Manage this

So in 2010 I became a manager at Northrop Grumman. Rather reluctantly I might add. The organization that NG has that supplies talent to the USPS was changing. Instead of regional managers with dozens if not possibly hundreds of reports, they wanted managers that were also still part of the billable talent in the professional services they provided. I applied and accepted the position because I was played. As I found out later, the regional manager considered a candidate that was no way qualified just to ensure I applied for the position. So, here we are.

What was only supposed to be only approving bi-weekly time cards, and annual reviews turned out to be much more. To save time, I really won't go into it here. But it has been much more stress and responsibility than what was advertised. What makes that worse, is that the promotion came with *zero* monetary increase.

I meant to create a post about this about a year ago, but let it slide. But now is time to say something. I have a rather unpleasant task to execute. Even as I write this, I realize I cannot publish it until Monday of next week. This sucks...

The previous paragraphs were written in August 2012. The unpleasant task was having to lay off a friend. I won't go into details, but it definitely wasn't fun.

So here we are a little more than two years later after being made manager. I'm still trying to get used to this dual hat position. It's tricky thing to be a member of the team but at the same time the manager of my fellow team members. But I'm dealing with it. One thing that I think is a factor in why I haven't totally self-destructed is that my leadership changed. The regional manager that was my boss is now banished to the mid-west. My new manager is a guy who was once part of the technical (but in a different facility and state) team. He has a better understanding of the work we do for the USPS, and because of that he understands the challenges. His management style is worlds apart from the other guy and that helps a great deal.

I'm still trying to reconcile things as manager and team member. There is some good in that. I enjoy rewarding people for working hard and and when postal management recognizes effort above and beyond. But the opposite is quite taxing. Especially when accused of being harassing, even if just relaying the observations of the postal management. To revisit the previously mentioned friend I had to lay off. He understood it wasn't personal, and although that helped soften things for me, it still sucked. A current situation is just the opposite. I am being accused singling someone out when I am just citing concerns of the postal customer. Can you say high blood pressure?

But with that, I think this old draft of a post is ready to publish. I'd love hearing feedback from anyone with similar problems.