A promotion? Not really....
Today my lady boss invited me to have 'coffee talk' with her. It's her usual way of saying that she want to discuss something on a one-to-one basis. Actually, I was forewarned and was expecting it.
After the manpower reshuffling of the monitoring team, with their team leader being redesignated to another team, rumours have it that my lady boss wanted me to take over as the new team leader, supervising 4 guys working 24 hours shifts, rotating 12 hours each. The team was formed about 7 months ago, another idea that HP sold to VISA, doing the monitoring and supporting of VISA's corporate applications (in-house or outsourced) and websites (intranet, extranet and internet sites). The team's job scope kept changing and no manager wants to be responsible for them, so the team was sort of an 'unwanted child' that got kick around/tai-ji around between managers.
Until my lady boss took over about 1.5 months ago, what the guys did were just to stare at the monitor screen, looking for error messages/emails or abnormalities highlighted by the monitoring software that might denote system/application error(s) and escalate it to my current team to troubleshoot/solve. Since then, my lady boss has drafted out a whole list of tasks and (new) responsibilities that this team will take up. These are not something new, just that no one has actually listed them down clearly. Here lies the irony: The guys have been on 'holiday' mode for so long, that these workload actually made their morale low!! So my lady boss wants me to supervise them, lay down all the processes and procedures for them to follow and execute. In short, shake up the team and clear the (existing) shit. 收拾烂摊子， 吃力不讨好的烂差事。
At first, I was reluctant to take up these extra responsibilities (with no extra pay). I am happy with what I am doing: going to work on time, leaving the office on time, with lots of spare time to do the things that I want/like, for example taking up courses to get out of IT. :) However after hearing what she had to say, and her offering to half my current workload to take up this new responsibility, I decided to take it up as a challenge. I thought to myself: What could the worst case scenario be? It can't get any worst than what it currently is. With her low expectation, her understanding that the current team situation is really bad and her willingness to give me 6 months to make improvement, I have nothing to lose. Anything that I do to improve it, even by 10%, will be seen as my contribution. The situation could only get better, not worse! If I really can't sort the team out after 6 months, it is really not (solely) my incompetence since the team was in such a big mess to begin with. Either way I win. :)
After the manpower reshuffling of the monitoring team, with their team leader being redesignated to another team, rumours have it that my lady boss wanted me to take over as the new team leader, supervising 4 guys working 24 hours shifts, rotating 12 hours each. The team was formed about 7 months ago, another idea that HP sold to VISA, doing the monitoring and supporting of VISA's corporate applications (in-house or outsourced) and websites (intranet, extranet and internet sites). The team's job scope kept changing and no manager wants to be responsible for them, so the team was sort of an 'unwanted child' that got kick around/tai-ji around between managers.
Until my lady boss took over about 1.5 months ago, what the guys did were just to stare at the monitor screen, looking for error messages/emails or abnormalities highlighted by the monitoring software that might denote system/application error(s) and escalate it to my current team to troubleshoot/solve. Since then, my lady boss has drafted out a whole list of tasks and (new) responsibilities that this team will take up. These are not something new, just that no one has actually listed them down clearly. Here lies the irony: The guys have been on 'holiday' mode for so long, that these workload actually made their morale low!! So my lady boss wants me to supervise them, lay down all the processes and procedures for them to follow and execute. In short, shake up the team and clear the (existing) shit. 收拾烂摊子， 吃力不讨好的烂差事。
At first, I was reluctant to take up these extra responsibilities (with no extra pay). I am happy with what I am doing: going to work on time, leaving the office on time, with lots of spare time to do the things that I want/like, for example taking up courses to get out of IT. :) However after hearing what she had to say, and her offering to half my current workload to take up this new responsibility, I decided to take it up as a challenge. I thought to myself: What could the worst case scenario be? It can't get any worst than what it currently is. With her low expectation, her understanding that the current team situation is really bad and her willingness to give me 6 months to make improvement, I have nothing to lose. Anything that I do to improve it, even by 10%, will be seen as my contribution. The situation could only get better, not worse! If I really can't sort the team out after 6 months, it is really not (solely) my incompetence since the team was in such a big mess to begin with. Either way I win. :)
posted by imm @ 10:35 PM
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