SPDs in management positions

Ringil wrote:I can feel what you mean, Ashlar. Nice pictures, thanks.

Recently I saw (in a children's book) a picture of a wizard. All alone in his wizard tower, brewing some mighty potions. And I thought how nice the life must be as a lone Wizard. I remember this picture when I'm confronted - which I am right now - with the choice between a management or a specialists role.

So to become a lone wizard I could buy a gallon of antifreeze for everyone in my office ... Ok, same joke twice, sorry.

Funny that schizoid people can be pretty deadly (politically) in the office. I can (politically) sting people who are mightier than me because I don't fear the consequences. In fact I'd enjoy the consequences maybe subcontiously, i.e. more social isolation. This matches a bit what you call "more dangerous" maybe. At least I'm capable of unpredictable responses when someone pisses me of. I'm taking more damage in this situation usually than I caused on my opponent, so technically I loose, but I don't care about the balance. I stroke back, made my point, and I'm kind of invincible anyway as long as I don't care so much - but the opponent cares, so in my world I won Does this make any sence ?

Do you genuinely enjoy thinking this way?



Thrilled someone besides me appreciates the antifreeze story. Remembering it really makes me smile. The intellectual challenges of every job I've ever had have always paled next to the social bee esse and absurd "power" plays. Humanity excels in nothing if not getting in its own way.



A mathematically brilliant friend of mine made an observation that might help you decide. He said that the reason managers absolutely need high salaries and "the corner office" is that they are denied the legitimate satisfaction of a job well done, of solving a gripping computational problem, for example, or of finding a long-elusive, intermittent bug.

For their success, managers largely depend on the creativity and intelligence of others, and on their ability to earn the respect of those who report to them. Would the attention, demands on your time, and endless unproductive meetings eat away at your zest for life?

Another wise friend said, "You know exactly how important managers are when no one can tell when the manager is on vacation.".



Years ago, I used to go to a weekly nighttime drawing session in which a group of people would draw the figure from a live model. One of the regulars, let's call him H-P, strutted with the unmistakable self-satisfied smugness of a short-guy high-level tech manager.

One night, while drawing, I stated both of the underlined observations, above. And watched as H-P literally deflated--from frowning, to grimacing, to hunching-over. He never showed up to another drawing session Trolling that egotistical moe-foe had been surprisingly easy.

I suspect that at some not-too-deep level he was painfully aware that he had become an impostor.

Cholls wrote:Do you genuinely enjoy thinking this way?

To clarify, in saying the above, I didn't mean to imply at all that you enjoyed thinking that way.

It's just possible that in a management position, you might find yourself "having" to think that way a lot, unless you wise like Laozi and can find a workaround.

I can't even fathom the idea of being a manager of any kind. I would not survive. All that I would have to say to my subordinates is "gimme that, you're doing it wrong", and all that I would have to say to my superiors is "###$ you, you're not the boss of me. oh wait ".

To me the whole purpose of earning money is to avoid that kind of #######4 in my life.

Cholls wrote:the reason managers absolutely need high salaries and "the corner office" is that they are denied the legitimate satisfaction of a job well done, of solving a gripping computational problem, for example, or of finding a long-elusive, intermittent bug.

For their success, managers largely depend on the creativity and intelligence of others, and on their ability to earn the respect of those who report to them.

i wouldn't say that's always the case. all the management positions I had involved actual tasks and "managing" the employees was a smaller responsibility.

Thanks for sharing different perspectives, this really helps me.

Now, fueled with your input, I realized that there are two dimensions of management:
a) Deciding (which can be very creative, depending on the degree of freedom)
b) Manipulating

And I like the creative part, in particular shaping products in a way that customers like it. But I'm less skilled in manipulating. I will think about this further, maybe I can find a place where I can shape products for happy customers, without the need of being a pushing manipulator.

I did quit my job today by the way, so I have to find a solution here

Thanks for your feedback.

Ringil wrote:Thanks for sharing different perspectives, this really helps me.

Now, fueled with your input, I realized that there are two dimensions of management:
a) Deciding (which can be very creative, depending on the degree of freedom)
b) Manipulating

And I like the creative part, in particular shaping products in a way that customers like it. But I'm less skilled in manipulating. I will think about this further, maybe I can find a place where I can shape products for happy customers, without the need of being a pushing manipulator.

I did quit my job today by the way, so I have to find a solution here

Thanks for your feedback.

YES!!! Deciding may be the single most important thing a tech manager can do. And a schizoid would, I think, be able to make a fairer, more objective decision than a manager who was emotionally invested in a specific aspect of the project (e.g. blindly and habitually preferring one type of solution over another).

And, indeed, you are decisive!!! Admirably so
We won't be needing any antifreeze here.

Yes, right, we can still come back to the antifreeze later

Funny story where faith ended me up. It turned out that I got no manager position after the last one (also I didn't look desperately for one, I even canceled one myself).

So maybe my (according to the doctors) schizoid nature dragged me into this:

I'm an external software developer now, detached from the other (internal) developers (not even in the same room) and if I want to I can spend a whole day without saying one word to someone else. For real, I could - in this role - just login to the computer, type, and leave in the evening, and everything'd be perfect.

Well, I do go to lunch with the internal colleagues, but I don't have to.

Very schizoid position, isn't it ? Even worse (or better), I sleep 3 nights in another city and see my family less.

Now I'm afraid of loosing all the social skills again, that I learned (the hard way) during my last manager job. Thinks like smiling at people when talking to them

The good thing is, in the manager job I got continuous negative feedback. Even though my business results were objectively and measurable far above average. But no one cares about results on that level, even worse, standing out with good results cause other managers to start fighting you. What counts on that level is making alliances, faking reputation (of oneself and the next upper managers), hiding errors, playing dirty games etc. And with schizoid distance I could only loose in that manipulation games..

So this negative feedback from the NPD/ASD/HPD/machiaw. managers creeps stopped. Instead I'm way ahead of schedule with my technology and get ... well ... no feedback. Which feels like positive feedback now, after stepping out of the last shark tank

Question for me is now:
- Do I accept being a bad manager (though my decisions were great and I led with great empathy, freedom and trust - so I'm good for EBIT and only bad for selfish political manager netwoks). Do I give up and have a great time with a talk-to-no-one PC job. (Way better payed by the way than the manager job for some special reasons.)
- Or do I NOT accept the vote of the prior looser company (they're loosing so much market share by the way that they say they're in danger, and claim themselves that cultural weakness is one of the cause for dying, by the way).

Or how can I find out ? I think deep in me, although I really enjoy a day coding and talking to no one. I enjoy this a lot. But deep in me, I'm lonely on the PC and would prefer leading a team again. Shaping culture, reaching goals together, giving freedom, being proud of my staff's results when they are successful BECAUSE I gave them trust and freedom ...

Maybe I need to found a start-up for finding out. There I can lead without playing axix-b-who's-the-weakest-manager-fake-guy-with-the-most-blown-up-fake-self-esteem-fake-games.

Or I say, f... off world, I like coding, the money is more than ok, no stress, but with the downside of mutating more and more into a nerd. I noticed that my voice got much more silent when I speak. My body language changed. I started being able to see in the dark ... no

Ringil wrote:Funny story where faith ended me up. It turned out that I got no manager position after the last one (also I didn't look desperately for one, I even canceled one myself).

So maybe my (according to the doctors) schizoid nature dragged me into this:

I'm an external software developer now, detached from the other (internal) developers (not even in the same room) and if I want to I can spend a whole day without saying one word to someone else. For real, I could - in this role - just login to the computer, type, and leave in the evening, and everything'd be perfect.

Well, I do go to lunch with the internal colleagues, but I don't have to.

Very schizoid position, isn't it ? Even worse (or better), I sleep 3 nights in another city and see my family less.

Now I'm afraid of loosing all the social skills again, that I learned (the hard way) during my last manager job. Thinks like smiling at people when talking to them

The good thing is, in the manager job I got continuous negative feedback. Even though my business results were objectively and measurable far above average. But no one cares about results on that level, even worse, standing out with good results cause other managers to start fighting you. What counts on that level is making alliances, faking reputation (of oneself and the next upper managers), hiding errors, playing dirty games etc. And with schizoid distance I could only loose in that manipulation games..

So this negative feedback from the NPD/ASD/HPD/machiaw. managers creeps stopped. Instead I'm way ahead of schedule with my technology and get ... well ... no feedback. Which feels like positive feedback now, after stepping out of the last shark tank

Question for me is now:
- Do I accept being a bad manager (though my decisions were great and I led with great empathy, freedom and trust - so I'm good for EBIT and only bad for selfish political manager netwoks). Do I give up and have a great time with a talk-to-no-one PC job. (Way better payed by the way than the manager job for some special reasons.)
- Or do I NOT accept the vote of the prior looser company (they're loosing so much market share by the way that they say they're in danger, and claim themselves that cultural weakness is one of the cause for dying, by the way).

Or how can I find out ? I think deep in me, although I really enjoy a day coding and talking to no one. I enjoy this a lot. But deep in me, I'm lonely on the PC and would prefer leading a team again. Shaping culture, reaching goals together, giving freedom, being proud of my staff's results when they are successful BECAUSE I gave them trust and freedom ...

Maybe I need to found a start-up for finding out. There I can lead without playing axix-b-who's-the-weakest-manager-fake-guy-with-the-most-blown-up-fake-self-esteem-fake-games.

Or I say, f... off world, I like coding, the money is more than ok, no stress, but with the downside of mutating more and more into a nerd. I noticed that my voice got much more silent when I speak. My body language changed. I started being able to see in the dark ... no

In one sense, it sounds to me like you already know the answer to your own question, which is the same as my answer to my own "overwhelming question", namely, to avoid the ego-syntonic "playing to our strengths" and to opt instead to try to annihilate our deep internal fears.

In another sense, there is a question which I was bred to ignore, namely, "Can I truly enjoy myself?".

Are you really enjoying yourself coding? Are you really in a state of "flow"? Or has it (secretly, deep-down) come to bore you? Are there coding risks and adventures which you have not yet explored? Do you really want to fight your inner demons, or do you just not know how to relax and have fun? I suspect that many people truly do not know how to do the latter.

Having enough saved to be able to give the finger to the world would certainly help in this situation. You've got a real-life family and can't go too far off-road financially, so I hope your startup idea has real and not delusional merit. Sorry to be blunt here but, when one is alone in one's head it's too easy to lose perspective, by both exaggerating and trivializing one's abilities.

There must certainly be many venture-capital people who've come from software development positions who would be able to perceive your merit and who would appreciate a "sales pitch" devoid of smoke and mirrors.

Regardless of what you do, one day you will be dead.

Just now remembered that one of my dearest friends, a brilliant, world-class software engineer, actually ran his own company at one time, and was able to give his shareholders a profit when he closed it down, although it wasn't a sofware company; he has another, even more-developed talent.

Apparently, it's an itch some people need to scratch. Having seen a poorly-run company, the challenge becomes, "Can I do better?".