Office politics

Have you ever read Dilbert, the comic strip? I'm not sure Dilbert has much relevance for people who do not work in a corporate software environment, but for those that do, it actually is scarily close to real life.

I work in an internet start-up, and if that isn't enough I work in an internet advertising start-up, which combines the chaos of a regular start-up and the commercial egoes of an advertising company. I generally love my job. Despite my glaring lack of experience when starting this role (I now call myself a product manager), I have been able to experiment, improve by trial and error, pick up skills that I would never have had in my job description before (such as writing website copy), so I cannot really complain (well, don't bite the hand that feeds you, as they say).

However, one of the less fun characteristics of my job is that I sometimes feel like I am working in a kindergarten where kids pull each others' hair, throw their toys out of the sandbox, throw stomping tantrums, threaten to "tell mommy"... and I have been able to experience a wonderful example of office politics weirdness first hand in the last 24 hours.

Last night, just before "end of play" as the lingo goes, I had a meeting with one of the owners of my company about some outsourcing work that I was compiling a specification for. The company owner informed me, "don't worry, your job is not in jeopardy, but..." and that my line manager had criticized my specifications as not being technical enough. Hmm. The line manager sits two desks away from me and has only ever given me positive feedback. Naturally I was pretty taken aback that somebody would complain about my work to the management instead of relaying a few pieces of feedback the two metres to the left to where I am sitting. So after mulling about it overnight (read: seething and feeling sorry for myself) I decided to go about it what I saw as the grown up way and confront my line manager.

Hence, today I called my line manager into a meeting.
Me (still annoyed): "I hear that you have been criticising my specifications to the management, and it would help if you could give feedback to me personally. Maybe you can give me some tips on what you would like me to change."
Line manager: "What???"
The rest of the conversation consisted of my line manager swearing to God that he had never gone behind my back, insisting that the company owner either didn't know what he was talking about or made everything up.

I went back to my desk (now slightly confused as to what was going on) and continued to work, while my line manager was clearly extremely annoyed (to say the least), which suggested to me that he was speaking the truth. Maybe intimidation tactics are the new secret to effective management as proposed in the "Handbook of successful company ownership" these days.

Office politics are truly bizarre. Something tells me that the whole story is not over yet either. My line manager will have a  go at the company owner, who doubtlessly will then have a go at me for my part in the quarrel. And round we go. More hair is pulled, more toys are thrown out of prams, and the total sum of constructive solutions will be zero. I guess the only constructive solution is to avoid office politics at all costs by keeping your head down, taking everything you hear with a pinch of salt, giggling at the accuracy of the Dilbert comics and watching the playground fights from a distance.