My Manager Gets ‘Fired’
You know, whenever I talk to the gainfully employed and successfully retired members of my family about problems with an authority figure at work, like you, my fellow Americans, they will forever assume that it’s my fault. What we need to remember about this assumption is that my family descends from slavery—American slavery. This means that the workplace is profoundly hostile and I should have known this from the beginning. I should have known how to develop a Teflon™ character, a non-stick Negro that is smooth and smiling. You see, there is the Louis Armstrong personality and there is the Miles Davis personality.
As I get older—I’m almost forty and I don’t smoke weed—my thoughts become more primitive and thereby more powerful. Here’s the thought: My family members expect me to somehow develop a Louis Armstrong personality without any lessons from them! I don’t ever remember being locked in my room without food until I can put on my “happy face.” My personality grooming was neglected and was unmolested. When I am sitting in a large audience, when everybody is clapping at mediocre crap, I don’t clap because it’s mediocre crap. You see how primal that is…? With maturity, the realization is that this personal development alone is offensive to many people—especially American people from “success-oriented” families. For these professional people, putting on a happy face is as fundamental as getting a driver’s license. Celebrity-saturated American culture knows that happy faces can earn millions. Who on earth would be so stupid as to not fake it for a few bucks?
What people forget about Miles Davis is that his father was a wealthy man—his father was a wealthy Black man—before Civil Rights and “entitlement” programs. The implications of this fact alone are offensive to many, many people. You see, the ‘problem’ with being a Black son with a functional, successful Black father is that your perception of the so-called “white world” is vastly different than boys left alone. Louis Armstrong grew up as an orphan on the streets of New Orleans. I think his kindergarten was a school for “colored waifs.” Both of these great Jazz giants are profound forces. It’s just that one of them developed a “reaction formation” to society based on raw survival and “street hustle” that made him charming and endearing to millions upon millions around the world. But, when both of them pick up the instrument, the instrument obeys regardless of personality. The instrument does not lie. The instrument is not biased toward one public personality over the other.
My unbiased instrument is the computer laden with software tools. I have the habit of expecting to work for people who see this instrument first before we see various non-technical issues. With growing maturity my understanding is that the workplace is not a place for social interaction, nurturing and human growth. I am at work to do a job and that’s about it. This personal understanding alone is enough to offend many, many people—especially so-called “non-technical” people. Americans want to “save” people. Because I am a male with strong African features, many, many Americans assume that I need help because I do not know how to ask or look for help. When they find they are incorrect about this assumption and, in fact, I am learning and growing in spite of their “help”—and what is most offensive it is clear that I can help them—“we” have a problem. In this “New World Order,” this situation brings disorder. You are supposed to help me. After all, you know quite correctly and accurately that the “whole world” is against me. And here I come offering to help you? That’s crazy!
So let me list a few highlights illuminating this manager I said I was going to fire—this manager who has recently put in his two-week notice:
- We’ve never had a single useful conversation about technology. He is not an intimate, eloquent advocate for the “end user.” He has no defined educational program for developers. What he has done successfully is to protect us developers from unreasonable user demands but this policing function alone is literally not productive.
- Another veteran employee told me early on that he was not going to last very long. I did not believe her. Like my relatively wealthy elder family members I assumed that he would rise through the ranks and eventually become CIO. This was an outright racist assumption on my part because this manager is a self-described “white male.” You think that’s silly? Then you must be a fervent supporter of the current President of the United States. Now I know him (and The President) to be a terminal middle manager.
- Several months ago, a ‘co-manager’ was installed between this terminal middle manager and us developers. We were told to report directly to this new ‘co-manger’ instead of the guy I thought would be CIO. This move alone showed me that my instant, strong dislike of this person was indirectly validated. With maturity, one has the opportunity to learn that communication is more than just a straight line drawn from one source to me, the listener—me, the watcher.
- Since I sit right outside of this guy’s office (me, the spook), I have overheard many ‘heated exchanges’ that further reinforced the fundamental design problem of this managerial personality. This guy literally gets into arguments with nice, old office ladies. Of course, all of these curt exchanges end with a pleasant, fake-ass “thank you”—but in the rasx() context, these are arguments.
- Because of the relatively adept ‘co-manager,’ there was not a formal need to address this person directly. With maturity, outside of the Study of War, one has the opportunity to see value in conserving energy by ignoring continual confrontations. With much appreciation and love with my lifelong exploration of poetry, there are not that many unresolved childhood issues for me to “deal” with at the expense of my adult self and others. This means that there is no need to get into arguments with strangers. All you Blog flamers out there take heed! So eventually I found the freedom of not having to speak to or look at this person. And I’m not talking about ignoring a person in some petty bitchy way; I’m talking my life with life. There is no need to make any sort of cute communications with death.You will have a hard time convincing an American, that you do not want to have anything to do with them not solely because you do not like them but more because you see your life as a learning experience, more than just a sensual experience—and you are certain that there is very little to learn in direct contact. How dare me to know how to teach myself after almost forty years of Black male life! This American would rather develop an elaborate, flamboyant character instead of the real you. “He hates me,” is a far more consoling thought than, “He finds nothing with me.” And this is why Miles Davis was called “The Prince of Darkness” by Ken Burns, his Jazz film, with the tacit endorsement of Wynton Marsalis—and narrator Keith David. This “Prince of Darkness” character is far more entertaining—this Black Dracula—than something more primal and efficient.
What Ken Burns may not know is that Miles Davis writes in his autobiography, with the help of Quincy Troupe, that he told a young Wynton to get “the fuck” off the stage when Wynton bounded toward Miles during one of his concerts. I am sure that Wynton never forgot that… When you asked Miles, “Do you hate white people?” His famous answer was, “Not all the time.” And when you understand that Miles sees the instrument/music first and when he invites a “white boy” like John McLaughlin on stage and on wax, you have to understand something else going on besides cartoon Dracula shit. So it’s not about does Miles “like” Wynton. It’s more about does Miles see that Wynton is appropriate for the particular moment of music. What would impress Miles is that Wynton independently sees whether he is appropriate for the particular moment of music—and that Wynton knows how to control himself rather than Miles trying to control him, having to tell him to get the fuck of the stage. Policing people is for terminal middle managers, glorified overseers. This writer is quite certain that Wynton was preoccupied with social/hierarchical relationships instead of the music. So too, this manager goes along in the young Wynton band wagon…
So with me and this terminal middle manager there was something else going on besides cartoon Dracula shit. No matter how much I write in this Blog post, I still know that my family thinks it’s all my fault. I should have known him the first time I saw him, the first time he opened his mouth. Hey, fam,’ I agree… Anyway, he’s off the stage “on to bigger and better things” and it appears that one can assume that this particular police drama is over. Now let’s speak no more of ‘my manager’—let’s look at controlling the process of building software instead of habitually and non-consciously trying to control people. J’ah Jireh…