Chain of command

Fresh thread for your Thursday flame war. ...

This is just a guess. I don't know what you do for a living or how well you do it, so all I can do is guess.

I'm guessing that your immediate supervisor, your boss, knows what you do and how well you do it. If you have any work-related callouses, then I'd also guess that she knows how to do your job and could do it well herself. If you don't, then I'd guess that she doesn't and probably couldn't.

Her boss -- your boss's boss -- probably doesn't know what you do or how it is done, but he might still be able to tell whether or not it's being done well. In a pinch, he might even be able to fill in for you, but your customers would notice the difference.

His boss -- your boss's boss's boss -- has no idea what you do and, I'm guessing, wouldn't be able to do it if you gave him a highlighted and underlined copy of Your Job for Dummies.

If your company is large enough that that guy has a boss -- your boss's boss's boss's boss -- then not only does he not know what you do or how it's done, but he cannot see any difference between its being done well and its being done poorly. And since he can't see that difference, he doubts your customers would be able to tell either. So if he has yet another boss -- your boss's boss's boss's boss's boss -- then he is probably right now thinking that he could make that boss happy by saving all of the time and money he figures you must be wasting trying to do whatever it is you do well.

As I said, this is only a guess. Am I close?

Comments

[Zzyzx]

"If you don't, then I'd guess that she doesn't and probably couldn't."

Nope, he's a better programmer than me .

"Her boss -- your boss's boss -- probably doesn't know what you do or how it is done,"

Nope, he's given me direct tasks to do.

His boss wouldn't be able to do my job, but again knows what I do more or less. I used to have one above, before the reorg, but that's as high as it goes now I believe.

[Jos]

As I said, this is only a guess. Am I close?

No. Absolutely not. I am an unemployed parasite upon society.

At times like this I'm curiously grateful for that fact.

[Jesurgislac]

Hm. My immediate boss: knows what I do, check, knows how well I do it, check, knows how to do my job, check, and could do it well himself, check.

My boss's boss: has some idea of what I do: has some idea of how well I do it: and I don't know whether they know how to do my job or could do it well themselves.

My boss's boss's boss: knows some of what I do, is possibly aware of how well it is being done but is certainly more aware of any mistakes, and probably doesn't know how to do my job and couldn't do it herself.

My boss's boss's boss's boss: knows a little of what I do, doesn't know or care whether it is being done well or badly, and may or may not know how to do my job.

So if he has yet another boss -- your boss's boss's boss's boss's boss -- then he is probably right now thinking that he could make that boss happy by saving all of the time and money he figures you must be wasting trying to do whatever it is you do well.

Probably. Disillusioning thought.

[A Texan in Bavaria]

My boss has no idea how to do my job. The good part of that is that basically, as long as no one complains to him about what I'm doing or how I'm doing it, he really doesn't care WHAT I do.

The bad part is that he is rather reluctant to let me leave for more than a week or so at a time, and lives in fear of my finding a better job.

This all makes it rather tempting to dress up once or twice a month and take a really long lunch, especially the month our raises are determined...

[cjmr]

The closest thing I have to a boss (hi, dear!) knows what I do and could do it as well as I can, but for some reason doesn't believe he can.

[A Texan in Bavaria]

And here is my Meta-Boss count:

My boss, down the hall <- his boss, at the next Army post over here (60 miles away) <- his boss, on the other side of Germany (250 miles away) <- his boss, in Nothern Virginia (5,000 miles away) <- his boss, some VP in Massachusetts <- the CEO of this conglomerate

Hmmm... that's 6 levels of bosses, and I'm sure there's one or two in there that I'm missing.

And I have a subordinate, in name, anyway. I treat her and present her as a co-worker, as she's 40 years older than I am and has WAY more experience dealing with others in this line of work. I'm the technical expert, she's the people expert.

My contribution of tender for the weekly flame thread: yes, I work for a defense contractor on an Army post in Germany. I probably take the place of a very junior company-grade officer (think 1st Lieutenant) or warrant officer with a signals specialty. Most of my co-workers are retired officers and non-commissioned officers (very senior enlistedmen). Our post trains US and other NATO soldiers. A lot of the exercises center around how to use interpreters, how to deal with presumably-innocent civilians, and how to keep angry Albanians away from miffed Serbs, and vice versa. I'd feel better about my work if I were a direct government employee, since I wouldn't be contributing to the profitability of the Military-Industrial Complex, but I'm probably cheaper for you guys (any other Americans here), since you're not going to have to pay my pension. Defense-contracting pay for jobs like mine is comfortable, but about what I'd make doing a similar job in the States - Germany isn't exactly hazardous duty. The real money is for people willing to go less-pleasant places.

The main difference between me and a soldier is that, yes, I can giggle at my employer if they say I'm going to Iraq. I would then have 30 days to get myself and whatever I could afford to ship out of Germany, but would not be subject to any further penalties.

I am trying to figure out my way out career-wise, though. It seems to mostly involve finishing my master's as soon as possible, spending a month or two at a Goethe-Institut program to try to learn this language, and figuring out whatever else it will take to convince the German authorities that giving me a work permit is in their best interest. I've developed personal reasons for wanting to stay in this region.

The Bavarian state government seems delighted by our presence, possibly for historical reasons (look at what some of their neighbors had to put up with after the war!), but probably because we employ an awful lot of Germans in the poorest part of an otherwise-wealthy state. Kinda like military bases in the continental US. The state governor showed up for ground-breaking on a large housing complex about a year ago. They do not particularly enjoy bad behavior by some young soldiers who cannot control themselves while drunk, but aside from that, relations are pretty good.

[Kirala]

Depending on how you warped the chain of command at the small, independently-owned store I work at, I MIGHT be able to get up to boss's boss.

My immediate supervisor, the store manager, knows what I do and how well I do it. She could do my job, and do it well enough, but everyone (including her) is much happier she does her job instead.

Of the couple who own the store - her bosses - the wife actually trained me on my job and could do it just as well (if she were still in practice). You probably don't want to let the husband anywhere around my job. Better to let him go out and make sales calls. But he does know the difference between quality work and shoddy work.

*glances at clock* Speaking of work...

[nekouken]

None of it.

I'm a junior lab tech, and my boss, the head lab tech, is the guy training me. His boss, the lab manager, is the other guy training me. Incidentally, I've had the job for almost a year and my training is still ongoing, as is the mid-level tech's and the non-management senior tech, who is the other other guy training me.

The lab manager's boss knows exactly what I do, and could do some of it.

[MikhailBorg]

My boss knows, generally, how to do what I do - not specifically, though, because of the whole Macintosh thing.

Her boss knows that what I do is important, but doesn't really understand how I do it, and therefore suspects I could be doing a lot more of it in the same amount of time.

[OneFatEnglishman]

This post describes my present position with astonishing accuracy.

[Caroline]

Accurate, except that my boss and my co-workers do not know how to do my job. They know if it's being done well, but if I were sick for a long period of time nobody would really know what to do.

It's a problem that we're trying to remedy by having standardized procedures, but we're not there yet.

[kodiak]

heh, by the time I got to the top of the chain that Fred lays out I realized that person is not on the same continent as me, wouldn't know my name if it was tattooed on my forehead and had no idea that my job even exists except as a headcount number that keeps his kingdom bigger than other kingdoms in my company...

by the time you hit my boss's boss you have someone who knows that the things I do get done and that I am the one who does them, but has no idea what process would be used to do them, anything above that and I'm an unimportant peon...

[Keith]

My boss (Executive Librarian) has only the vaguest inkling of what I do (Catalog Librarian) or how to do it, even though she did my job for the better part of a decade. Her boss (Library Dean) hasn't a clue what I do or how it's done and has told me so, in almost those exact words. His boss (VP of Academic affairs) may possibly be aware that my department exists. His boss (College President) is aware that there's a library somewhere on campus and that it has a painting of her hanging on the wall.

[Francis]

My boss knows what I do, and about half of how I do it. I'm in the non-callused category, meaning that it would take him a few years to learn some of the rest of it. He can check some of the output and a little of the methodology.

My bosses boss is functionally innumerate (I'm an analyst/statistician). She is therefore scared of us.

My bosses bosses boss (the CEO) resigned a few weeks ago.

I'm not sure who counts as his boss (whether it's DH or regional NHS level).

[twig]

If you haven't read 'The Tipping Point,' read it. Great section in there about a company that keeps all its sections relatively autonomous and under 300 workers (I think it was 300), as that is the maximum number of relationships people can process mentally while still keeping a vague connection to each one.

[Bob]

What about those of us who have clients, not employers?

(They all know what I do and how good I am at it. That's why they pay me.)

[Mikael Vejdemo Johansson]

So. Let's see how this works for me.

My boss (aka thesis advisor) doesn't really grok my research, though he has quite a bit to teach me still about the craft of research as well as about teaching. He couldn't write the papers I write. He could however do the rest of my job well.

His boss ... *hmmmm* ... that's probably the dean. Our dean is from CS and not mathematics, so no way that he could do the things I do. For the teaching bit, he could cover the things I'm doing this term, but not the things I'm scheduled to do next term.

His boss is the chancellor of the University. With a degree in Law there's just no way he'd even do well as a student in the class I'll be teaching in next term.

His boss, then, is the state minister of culture and education.

And about at this point, the hierarchy gets kinda blurry. It doesn't help much either that the chains of command have many very autonomous points along the way. You'd have to have a LOT of reason to tell a professor what to do, so, modulo departmental politics, my boss already can say pretty much whatever he wants as long as our teaching duties are covered.

And anything outside my faculty almost never ever bothers me.

[Jack Grey]

Heh. Okay: I'm a web designer, though the more accurate term might be "html code-monkey".

My immediate boss trained me, and could certainly do my job. There are some things I'm better at, but they aren't critical to the job per se: things like proofreading and keeping things organized on the server.

My boss's boss knows what I do and has, I think, a reasonably good idea of how I do it. In a pinch, he could pitch in (and he has done so when it was needed); I'm not sure how he would do at generating new pages, but he can certainly update existing ones if needed; plus, he's rather more adept with database applications than I am.

His boss would never, ever stoop to actually working on webpages, so his level of technical knowledge - and he does have some - is basically moot. He exists mainly to provide "vision" (heh) and run interference with the upper management.

His boss, perhaps surprisingly, has a very good idea of what I do -- she actually meets with my immediate boss and myself (and a few others) on a monthly basis. On the other hand, as far as I know she has no idea how we do it and could not do it herself.

Her boss -- the City Manager -- is aware of what we do, but hasn't a clue how we do it. On the plus side, he is generally willing to let us get on with it (under the "hire good people and let 'em work" theory of management). Also, because the website is a big part of our organization's public face, he seems to appreciate what we do.

I should add that by the time you get that high, the distinction between myself and my immediate boss gets pretty hazy. The City Manager doesn't care who does what, or how, as long as it gets done.

Upon reflection, I have a pretty good work environment. Odd, that.

~Jack

[Kail Panille]

I work at a pretty small company, and technically I have only one boss, who is the boss of everyone. And she fits: she knows what I do, but not how I do it or why some things take longer than others, and she can definitely tell how well it's being done.

[SPIIDERWEB™]

I'll go to my last job.

1. My immediate bosses never knew what I did or how well, but knew I kept their asses out the the fire. Important in large corporation. Do my job? Not to save their souls.

2. Second level bosses always knew what I did and how well, but had no clue how to do it themselves. In fact, usually I reported directly to the 2nd levels. And when one was transfered, asked for me. Of course the "ass out of the fire" level would never allow that.

3. Third level was vaguely aware I worked there, but little more. Actually a matter of stupidity would be my guess. He knew I "did" computer stuff.

Pointing to the stupidity. I was asked for information off the mainframes. I told him he didn't want that and I would take care of it. He insisted. So, when I slammed a full box of printouts on his desk (about 2 ft tall) and told him there were several more if he wanted me to keep printing, he realized his mistake. Never had a problem with that idiot again.

4. Fourth level asked to see my employee badge because he didn't know I worked there.

5. When I left, I got phone calls for a few years because this or that program had hung up and no one knew how to fix it. It was always another department's error. And no, there were people who knew how to fix the problems, because they were, ahem, well written programs and well documented, but no one knew who to ask. Think I would tell them? Give me a break. Vindictiveness can sometimes be so sweet.

Actually I did. Which is why the phone calls stopped.

[Carl]

Pretty much right on the money. In fact, last year, the senior VP (my boss's boss's boss) was bringing someone new around the office, and he said "This is Carl, he works on a data warehouse project for us." And I had to say, "Actually, Bob, that project ended. I do [other stuff] now." I did NOT tell him that the data warehouse project ended two years previous.

[Johnny Pez]

Not only can my boss do my job, she used to have my job, and has subbed for me once or twice.

My boss's boss might hear about it if I did my job poorly, but is mostly oblivious since we meet maybe once a month.

My boss's boss's boss works at the Home Office several hundred miles away. I have no idea whether I've ever even met him/her, and the same goes for anyone else at the Home Office.

The best thing about my job is that, since I work overnight, the only people on-site are me and the security guard. (Btw, Janis Joplin was wrong; freedom's just another word for "boss isn't around".)

[Arcane Nitehawk]

The joys of being self employed. While my clients/customers could do what I do, they would not know if they were doing it well. That is why they come to me.

The numbers 1040 strike terror into so many hearts.

[cminus]

My boss: knows what I do and how well I do it, and even though we're in the non-calloused category could do my job pretty well if necessary -- could do a better job in some areas, even.

My boss's boss: knows pretty much what I do and how well I do it, and could do some of my duties in an emergency, but for the most part not well.

My boss's boss's boss: knows pretty much what I do, has an idea how well I do it, knows nothing about how I do it other than that it seems to require a lot in the way of reference books and computer time, and with a little training could probably handle my printed-media-related duties quite well (he's borderline computer illiterate and couldn't cope with the database work).

My boss's boss's boss's boss is the taxpayer, who doesn't know that I exist or that my boss exists, and I would be surprised if even one in a thousand knows that my boss's boss exists.

[cjmr's husband]

the whole Macintosh thing

Happy Birthday to the Macintosh (he types on his PC laptop...)

[Anna]

I'm an associate professor, so I suppose my direct boss would be the Department Chair, who knows what I do but couldn't do it himself (our specializations are different).

Of course, the real story is that the department secretary bosses all of us, but graciously allows us to believe that we have some degree of autonomy (until, that is, a form needs signing or a department meeting needs to be planned, in which case we have no autonomy at all). She's always been the real power in charge of this place.

[Patrick]

My boss knows what I do. He believes he knows whether I do it well. He is incorrect, but I am paid to work to his standards, not to do quality work.

My other boss (essentially equal rank) doesn't know what I do. She only gets her information on whether I do it well from my first boss, and from overall project outcomes. This creates conflicts when my first boss wants me to do things poorly. If I do them well, he speaks poorly of me for not matching his expectations. If I do them poorly, final outcomes are poor and that speaks poorly of me.

[Catrijn]

This makes me think of a post at the late, lamented Fafblog, particularly the part about YOUR BOSS!, which happens to feature a picture of my boss, for no reason that any of us in the group have ever been able to determine.

My boss: knows what I do and how well I do it. I don't have any work related calluses, but I'm pretty well convinced he could do my job better than I can (and would, if he had the time).

My boss's boss: has vague notions about the sort of thing I do. He might be able to tell if it was being done well if he cared, which he doesn't. There's no way he could fill in for me.

My boss's boss's boss: neither knows nor cares that I exist, only that our Glorious Institution continues to put out research that earns prestige, hence making us even more Glorious.

(I'm an academic, more specifically a grad student. A bitter, cynical grad student contemplating alternative career options disturbing often.)

[Izzy]

Hm. I work in editorial: handling logistics and nagging authors. I have an actual boss--guy I report to formally, who signs my paychecks and gives me evaluations--and the guy I assist, who sort of dictates what he needs but isn't technically my boss.

Boss knows what I do and could do it himself. Definitely. I think he *does* do some of it himself, for his own projects.

Boss's boss has a pretty good idea, I'd say. Not enough that he could distinguish between me doing a good job and boss/guy I assist doing a good job, maybe, but still.

And the chain ends there, pretty much.

[LN]

Hello other librarian up thread!

My boss (head of dept.) knows what I do, supports it, and can do about 60% of what I do (mainly the reference service stuff). However, I have a specialized job in the department that I was hired specifically for (tech-related) and she can't do that stuff.

My boss' boss (head of public services) knows what I do, supports it, and can actually do more of the specialized tech-stuff than the boss under him.

My boss' boss' boss (director) knows what I do, supports it, used to do that 60% of what I do now, but it's been a long time. He still does about 10% of what I do now, out of necessity.

My boss' boss' boss' boss (dean) knows what I do, supports it, but could never do it herself. But she knows my name and actively works to get funds and support for some of the initiatives I'm doing.

My workplace kind of rocks!

[Cat]

Hm. I have someone-who-isn't-a-boss but still can make requests of my time; he doesn't know what I do or how I do it, but occasionally asks if things can be done by me, and I do them, or not, if they're not actually within the realm of possibility. My actual boss and his boss (the president of the company, so that's as far as it goes) might some vague idea of what I do but no idea how (nor do they care).

I was just thinking about this the other day, though, since a friend of mine is about to lose her second job. The company was bought out by a big corporation that doesn't understand what their newly acquired employees do or that their unusual excellence at their jobs is the whole reason the company has an audience/makes a profit. So everyone's getting replaced by clueless newbies for half the cost, and I expect the whole thing to fold later this year.

[Freshwater]

My boss is the CEO. He can't do my job and I can't do his. If I do my job badly it will result in the spectacular failure of the company. So its his job to pick someone he believes is competent and professional, and then stop worrying about it and get on with the other things expected of a CEO. He is presently at the World Economic Forum schmoozing with government ministers and other CEOs, which I'd be hopeless at.

I have had one job where there was a big hierarchy. I worked for a series of women who worked for a man who worked for a guy who was VP of Europe. The hierarchy was pretty strict, so there was no reason for the VP of Europe or any other VP to fire me, a minion far below them on the org chart. I met one, and he didn't. He appeared to understand basically what I did, but his grasp of timezones (or more importantly, their effect on the data he was interested in) was poor and I don't think my explanation improved his understanding. My various immediate bosses had only a limited idea of what I did, although the first one was very, very good at her job and I didn't realise until after she left what a privilege it had been to work for her.

She's the one who taught me the secrets of being happy and successful in my career, which I didn't appreciate until I found out how many other people were miserable in their jobs.

[inge]

I just checked, and I have four, maybe five levels of bosses.

My direct boss (1) could do what I do, mostly because he did my job before he became my boss, also because I document obsessively.

His bosses (2) (there are two, one managerial and one technical) know what we do, but decide "well or not" but the number of complaints they are getting about things not working as they should. Neither of them could fill in.

Their boss (3) is from a completely different field. He could probably quote the textbook definition of what we are doing and why it is important, but has never even seen the tools.

His boss (4) has minions who will quote the textbook definition and importance at them if needed.

And that guy's boss-entities (5) wouldn't know us from scattered light or chopped liver, but they know there's a textbook.

Yeah for the textbook.

[andlorr]

Librarians unite!

My boss (library director) used to do my job (head of public services), and is in fact training me in how to do it well, which I very much appreciate. Her boss (law school dean) is new, so I don't know how much he knows about the library, but I've heard he's very supportive. His boss (college president) couldn't do my job, but that's okay. Besides, he's three hours away.

As for me, I can do the reference librarians' jobs just fine, but not as well with the circulation librarian.

[inge]

A Texan in Bavaria: figuring out whatever else it will take to convince the German authorities that giving me a work permit is in their best interest

a) be an engineer and b) find some large company that would love to employ you and help you with the paperwork and authority-convincing would be my guess.

[Lucia]

My husband used to work for a company that, when it had to do a layoff, would have senior management decide who would go. Since this was a large insurance company senior management had no clue who any of the rank-and-file employees were or what they did, and, in the fine corporate tradition of counting the wrong beans, laid off all the highest-salaried people -- who had gotten that way by being rewarded by the link or two immediately above them for doing their jobs very well. In some cases they laid off the only person in the company with a specific and necessary skill and knowledge set. The duds, who always got the bare minimum raises, never got laid off.

[NNeko]

Technically this is pretty much accurate. My boss relies upon my senior co-workers and his responsibility is to try to bridge the gap up the chain of bosses which, to be fair, he does better than most. And he hosts group events, usually involving meals that get expensed back to the company. And his boss, while she really doesn't know what we do per se, does know that we make magical things happen -- so she sometimes hosts meals as well. No, the problems only start when we get up to 3rd generation boss that doesn't comprehend that telling everybody that we're going to have nigh-random layoffs to hit some unspecified headcount target per our re-aligning to undeclared goals in the near future might be detrimental to morale, loyalty and productivity. And at the 4th-generation boss half an organization over, they think it's okay to tell me that they're underpaying me and that the situation will persist for up to 3 years before they're satisfied with how much they're paying me despite our quarterly dividends going up by 6x over the past 4 years. And that's where it all falls apart for me.

Anybody need a .NET web application developer? Lots of experience, loves refactoring and pair programming...

[Jonathan Edelstein]

Hmmm. I am the boss, have been for six months and am still getting used to it.

I've got two people working for me, both of whom do the same thing I do (we're a small law firm with a concentration in appeals and motion practice). I taught them both how to do it (all right, co-taught) and aside from the fact that I deal with the clients and pass out the assignments, I can do their job and vice versa.

If my clients can be considered my bosses, most of them are lawyers who subcontract their writing to me. Most can write but don't like to, which is why I've been able to stay employed since law school.

[realityfighter]

This was the tragedy of working at (recently liquidated computer store): Nobody knew what you did, but they were all pretty sure that you sucked at it.

I frequently met my Boss's Boss's Boss's Boss while working there, which tells you how stacked the hierarchy was. I have no doubt this was linked to the problem, although I couldn't tell you if it was a symptom or the cause.

We also had something I like to call the "invisible hierarchy," which you get when you put a bunch of hypercompetitive salesman types in a room together. People start thinking they're in charge when they aren't, and sometimes it can get out of control and completely rearrange the structure of the company. You might have thought, for some time, that my boss answered to the Assistant Sales Manager, who answered to the Sales Manager, who answered to the Operations Manager, who answered to the General Manager. (On paper, the General Manager was my Boss's Boss.)

Thankfully, I got out of the business before the store went under.

[Bugmaster]

I don't think it's reasonable to expect everyone in the chain of command to know exactly what everyone else is doing, and how difficult that job is. That's why we have hierarchical structures, after all. The problem occurs when there are a). too many levels in the hierarchy, and b). the people on top don't trust the people immediately underneath them to do their jobs. Sadly, this is the case in my own company by now...

[Richard Hershberger]

As the other comments have made clear, the scenario Fred describes is not universal, but neither is it uncommon. I think it pretty much is universal in for-profit publicly traded corporations once they reach a certain size. I have worked in such environments. I now work for a small firm, and much prefer it. (It helps that my wife's job provides excellent health coverage.)

The broader pattern as I see it is that once corporations reach a certain size, the people at the top of the hierarchy are removed from personal experience with what actually goes on. Therefore they rely on various tools to summarize the information they need. A major tool is the spreadsheet. They are intensely aware of anything that gets a line item on a spreadsheet--your salary, for example. The flip side is that the system tends to disregard anything that doesn't appear on a spreadsheet--customer satisfaction, for example. This is why you find organizations where you have to fill out paperwork to get a box of paperclips. Office supplies are a line item. Time wasted jumping through hoops to obtain office supplies is not. It all makes perfect sense once you understand the logic.

My goal in life is to never work for a publicly traded corporation again. The system is set up for them to suck. Some resist this for a time, but eventually the clueful CEO will retire and his replacement will start looking at those line items on the expense sheet. Ideally, I want to work for companies small enough that the actual owner knows who I am.

[Geds]

Oh, yeah. My boss might be able to do what I do (not sure, really).

My boss's boss is new. They convinced the old department head to take an early retirement a few months ago. This meant a universally loved company lifer left, killing the morale of basically everyone in the building, including people who didn't report to him. They replaced him with some guy from a different branch of the ol' multi-national who probably doesn't even know what we do over here. Mostly because the original boss just got stuff done and the other guy was whining and various people from his division started a turf war.

Somewhere up the chain there's a boss's boss's boss's boss who decided to transfer the cash cow department's job overseas. Based on the fact that some people telecommute and somebody somewhere equated telecommuting with outsourcing so sending everything to the other side of the world won't have any problems. And it will save money. Never mind bandwidth, training, or common sense issue. I found out yesterday that telecommunicators can't log in right now.

Meanwhile, my boss has been trying to keep the new boss from finding out about several of the people in the department, including myself. In the boss's view, we provide a valuable service by being able to handle basically any of the products but not specializing in anything and being able to assist on any project. The new department guy probably won't see it that way, so my boss figures we'll be SOL.

It's fun times. Fortunately, I have a job interview in about four hours.

[Richard Hershberger]

To Spiiderweb: When your ex-employer calls you up to ask you how to fix something, the proper response is to discuss what your hourly rate as a consultant is. Keep those calls coming!

[John]

I wonder if it goes the other way? You probably know what your boss does, and you could probably do it. You might be aware of some of the things your boss's boss does, and might be able to do some of them. Do you know what your boss*2's boss does? Could you do it as well? What about the boss*N's boss? I know I was quite unaware of what happened up the ladder till I had to do some of it.

[Froborr]

I have two bosses who work for two different organizations. The joys of being a government contractor...

Boss A (corporate) could do what I do, though I have no "work-related callouses". Her boss has a vague idea what I do and knows exactly how well I do it thanks to annual reports. Her boss has no idea what I do or how well I do it, the contract is profitable, so... I have no idea what the corporate structure is above him.

Boss B (fed) could do what I do, though I have no "work-related callouses". His boss has a vague idea what I do and a pretty good idea of how well I do it. Her boss has no idea who I am or what I do. His boss has probably seen my division on an org chart somewhere, and may even know how many people are in it. His two bosses are members of the Cabinet, and their boss, as near as I can tell, knows absolutely nothing about anything.

[Robb]

Oh Fred, not even close -

At the Colossal Evil Telecom® corporation that employs me, there are (as far as I can tell) about 18 levels of positions, and I have 9 bosses above me - I'm at the apex of non-management level goons. My boss is a flaming example of the Peter priciple. She embodies so many of of the stupid boss characteristics from Scott Adams "Joy of Work" - she's arrived at her current position through a combination of other people leaving & quasi-assertive laziness (ie - she works hard at making sure she doesn't have to do any more than she does). She's never done anything close to what I do, and couldn't do it to save her life. It causes me no end of frustration that most of the upper level folks in the company have no experience dealing with the positions of people subordinate to them.

I'm looking forward to leaving not only because I want a better job, but also from knowing how badly my dept will miss me the instant I don't answer any emails or IMs of their questions.

@ the great litany of librarians - I envy you all greatly, your job is (to me) the proverbial "kid in a candy store", but what's the deal with most libraries requiring a masters in Library science to be anything other than a page? In my experience (and, fwiw, I was once one of those encylopedias of random knowledge at giant bookstore), there's very little that's done at the local librarian level that couldn't be done by someone who's very familiar with literature or the literature related to various fields. So what don't I get?

[Froborr]

Richard: That perfectly describes my experience in my last job. Product Development, which, you know, actually CREATED THE PRODUCTS, got repeatedly stiffed on budget, space, and new personnel. Sales, on the other hand, got everything they wanted on a silver platter. Reason was simple: we cost money, they made it.

Later it turned out the division had spent their entire operating budget for the next five years buying all their competitors and were deep, deep in the red. Massive layoffs ensued, including 3/4 of Product Development and not a single person in Sales.

Last I checked the division's VP had been fired and the division itself absorbed into a (presumably) more competently run division.

[Froborr]

Robb: the primary function of a librarian is not to shelve books or check them out, but to assist in research -- she has to be able to find the appropriate sources for both the topic and the person looking, regardless of whether or not it's actually a topic she knows about. A good librarian has to be able to assist an eight-year-old researching butterflies AND a historian who wants to know about local eighteenth-century marriages. That's what the Master's is for.

[Jon]

I actually just started at my job, and the position's responsibilities are in a state transition, so I don't think anybody actually knows what I do or how well I do it, or how to do it if I weren't around.
For my part, I'm stuck in the "Is it normal for me to have so little to do or is there something I'm missing?" phase. I feel like I should be doing more, but it's beginning to seem more and more as though that's not actually the case.
It's also looking less and less like the job I actually interviewed for. For example, I accepted the job based on the assumption that I would be working with someone else, but it turns out I actually replaced that someone else, and am now, essentially, two people.
Still, it was payday today, and the nearly $500 increase per paycheck over what I was making at my last job sort of eases the pain and confusion...

[mike timonin]

Ok. I'm an adjunct professor at a community college. My boss is the head of the department, knows what I do, and has a pretty good idea of how well I do it, because he's watched me do it and evaluated my performance. He is also a professor, and could probably do the job I do, at least as well as I do. I'm not sure if there's someone between him and the college president, but let's assume there is - a boss' boss. Assuming the existence of such, one must also assume that they have at least a vague understanding of what teaching entails, even if no knowledge of the specifics. There's a fairly decent chance that they have taught at one point or another, and could possibly do it again, although perhaps not in my discipline. I've always operated on the assumption that, above my boss, no one knows I exist, or how well I actually do my job, and I'm happy with that. Above this theoretical boss' boss would be the college president (we're a fairly small community college, so, while it's possible that there's another layer between boss' boss and president, I doubt it. If such a further layer exists, let us assume diminishing knowledge of me and my job for each layer.). One hopes that the college president has at least seen the inside of a classroom at some point, and thus has at least tangential knowledge of what my job entails. However, it's generally believed by all professors that college presidents are useless wastes of money who know nothing about anything. Above the president are, possibly, a board of regents, and boards of regents (as any professor knows) are, evolutionarily, a short step from pond scum. They have heard, at some point, about students, and know that the college contains them. They also know that students should acquire knowledge during their stay in the college. Presumably, they believe that this acquisition of knowledge involves a funnel and a large barrel of knowledge, which is then poured into the student's ears by trained monkeys. We professors must hold to this belief, because otherwise we cannot possibly explain the dismal nature of our wages. Generally, we get to see the evaluations that our bosses make for us, and they are uniformly glowing (or else we would be fired or quit) - thus, to explain how little we are paid, we must assume that no one above our direct boss knows who we are, what we do, how well we do it, or how much what we do is actually worth.

Now, to respond to John's very intelligent question - I have no idea what happens at the level above my boss. In fact, I know only the following about my boss' job: he teaches some classes (as I do), evaluates the performance of those professors who teach under him, hires (and, presumably, fires) adjuncts, requests that class sections be opened, keeps track of library policies, and sends memos to us, either physically or by e-mail. I'm sure there's more to the job than this. As you may note, I'm not even really sure who my boss' boss is; somewhere above him is a college president who, as far as I can tell, does nothing, but costs a great deal. One presumes that the college president does something in order to earn a salary, but what that is I cannot tell.