Monday, November 5, 2018

Small Firms, Big Problems

The first thing you notice when you move to a smaller firm is how much more freedom everyone has. No process, no approvals, no problems, right?



After a while, you start noticing how much more personality everyone has. She does everything but gripes constantly; he does nothing and no one seems to care. I would say that everyone is writing their own job description, but that's not true because no one even has a job description.

It's a free-for-all. If you do something, it becomes your job. If you don't do it, someone else has to pick it up.

You'd think that everyone being slammed with various tasks would lead to them all pushing back when someone doesn't do their work. But no! They're all so worried about losing someone (and thus having even more work piled on) they just suck it up and figure out how to pick up the pieces. Everyone basically just does whatever the hell they want to get by.

This is probably ok for the B and C players out there, since they can just coast by and hope the money never runs out, but it sucks for those of us who actually get shit done. I'm picking up work from Mr. Foot Shuffler (seriously, dude, pick up your damn feet when you walk!), Eeyore (yeah, I get that you're unhappy, thanks for sharing!), Forget-Me-Now (we just talked about this!), and even Ms. In-Charge (isn't it your job to manage these people?)

But still, it was a good move. I was suffocated at The Big Firm and was never going to get ahead with this attitude. I'll probably be running this place by next year. So what's to complain about?

Oh yeah. The clients. But that's a story for a different day.

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