A Day at the Biotech (A Night at the Bar)Lord, I'll have to ask for your indulgence when I refer to my bosses as morons.  There really is no other word within the confines of good taste that fits.  I have been working in my particular field since 1990.  Came up through the ranks and went as high as director.  The most rewarding aspect of my career was taking people from entry-level positions, training them on the technology, and watching them thrive.  I think I might enjoy teaching, based on the experiences I've had in this arena.  One moment that will stay with me was when I met a friend of mine who was teaching an internet technology class.  Someone in the class was having trouble with a particular concept of internet, versus traditional, telephone routing.  (If you just followed that previous sentence without having to reread it, you have my sympathy).In any event, I offered a tip that was helpful to me in understanding the concept, and the guy seemed to get it at that point.  A few minutes later a coworker informed me that she overheard my explanation and was also able to grasp the concept herself.  She went on to tell me what an awesome teacher she thought I was and how lucky she felt to be passing by just at the moment I was presenting my illustration.Tracy was pretty much a secretary at that time, making a secretary's salary.  A single mom, she thought she would take advantage of the free training that was being given by the company, to try and make a better life for herself.   She stumbled on this same concept when she took this class a few weeks before and simply chalked it up to her own mental limitations.  (Now if you just followed that previous sentence and nodded in agreement, then you REALLY have my sympathies, and we need to talk about THAT particular lie in your life.  Seriously, leave a comment.)The point of all this is that I've never felt more on top of my game than when I can share my knowledge with someone hungering for it.  I've been blessed to help several people advance professionally and personally.  Sometimes it was my job, and other times, it was an opportunity that presented itself in the course of running an exceptional service organization. I was hired at The Biotech to lead a team that is supposed to fix failing multi-media rooms.  That's a fancy way of saying I look for broken cables to replace.  There are a lot of cables, though, hence the team.  I started in early July.  About a week into the new job, my company (The Biotech is our customer) hired a department lead whose main mission in life appears to be making wild promises to the client without regard to the work involved in meeting the deadline.  His direct subordinate is someone who tends to issue partial commands, then attempts to carry them out himself.  It would make for great theater if you could watch from a safe distance.  At the moment, the customer is unhappy, because every deadline has so far not been met.  The subordinate is unhappy, because he's putting in 12 hour days plus weekends to curry favor for a promotion that, frankly, will never come.  The rest of us are frustrated, because instead of fixing anything, we spend the day trying to decipher emails containing fuzzy action items that always end with, "...need it by the end of the day."  I've never seen a labor force so openly hostile to its management chain as we are.  Last Friday, I got into a heated email exchange that went all the way up to the COO.  The issue was an inventory that I was tasked with was going into it's third week.  It's a long story, but the flaming got to a level where I thought my career was just about done.   Mind you, I don't say any of this with a bit of pride.  I consider myself a pretty tolerant person, and I should know better given my recent employment history.  What has occurred to me is that I'm just not cut out to chase a paycheck.  I owned a business once, and my biggest mistake looking back was to let it die.  Well, I have a new idea, and after putting pen to paper, it looks like this could work.  Watch this space.  I might find a way out of this inmate-run asylum yet. GDAD