[spopejoy]

Great anecdote about the perils of mgmt. But I think it shows that management in an org or sub-org that has a terrible culture is ... terrible.

I've been in and out of management, and how awful it is comes down to who's above you. I've had upper mgmt that was mercurial and weird, but ultimately fair and supportive when the chips were really down. Result: stress but no bullshit.

I've had upper mgmt that was "cool" and had me over to their $3m vaca house and threw great parties. When the shit hit the fan, things were weird, uncertain. In the end I was thrown under the bus. Result: foreground "mellow", background stress, bad outcome.

Whether or not I bought donuts for my directs had nothing to do with it. My approach toward employees was 1) service 2) work queue mgmt 3) technical mentorship. In so far as I stayed on the ball this worked out fine. Most issues were my mistakes, not some horrible political gaming fail.