How I Learned to Love Middle Managers | Hacker News Reader

How I Learned to Love Middle Managers

inc.com

57 points__11 comments

The same thing happened at McDonald's many years ago. You had 2 kinds of people in the building: 1 manager and 38 teenagers. We had to figure out how to get things done with or without the manager. The more knowledgeable (senior) employees gradually became de-facto supervisors. Eventually, the company gave them the title "swing manager" and a little raise for the job they were already doing.

I suspect Joel's new middle managers were already well positioned for their new jobs, probably doing them already. The recognition and extra $ are always a nice touch.

(Any resemblence between the way McDonald's is run today and when I was a teenager is purely coincidental.)

> Published September 2008

I'm still stuck in August :(

Smart of you to notice. Time travel.

Welcome to magazine publishing. If the magazine comes out in August and gets an August date, come Septermber 1st no one buys it because it's an old issue. At least, that's what the publishers think.

The explanation I always heard was that the date was the pull date. So NewsWeek was always dated as the day the next issue would come out. For monthly magazines, it's the month that the next issue will come out in.

That makes sense.

I hate to throw Agile buzzwords around but:

The Scrum master's job is to remove obstacles from the team's path. There's no telling people what to do, just listening to them at regular team meeting and helping solve what ever problems they come up with.

The scrum master does not have to be a manager just a "person with influence".

So maybe Joel & Co. can implement regular team meeting where "people with influence" listen to complaints and then try to solve them. And solving problems may require nothing more then being comfortable chatting with Joel.

Yeah, scrum was the first thing that popped into my head when I read the article.

Managers who remove obstacles = great

Managers who are obstacles = get a new job

The Scrum master's job is to remove obstacles from the team's path

Meanwhile, the Dungeon master's job is to insert obstacles in the team's path.

What do I have to roll to make my saving throw?

Gosh. Trouble in paradise?

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