Hail to the Chief

A few weeks ago, our department at work reorganized. We do that every few years. Something about "shuffling the deck chairs"... In all the reorgs I have been in here, big or little, I continue to do the same thing. My assignments don't change, I just keep plugging along. This is why sysadmins secretly rule the world. They announced the personnel side of of the thing on a Friday afternoon via email. Got a bunch of people upset, I ended up chasing a crowd of them out of my office that day because I had work to do.

Our team essentially remained the same, except we lost our chief engineer, Sorrel. He was moved to a different part of the organization. Our team essentially does the same thing and has the same general responsibilities, just like always. The drawback to this is that I was asked to be the chief engineer of the team. Maybe drawback is too strong of a word, I don't plan on letting it ruin my life or anything. When Marty, my boss asked me to be the chief engineer, I asked for my "Dogbert's Guide to Management" book back from him, which I had left on his bookshelf about 7 years ago. I leave it conspicuously on my desk, just for effect. I should start up some sort of Scottish accent: "She can't take much more of this nonsense, Captain!"

Mostly it seems to mean I get these little interruptions during the day, which is ok, unless I really get sidetracked. I also get a few more emails a day to deal with. (I had to approve the student hours last week for their pay period. I guess I approve. They won't get paid if I don't...) I manage the agenda for our weekly platform technology advisor board now, instead of just taking minutes. (I still take minutes too...) I have a weekly meeting to talk about the things our team is working on, and stuff like that. They wanted to have it at 8am. I talked them back to 9am. Marty called it a "Execution Touch Base" meeting. Our first one is tomorrow. I haven't decided whether or not to bring a noose...

I met with everyone on the team to see what they thought about the changes, one of the questions I asked was if they had any problems with my being the chief engineer. Half of them said "yes, but it's not anything I won't get over." Hilarious. One of the guys gets digs in every chance he gets. When they are ready to make a change again, if I am asked, I plan to recommend him for the job.

I've been thinking about basing my managerial style on things I can get out of the fortune cookie app on my phone. Ask any question. My answer - "The beginning of wisdom is to desire it." Next question. My answer - "Your skill will accomplish what the force of many can not."

I was looking at my email aliases right after the changes, one of the email addresses I own is "Iamthebossofyou(at)byu(dot)edu" I decided to not start using that one, it might be a little too much.

I think a couple of the guys on the team were a little worried what I would be like as a chief engineer. I plan to be as hands off as I can be. I still have all the regular work to do. Some of them still tell me when they plan to come in late. It's like they've never met me before. John "I come in to work after I roll out of bed in the morning" Payne. This 9am Monday morning meeting is a stretch. Especially since I will be up until at least 1am watching student registration tonight. That's if it goes well.

I am sure we will have to have a normal team meeting somewhere along the line. Not sure what we will talk about. I am sure there will be free snacks.

That's about it. I don't plan to let it go to my head or anything. I don't really need my ego any bigger than it already was, and my head is plenty big. Besides, the long and the short of it is, most of the people on my team are just like me. It's not like they'd let any of it go to my head...