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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

That's accountability by definition. Your ass will be on the firing line for every decision that doesn't work out, whether done by those below you or above you doesn't matter.

You're labelled mr. or mrs. Expendable.

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That has not been the case everywhere I have worked. Also not anywhere I have been as an outside contractor. Perhaps it's the industry.

Anyway, all I've seen is a bunch of "Cover Your Ass" and reluctance to make decisions by middle management. I think OP would love such a position. Very little "work," just a bunch of delegating and meetings to review progress. Be ready to embrace a life of looking at Excel spreadsheets.

Middle Management is high enough that you can blame an underling when things go sour, yet high enough that you can command pay for your "value" of managing people.

This does sound the best so far :)

Where I work, all the middle management (one exception, he was hired from the outside) was promoted from within due to high quality work and desire to manage.

At a prior job it was half and half. Half were promoted because of stellar prior work and half were promoted to remove their incompetent from harming the organization. I worked for both kinds at that organization.

In mega corps (worked for 2) I have never witnessed a manager or employee being fired for performance. The only times I saw a manager get fired was for sleeping with another manager's wife. I've had team members that literally did nothing continue to collect their 2% raises because it's cheaper than facing a lawsuit over termination. My last manager (before I left the first mega corp) lost 70% of his team within a 2 month span, including me, due to poor management. I think he was promoted to director or some senior management position now. If you golf with the right people there is always someone else to pass the buck too.

It's incredibly difficult to fire someone in a large company, not to mention you basically just have to "hit your numbers". As an example if you go work for a company like SAP or Oracle, you can literally coast along on a 9-5 (sometime unpaid overtime can happen) and make $80k+. The real problem usually ends up being the ability to get in (depending on role).

Source: I worked as a support consultant working for SAP and the amount of 9-5'rs who just skated by was shocking. I got paid well.

That's why they avoid making any decision until absolutely forced to. If it's big enough, get your manager to decide. If it's small enough, "empower" someone below you to make the decision.

In a well run and effecient organization, yes... in a stale, ineffecient organization where incentives are not there, but keeping the status quo is king, then no. Like others have said, look at government and military contractors.

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