We've all had bad management days.   You know the ones.  When management just didn't give you what you needed.   Where every request they made was unreasonable.  Where no matter how often you explained something, they just didn't "get it".  That's a bad management day.  The kind we've all had one or more of.

What made today different, for me, is that today, I was management.  And I know, from the conversations I had with several of my colleagues, that because of me, they were having a bad management day.  Of course, from my perspective, it looked a little different.  From my perspective, it looked like I had no idea how to explain what I wanted or needed without it being offensive, irritating, and generally exasperating to the person I was talking to.  I think, at my most frustrated, that it wouldn't have mattered what I'd said, or how: they were as much a part in creating the bad management day as I was.  But I bet every manager feels that way.

It certainly has given me cause to rethink why I'm going management again at all, when I wasn't all that fond of it last time I did it.  I think I was pretty good at it, but I didn't like it much, and I found it exhausting.   Now it's virtual management: I can't look people in the eye.  Heck, we're spread over enough time zones that I can't even talk to everyone at once!  So, what's the answer?

Well, I don't know.  I mean, from my perspective, at least sometimes, I am working for them.  In a largely unpaid position, I'm getting the clients, hammering out the deals with them, holding their hands, and trying to translate their high expectations into reasonable demands. And I'm co-ordinating, scheduling, administering and so on.  So, from my perspective, I'm creating the opportunity and the infrastructure for my colleagues to do what they like to do and get paid for it.  

I'm willing to bet that from their perspective, it looks like they're working for me.  After all, I call them with work.  I tell them what we want, without ever telling them as precisely and finally as they would like.  I nag them until it's done.  And then I give them a cheque.  One could understand their view if I were making more on a project than they are.  But nonetheless, they can't know what I do, and I can see the product of what they do.  

So there you are.  I feel hard done-by.  They feel hard done-by.  And I'm the manager who's created a bad management day for them.  And why do I do this?  Good question.  It has to figure into the long-term plan for the company.  Maybe I'll come up with an answer in the shorter term.

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