(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort. Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)
One of the things people don’t talk about Project Managers like myself is how the job makes life stressful.
Oh I’m not talking at work. That’s normal. Nothing like looking at a 100 page design document no one can read or a flowchart that outlines why everyone is being stupid. We’re used to that. We’ve developed immunity.
I’m talking about the world. There’s really nothing like being a person used to analyzing goals and tasks, calculating numbers and budgets, and then watching very little of that apply to our planet. Being a Project Manager is having a whole new way to be frustrated about the state of the planet as it doesn’t have to be this way.
What’s the plan, we wonder as politicians act like influencers. Where are the deliverables, we ask as people promise one thing and deliver, well nothing and then some. What’s the return, we sign, knowing that what really happened is someone met a quarterly number and kept his job as CEO another quarter and has money in his cocaine budget.
Everything is being run like it’s something but too many things aren’t being run as what they say they are.
It’s not even arrogance. A mediocre project manager can see these things. A new one can. Once you do have some experience, it’s very hard to look away from things being very wrong. And you see a wrong different than the regular wrongs!
Nothing is what people say they are, the numbers are wrong, someone is clearly funneling money to their idiot cousin’s inherited family business, and everyone is lying. There’s a very big disconnect in the world and we can feel it. It’s what we do on the job.
If you have ever listened to a Project Manager go off – not just this rant but really go off – you know we see it when things aren’t working. It’s been getting worse the last 10-15 years.
So give us some grace. Also now you know why I’ve been a little more ranty, a little bit more political – it’s time. Also, it’s therapeutic.
Steven Savage