Foxholes

I tend to look at things with a view from the bottom. I think that this has a lot to do with my former status as an 11B20 in the long ago.


Even when I was in the rarefied realm of "Boss" and "Manager", I never was able to shake this worldview.  I think that is why I tend toward avoiding responsibility and "success" as defined by American culture.  I learned the hard way that folks who rise in a hierarchical culture see their minions as disposable.

Successful middle managers in largish organizations are heirs to the tasks that the overseers of southern plantations used to accomplish.  They are there to to perform the day to day extraction of maximum effort from the field hands.  They do it for a pittance, a title and the vanishingly tiny chance of proceeding to the upper realms of income and status.

Oh sure, they will make noises about their commitment to whatever ill-defined mission, but the truth of the matter is that most of them just pay lip service to the idea that they make a difference to the mission. In fact they just create an artificial echo chamber in the ill-defined gap between the people who actually do the work and the bosses.  That way the bosses can blame the middle managers and the workers can keep working.

Getting their paycheck is the only goal, making it bigger is the only reward for these people.  The job itself isn't that important, only your status.

And a pathetic status it is.  I think that I will stay a worker bee rather than a drone.