Manager musings

An uneventful day today.  Most days are uneventful when I have to work.  I wish I had an exciting job that would lend itself to interesting and exciting blog tales, but in reality the life of a park manager is fairly dull.  Most people who hear 'park ranger' think of hours spent outside watching trees and plants and animals and such, but that is just not the case.  Maybe one day out of twenty is spent outside walking the trails or examining wildlife.  The other nineteen are working on things mainly indoors.  Budgets, invoices, timesheets, inspections, forms, training, reports, repairs, purchasing, meetings, emails, etc. etc.  Dreadfully dull indeed.

But I do like my job, most days.  The most rewarding part is helping people enjoy and learn about the park.  Nature, history, archeology, geology, all of it.  It helps that visitors come to the park for precisely that reason - to enjoy themselves.  And 95% of the visitors to the park are pleasant and law-abiding.  Occasionally we'll get someone isn't so pleasant, who would rather break the rules than follow them, ensuring a worse experience for everyone else.  But that type is the minority, and comes with the territory when you work with the public.

The people that work at the park, the staff that I supervise, are fantastic.  Talented, dedicated, hardworking stewards of public lands.  Working with them is a joy.  I take my role as a supervisor seriously.  It's my job to make it possible for the staff to do their jobs as best they can.  To give them the things they need - training, guidance, direction, equipment, supplies, support, etc.  If they are doing their job well, and they're happy doing it, then I've done my job well, and I'm happy.

Very early in my career I took a supervisory training course, and heard a respected HR person say that if we forgot everything else, we should remember that 'everyone wants to do a good job.'  At the time the statement seemed a little too obvious to be meaningful.  Of course everyone wants to do a good job.  But as time went by, and the more supervising I did, I began to understand the relevance it had.

The least rewarding part of my job is dealing with administration.  Not just the policies and procedures, but the people who hide behind them.  Perhaps 'hide behind' is the wrong term.  The people who take advantage of the complexity of bureaucracy, to the point where they don't accomplish anything.  But they still believe they are 'over-worked.'  Basically, people who don't do their job well and don't get called out for it.  Too much of my job is dealing with the effects of other people not doing their job.

I realized awhile ago that the more someone gets paid as a supervisor, the less supervising they actually do.  Like it's somehow beneath them at some point, and their employees should be able to fend for themselves.  It's aggravating that many people don't realize how important good supervision is, or just don't care. 

Having a bad boss is stressful, demoralizing, frustrating and exhausting.  Trust me, I've had them.  It makes an otherwise satisfying job downright miserable.  And it certainly doesn't help the work itself get done any better or faster.  And isn't that the point?

Ok, I'm done.  Sorry for the rant!  Just had to let a bee out of my bonnet, or my Smokey the Bear hat, I suppose.  Here's a pretty picture of the park to make up for it.