Some of my despair in anticipation of this past week proved unfounded. I had adequate time to talk with my new boss and get a clear understanding of what he expects from me. Various anecdotes from the four days he was in the plant also suggest that he has the influence and inclination to support me in the work he wants me to do, politically and materially. This should not be taken as settled fact until demonstrated, but the early indications are good. And a few of my key concerns were happily met, such as moving out of my current work area so I don’t cover functions of my old role by default.

I won’t be moving until I catch up on the backlog of claims. My boss said, and I agree, that the responsibility for the claims should not be passed off with as a big mess. But this presents a challenge since I have to get up to speed in my new role, which will include a trip near the end of the month. I will probably put in a lot of overtime.

My new role is to monitor the sales orders and report on all kinds of problems, including the number and age of past-due orders. Reducing the number of past due orders is my responsibility. Except I can’t actually do anything about it. As my boss said, neither he nor I have any authority over anybody (aside from his authority over me and his team); all we can do is present information on the problems and hope that the people in charge of the actual work take the cue to make the actual improvements. When I asked what would measure my job performance that I could actually control, my boss again said there wasn’t any good way to measure it and he himself was also in the same boat.

So I still have a job that wouldn’t exist if other people were doing their jobs, and my job is still fundamentally to point out how other people are not doing their jobs or could be doing it better. This is my third post-college job and every position so far has had this aspect of intangibility. Clearly I am being groomed for an out-of-touch management position.

Meanwhile, the Mean Scary Guy was back in town, the plant manager’s boss’ boss. He made it quite clear that our branch of Acme is not performing satisfactorily. Everyone is thoroughly scared, but I don’t think anyone actually understands what ought to be done. There is a chance, then, that whatever I present or suggest will be seized upon as a chance for redemption, but it is really more likely that anything I offer will be ignored because everyone is already trying to save themselves using whatever they regard as the best means.

Of course, as Mean Scary Guy put it, whatever they are currently doing is wrong because it isn’t working. But this is not sufficient to teach them what they ought to do. I think they will approach the same problems the same way, and just try harder and point fingers more desperately. I think you would need to change the composition of the management before you expect the method of execution to change.