In many workplaces, company leadership isn’t always the most informed when it comes to their subordinates day-to-day tasks.
In this story, an Air Force IT Manager has their every task scrutinized.
When accused of not working enough, the employee is determined to show them just how much they actually keep their organization afloat.
Read on for the full story!
I was in the United States Air Force (USAF) at the time of this and was working IT and an Information Manager (IM) for a maintenance squadron.
There were 6 other IMs who could have done IT, as it was a core task of our career field.
None of them wanted to and I didn’t want to do paperwork. So it was a good fit.
This manager was a go-getter, so naturally he was assigned the most work.
I ended up snowballing tasks and was soon in charge of doing all the AV stuff for the squadron.
Christmas slides? Geawiel will make them. Fundraiser? Geawiel will handle it.
I even ended up with a base job where I had to go to a specific location during crisis (tornadoes, if there was a base attack, etc) to do back room IM stuff for all the big wigs of the base.
Although it wasn’t enjoyable, he had a sense of duty.
I hated it. I didn’t see the point of IMs there.
I did the job without complaint though. It was my job.
The squadron was the second largest account on the base. 650 pieces of equipment and over 200 personnel spread over multiple hangars.
I was also the only IT person with a line badge, so I was allowed to freely go on the flight line without an escort.
3 of our work section were on the flight line and required the badge or an escort to get to.
He had a no-nonsense attitude to office politics, which made him unpopular to some people.
For some reason, I rub crappy leadership the wrong way. I generally don’t take crap.
If something is wrong, I speak up. I don’t *** kiss because I don’t do the politics crap.
It’s a job. I do my job.
Everyone should just care about their job. Politics be darned.
But other appreciated him for it.
Everyone in the squadron loved me and some places would call me Bill Gates. I was there when they called.
If I couldn’t fix the problem in 10 to 15 minutes, I would swap the bad equipment out. I always brought some with me.
There were real problems in the organization.
This leadership was crappy.
Our 1st Sgt was someone we call Retired on Active Duty (ROAD Sgt). They don’t give a ****.
They’re in a spot that they’re comfortable in and don’t care about getting the next rank or know they’ve kissed enough *** to skate by.
He gives one pressing example.
For example, I’m fixing her laptop on a Friday morning, “I’m bored. I don’t really have anything to do for the day.”
*****, you’re a 1st Sgt. Your job is to gauge squadron morale. Know what the shops are up to. You always have something to do.
Go talk to people, because I can tell you morale sucks *** right now.
Management had the nerve to ask him about his productivity.
At one point, they decided it was time to “catch me red handed” being lazy.
The 1st Sgt came in and told all 7 of us that we’re going to track the jobs we do for the week.
We’re going to do this from here on out and it was directed by the Group Commander (Flight>Squadron>Group>Wing(the base)>Command(AF wide)).
He complied maliciously.
Ok, we doubt that, but we’ll do it.
I made an excel sheet for us all to share and write down our jobs.
Each Information Manager had their own tab and columns to fill in the job. The date. The time they started it. The time the finished it.
The sheet would automatically count the jobs, spit out how long it took to complete a job and give an average time it takes to complete them. It took me all of 5 minutes to throw together.
He details his work week entailing various jobs.
That week was a normal week for me. I’d get various calls.
My account is locked out because I forgot my password. I can’t access FEDLOG because the base IT moved the drives. So I had to remap the location so they could order parts again.
My PC is messed up and won’t do X. So I’d fix it or swap it out.
He found efficiencies wherever possible.
If I swapped it, I had a bank set up with a keyboard bank so I could use 1 mouse and keyboard for up to 24 PCs.
I’d wait to build up at least 5 and reinstall windows on all of them at once.
Often he had his work cut out for him.
I had to delete them from the squadron’s account online. Then add them again after the RIS so the network would recognize them and allow it on them.
I’d usually do remote work while I did this.
At the end of the week, the 1st Sgt checked the sheet during the weekly squadron commander’s briefing.
Which was another job for me.
Putting together the slides for the briefing. Which involved embedding an excel document for performance reports in it.
Another document I managed since no one else wanted to.
He knew management was going to eat their words when they saw his report.
I was waiting with giddy excitement. I knew what it was going to show!
The other IMs had around 100 jobs each. Processed X decoration/award. Process X number of performance reports. Just paperwork stuff like that.
He out-performed the other managers by a longshot.
Then comes my slide.
I had over 650 jobs that week. I was all over every work site.
He was putting out fires everywhere.
There are lots of issues with the PCs. They take some big abuse from the maintenance guys. A lot of it is because most of them suck with computers and screw stuff up.
One guy had 3 of those malware “search bar” things installed somehow and couldn’t understand why it was an issue.
Management clearly saw the value of his work after this.
The 1st Sgt announced Monday morning that we were ditching the job tracking and no longer had to do it.
I guess the “maintenance group commander” must have changed his mind in 1 week….
Maybe leadership will think twice about questioning the IT department next time.
What did Reddit make of all this?
When it comes to poor leadership, this redditor knows the type all too well.
Air Force guys get things done!
This user also prefers efficiency to vapid office politics.
As an employee, it’s best to document everything!
Management’s little time-tracking inquiry ended up revealing more about the leadership’s incompetence than the IT department’s efficiency.
Always recognize excellence before it’s too late.
If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.