/biz/ - Business & Finance

[Anonymous No.745135]

Do you believe that you should be acting what your wage / salary / position is? Maybe that doesn't make sense, but I'll explain.

I work in a department in a fairly large organization. I'm considered management in my department make a pretty sub average salary from /biz/ standards (About $56K / yr, full benefits). I report to a director who makes a bit over $400K a year.

Sometimes the director has some issues or is made aware of issues and he asks me to notify the appropriate departments (IT, Facilities, etc.). Many times, they are things that I could easily solve myself with just a few minutes of time so I just do it myself. One time he had an issue with his computer and asked me to call IT to fix it while he was out to lunch. It was something fairly easy, so I just start fixing it on my own.

He cut his lunch early and came back to me sitting at his desk and asking me what I was doing. I told him it was pretty easy and just fixed it since IT takes a while to get here. He thanked me, but told me that I shouldn't be doing that because that's not what my position or salary entail. Even if it would have taken them hours to address it, it's not my problem, nor his. It's IT's problem. He asked me if I did this for anyone else, and yes, I told him that I do help staff with really easy stuff (like literally low level stuff like unjamming a printer or some inane computer issue) and he told me to just stop doing that and that he doesn't want to catch me doing that again and that it's not what he hired me for. "You are management and you need to act accordingly".

I haven't helped anyone in awhile and now I just contact the appropriate departments for any issues. It seems kind of lame when I see a really simple fix that ends up getting delayed for hours on end, but the Director was pretty adamant when he told me not to get involved. Am I just being naive?

[Anonymous No.745703]

>>745135
It depends on which business philosophy people subscribe to. There are lots of ideas but the two that come to mind are.

1. Everyone chips in and does what they can
pro: fast response, more robust problem solving
con: nebulous structure makes accountability hard, can create costly redundancy in larger systems

2. Everyone does their job, nothing more, nothing less
pro: easy accountability, specialized subject matter experts can do things other can't, leaders look strong in most cultures
con: slows things down, pay can be over inflated for low level jobs

That is like a two second overview, but the idea is each system has pros and cons.

Personally I think you are right, but I also have learned to understand how your boss likely sees it. Try to understand why things are the way they are, it can help you be happy with the current setup. Or find ways you can change it (just don't rock the boat too much). If they seem too stupid to tolerate you may want a different job, just don't drop this one till you got a confirmed backup plan.