Moving into management

bigjets

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Jan 14, 2011
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Just thought the new AA executives should explore why AA mechs don't want to move up the chain of commend, there has to be a reason, and it's not that the mechanics aren't qualified. 
 
Will the culture change?
 
Is it the culture, or the fact that most mechanics would rather work with their hands and brains solving problems than they want to spend the rest of their career watching others solve problems while they're stuck pushing paperwork, carrying out someone else's orders, and dealing with all the politics that come along with supervising your former peers?....

None of that has to do with the corporate culture... At least management pilots still get to fly a couple times a month. The folks who supervise the other workgroups never get to do what they were trained to do, and might even enjoy...
 
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eolesen said:
Is it the culture, or the fact that most mechanics would rather work with their hands and brains solving problems than pushing paperwork carrying out someone else's orders, k and dealing with the politics of supervising your former peers?....
What's the matter E? ------- Having second thoughts? They say hindsight is 20/20!
 
Best advise I ever got: never stay in a job more than three years. You spend the first year learning it, the second year enjoying it, and then the challenges are few and far between.

I don't regret making the jump, but I did it in my younger unmarried days, which made it easy to take a job in a station where I didn't know anyone I'd be supervising, and then knew enough to move on to HDQ instead of staying put. That's probably a harder proposition for most AMTs looking to move into management.
 
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Good analysis, E.  There is a reason why people are drawn to jobs where they work with a thing rather than with people (aka, customers).  Just as there are people who would commit hara-kiri if they had to do that kind of a job for more than a few weeks.  I can't imagine why a truly talented mechanic would be remotely interested in a management desk job.  To take something that isn't working and get it to work must be very fulfilling in a way that making sure that all the I's are dotted and the T's crossed in a quarterly report could never be.
 
By the same token, being a "people person", I understand after 12.5 years as a flight attendant why I was always somewhat uncomfortable as a programmer and systems analyst.  It got somewhat better after I moved into consulting, but there were still those long periods where you are writing proposals or documenting corporate systems needs that there is just you and the computer for days on end.  Never go back!  All that period in my life offered me was the opportunity to make lots of money.  (Well, considering that I was an English major in college, it seemed like lots of money to me.  :lol:)
 
Oh, and one of the biggest misconceptions in the corporate world is "He/she is a great programmer/mechanic/flight attendant/whatever.  He/she will make a wonderful supervisor of programmers/mechanics/flight attendants/whatever."  WRONG!!!  In each of those instances the skill sets necessary to be successful are almost totally different--though flight attendant to flight attendant supervisor do have some overlap in skill set needed.
 
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eolesen said:
Is it the culture, or the fact that most mechanics would rather work with their hands and brains solving problems than they want to spend the rest of their career watching others solve problems while they're stuck pushing paperwork, carrying out someone else's orders, and dealing with all the politics that come along with supervising your former peers?....

None of that has to do with the corporate culture... At least management pilots still get to fly a couple times a month. The folks who supervise the other workgroups never get to do what they were trained to do, and might even enjoy...
 
Those are all great points, but those are great points from inside the management bubble. Go to any MECHANICS break room and ask, We are looking for experienced mechanics to became supervisors, who is interested? I'm willing to bet you won't hear, i like solving problems, especially in august outside at 1600 on the D gates. Or on midnights at JFK during a blizzard. 
 
You will here about how many supervisors AA has gone through in the past two decades. The only management I see coming from the floor are mechs who think they will be laid off. I think you should talk to actual working mechs before you make a statement like that. Not saying you're completely wrong, but there are a lot of mechs with business degree or aircraft management degree. 
 
I couldn't be a supervisor, I would try and hold people accountable, from the staff assistant who screws up the OT list, to a mech who doesn't wipe the strut, and at AA, accountability  is unheard of. Where the CFO of a company that goes bankrupt gets promoted then gets a huge payday to leave. 
 
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Like I said, "hind sight is 20/20." -------I once had the chance to follow one of my Supervisor friends to Flying Tigers, from TWA. down to road from us. Later they were bought out by Fed Ex. I decided to stay put at the time. Oh well! Can't clall them right every time! ------ He later ended up running the operation for them there locally.
 
bigjets,
 
That's because many of us run our own businesses here in the big apple.  I worked 20 plus years on wall street and accumulated enough to build my own nest egg.  Now my wife and I run our own business by day and I work running a Crew at AA.  There's no way in hell that I would commit myself and my family to the long ours of being a whore for the company.  Before taking a Crew Chief position at AA, I flew on several business trips from New York to Europe while in investment banking.  That's not where I'm now, nor is my family.  Now we manage our business, I work to maintain my health benefits, flight privileges and we travel a whole lot.  I have a keen understanding of both sides of the fence.  Management at AA is certainly not a fence that I will broach.  It's funny, I've never thought about it.  More Importantly, I just love airplanes and is fascinated about the intricacies and how they work.  That's the reason why most of us just keep doing this.  If we didn't you'd have mass exodus.
 
Let me just say this, many of the folk that I work with at AA would never touch a management position.  More importantly, we just don't trust the company with our future.  We do what we do and leave when the shift is over.  "Slam bam thank you mam."
 
 
AMFA Now More Than Ever
 
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bigjets said:
I'm willing to bet you won't hear, i like solving problems, especially in august outside at 1600 on the D gates. Or on midnights at JFK during a blizzard. 
So why do the job for years on end if you don't enjoy it?...
 
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First of all, management at the lower to mid level is more like a secretary job. It doesn't take much to repeat what some micro-manager tells you what to do and say. You will have someone telling you to do things you know wont work. Rather than them telling you to get X results and leaving it to you how to get X, they will tell you this is how I want you to get X results. When their way doesn't work, you will do your part and take the blame for their poor business decision.
 
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eolesen said:
Best advise I ever got: never stay in a job more than three years. You spend the first year learning it, the second year enjoying it, and then the challenges are few and far between.
For us every day is different, by the time you get bored there is a new fleet type arriving.
 
First of all, management at the lower to mid level is more like a secretary job. It doesn't take much to repeat what some micro-manager tells you what to do and say. You will have someone telling you to do things you know wont work. Rather than them telling you to get X results and leaving it to you how to get X, they will tell you this is how I want you to get X results. When their way doesn't work, you will do your part and take the blame for their poor business decision.
Amen, Topcat870. And, the micromanagement doesn't change that much from one company to the next. Saw many examples of this at Texaco over 20 years ago. There was one manager in IT dept. at Texaco whose employees would have followed her to the end--even if she told them to "line up double file and we will all jump off the roof." Her employees would form neat double lines and wait for the instruction to proceed to the roof. I asked her once what was her secret. She replied that "the day I became a real manager was the day I realized that my employees knew how to do their jobs better than I did. That my job was to run interference for them, and otherwise stay in my office and leave them alone."
 
jimntx said:
She replied that "the day I became a real manager was the day I realized that my employees knew how to do their jobs better than I did. That my job was to run interference for them, and otherwise stay in my office and leave them alone."
Yep. It's the same approach I took: run interference, and don't interfere...
 
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eoleson,
 
We just had a young aspiring colleague with military experience and a degree in management ascend to a managers position here in NY.  However, he self downgraded 29 days later.  Why you might ask? He was promised a particular salary only to find out after the 29 days that it was not approved by Head Quarters.  There's a serious distrust issue.  Since I've been at AA, I've seen too many managers forced to do shifts and assignments that they loath.  Some of these people seriously hate their jobs. Notice that I said jobs, because it's not a good career move at all.  They are miserable, but they still have to feed their families.  That's why they put their tail between their legs and just keep plugging away.  The atmosphere is foul to say the least.  By they way, please don't try to patronize us about management positions.  I've managed on the upper levels of the banking corporate ladder.  Sometimes it is great and sometimes it's not all what people think.  When your boss hits that preverbal ceiling and you're under him, you're screwed for lack of a better word.  Additionally, I had a manager at AA who offered myself a position in San Francisco several years ago.  I turned it down without thinking.  He was later fired for stealing and selling Aircraft parts from inventory.  Like I said before, there is a serious gap in trustworthiness.
 
 
 
 
AMFA Now More Than Ever
 
 
Misspelled words? Please let me know, not enough time to spell Ck.
 
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