piss poor management
I’d like to start off this post by writing that I am proud of my service in the armed forces. The sacrifices my fellow service members have made in the line of duty are many; their deeds worthy of praise. I begin this blog with this statement because I am about to rant heavily on the leadership of my unit.My commander is quite possibly one of the worst officers I have yet seen to grace God’s green earth. Check this:
(1) He is quick to sacrifice the reputation of anyone in order to make himself look better or to make him look like a victim of someone else’s incompetence.
(2) He himself is incompetent. Although he wears the much-coveted Civil Engineering badge, he’s proven to have a very limited working knowledge of the chain of command within the unit as well as a very weak understanding of who is responsible for what. This is probably a result of spending too much of his time in the acquisitions career field, which in and of itself is not bad, but is hardly the kind of qualified experience needed to be a base civil engineer.
(3) He didn’t earn his position as a base civil engineer. A list of qualified engineers is generated each cycle that shows who is in line to take over the base civil engineering (BCE) officer position at any base with a vacancy. This clown wasn’t on it. The former BCE was transferred to Korea. Instead of picking someone from the list, higher-ups chose my current commander to move into the BCE position from another position on base. Probably because he was doing a crappy job there, too.
(4) Senior enlisted think he’s a joke. And weird. But mostly a joke.
(5) He provides no mentorship to his officers. Not that I would want any of his brand of mentorship.
(6) He makes very poorly thought out knee jerk reactions to every emergency situation.
(7) Every situation is an emergency to him.
(8) He’s a hypocrite.
(9) This list can potentially go on. Infinitely….
Well anyway, the point of this list is to show that he’s a bad manager and a poor leader.
Case in point: One of my friends in the unit, also an officer, was originally tasked with being the unit coordinator for a large base exhibition. It’s a tall order, given that this base is huge and the event is the focal point for many, many bases across the nation. He also manages his own section within the unit and is constantly swamped with leading his men, putting out the proverbial fires, and writing all 89 of their backlogged performance reports. In short, he kicks ass. Bad move in this outfit, because all the boss does to reward good work is to give that person an unreasonable amount of more work to do!
Well anyway, base leadership asked various other unit leaders to supply a volunteer to be the base representative for the aforementioned big event. So what does my boss do? He offers up my bud to base leadership to act as the base rep as well as the unit rep for said event, on top of leading his own section. He does all this to make himself look good. He clearly doesn’t know what my friend is up against when working his primary duties (see 2 above, “not knowing who is responsible for what”). Ugh! I know it sounds trivial but he’s done this so many times to everyone with a leadership position in the unit! He swamps everyone with work instead of saying “no more, base leadership. Enough.” Morale is so low right now…=-(
Anything this guy lays his fingers on is accomplished badly. His style of management and its effects are a travesty of how a real CE unit should be run. I know, because I’ve seen other units run correctly before.
Okay I’m done ranting. This post may make very little sense. Ah well. I’m not as eloquent as random mike—especially when I’m pissed. At least I can come at night to a warm, furnished apartment in a safe neighborhood. Props go out to the real heroes—my brothers and sisters in arms serving in the Middle East and near the Hindu Kush. Peace be with you all!
posted by anthony fuego @ 7:26 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home