management, again
It's weird, I've been trying to write a long post for a while about how fanfic affects my brain and how reading a ton of really engrossing, intense Will/Hannibal lately has left me with a strong desire to get a dog and an overall sense of emotional fragility, but now work has suddenly plunged me into an entirely different headspace.
So, through a confluence of circumstances I now manage a worker. I've been project managing for years, but the way that works is that you usually get personnel for the duration of the project, and you're their professional boss but not their direct superior. Their actual boss lends them to you for a while, basically. So I'm used to managing people professionally - sometimes quite a lot of people, spread out over many different projects - but I haven't... fully? managed someone since I was in the military (where management was intense). It's been great, in many ways. I get to do training, I get to push people and encourage people and set expectations and guide them along a project, without the "messy" aspects of having to deal with their sick days or make sure their equipment works.
I've known for a while that I'd like to get back to it, but so many of my friends actively avoid management at work, or hate managing the people they have, or think military experience is a totally different beast, I've tried to be cautious about wanting to be back in that role.
Anyway, I have received a new worker, who I helped interview, who has seen me as his primary contact/boss since he started. He's only here for a few months, and only part time since he's a student, and taking care of him has been SO MUCH HASSLE since I work for a huge org where everything is endless bureaucracy, but. It has been so, so, so great. So much fun. I'm worried because of how much work time it's cost me - my boss hasn't exactly allocated extra time for me managing this dude - but it's like... I'm flooded with all these military-era feels. Where I also had a dude I trained and managed, who was my baby boy, my legacy, the most loyal, grateful boy you could imagine. I made a decision to love him the day I got him, and he grew and blossomed so much in the time we worked together, and by the end of it was... well, he was legacy I left behind. My one and only child.
Obviously this new work situation is 99.9% totally different - starting with this dude being a part time guy who's doing low-level entry work, rather than someone 6 months younger than me who I spent 24 hours a day with for 6 months and trained to do complicated, lives-depend-on-this work.
But... managing people still feels great, apparently. I still love it, even with the hassle it brings. There are absolutely sucky parts! But I think I'm going to enjoy this project a lot, and it's nice to see confirmation that I'm still good at this, I still like it, it's still who I am.
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So, through a confluence of circumstances I now manage a worker. I've been project managing for years, but the way that works is that you usually get personnel for the duration of the project, and you're their professional boss but not their direct superior. Their actual boss lends them to you for a while, basically. So I'm used to managing people professionally - sometimes quite a lot of people, spread out over many different projects - but I haven't... fully? managed someone since I was in the military (where management was intense). It's been great, in many ways. I get to do training, I get to push people and encourage people and set expectations and guide them along a project, without the "messy" aspects of having to deal with their sick days or make sure their equipment works.
I've known for a while that I'd like to get back to it, but so many of my friends actively avoid management at work, or hate managing the people they have, or think military experience is a totally different beast, I've tried to be cautious about wanting to be back in that role.
Anyway, I have received a new worker, who I helped interview, who has seen me as his primary contact/boss since he started. He's only here for a few months, and only part time since he's a student, and taking care of him has been SO MUCH HASSLE since I work for a huge org where everything is endless bureaucracy, but. It has been so, so, so great. So much fun. I'm worried because of how much work time it's cost me - my boss hasn't exactly allocated extra time for me managing this dude - but it's like... I'm flooded with all these military-era feels. Where I also had a dude I trained and managed, who was my baby boy, my legacy, the most loyal, grateful boy you could imagine. I made a decision to love him the day I got him, and he grew and blossomed so much in the time we worked together, and by the end of it was... well, he was legacy I left behind. My one and only child.
Obviously this new work situation is 99.9% totally different - starting with this dude being a part time guy who's doing low-level entry work, rather than someone 6 months younger than me who I spent 24 hours a day with for 6 months and trained to do complicated, lives-depend-on-this work.
But... managing people still feels great, apparently. I still love it, even with the hassle it brings. There are absolutely sucky parts! But I think I'm going to enjoy this project a lot, and it's nice to see confirmation that I'm still good at this, I still like it, it's still who I am.
comments on Dreamwidth