long leadership development course, in hopes that he would learn how not to be a condescending prick.

I didn't, and don't, have high hopes for the efficacy of the process.

However, having been freshly dipped in a tank of standard-issue leadership, he might appear to be a good choice. Or would appear so to anyone who doesn't know him.

*sigh* I re-read this and it all sounds like I'm saying, "Everyone here is a venal, incompetent jerk except me!", which is, of course, the surest sign that the real problem child is the narrator, i.e. me.

I truly don't believe that, but if I were the psychopath, I wouldn't be able to tell, would I?

UPDATE: Actually not much of an update. At meeting, boss thanked everyone, said how great it has been here, how much he'll miss all of us and how excited he is at the new job that awaits. He said that he'd given his input as to his replacement, but that this was beyond his authority to decide. It's the dog that didn't bark, IMHO.

Psychopath's don't journal.

[Shadow Wrought]

You ever watch Storm Chasers? I know I JE'd quite a bit about BSG and the leadership thereof, but Storm Chasers this season is even more instructional. There's this IMAX cinematogropher who has this team of yes men working for him. They are all afraid of getting chewed out by him, and you can see their hesitency in decisions because they are more concerned with making the wrong decision than making decisions. So they hesitate and they won't take chances. On the show I watched they were a mile and a hal

Re:

[The Fun Guy]

You're right - there is a great deal of time and effort expended in simply feeding the beast. Entire squads of people could be put to more productive use. However, those squads of people see their mission as justifying their existence, so they create conditions that ensure it.

The longest lived people around here are the ones who do an awful lot of apathetic shrugging of shoulders.

Conform, fit in, go along, let it slide, stay out of it, don't bother...

All of these are perfectly fine approaches for me to take

Re:

[Shadow Wrought]

That would be, what, an empath? I'm feeling precious little in the way of empathy these days.

Nay lad. Psychopath's care only for themselves and are indifferent to what happens to those around them. You see the mission, you want to achieve that mission, and you know how to do it, but standing in your way are people who are more concerned with justifying themselves than acheiving the mission. That's what I meant. They're more psycotic than you;-)