Women as Managers

I've been thinking about why my job sucks. When I hired in, it wasn't too bad. It was still a job; I get paid because otherwise, I wouldn't do this stuff. When something is fun, you pay to do it. When something sucks, you get paid to do it. But the job was tolerable. So I started thinking back trying to figure out what changed.

It was when the IS department got women as managers.

For those of you still with me, let me explain. I have worked with a lot of women (I work in health care) that would make fine managers. The problem is that they are competent, so the organization cannot afford to loose them to management. I don't know if it is something genetic, cultural, or what, but men are capable of effectively managing a group of people that can do something better than they can. For example, a mediocre male engineer can manage a department full of bright engineers. So General Motors can promote a not-so-brilliant engineer to manage a group of brilliant engineers and get good results. But for some reason, this never works with women. The smart ones don't get promoted, just like men, but for some reason, the mediocre ones suck ass as managers.

So that's what did it. The IS managers were male when I started. There was a conscious effort to change that, and I have watched my job become less tolerable as each female joined the management ranks. Affirmative action strikes again.

Tell me again how we are all the same?