I work in a factory, and the potential to move up to shift lead is all but given to me by my peers. Ive had several bosses and colleagues (who’s opinions and world views align with us) tell me I need to become the lead. The guy I would be inheriting this role from even says I’m the best fit.
However I ain’t trying to be some class traitor. I do like the thing we produce, it’s been a part of my life for my entire conscious existence. I’m a lucky sucker who followed their passion and while I’m a wage slave, seeing people, even if it is the upper class, deriving happiness from the things I make make me care about the things I produce. I do want to use this position to make the product and the workers lives better. Management already understands I side with labor more often than not.
I am really good at what I do and I have tons of issues believing in myself, but it’s hard to ignore the world telling you you got to do this.
I don’t think there’s virtue in your relation to production (i.e. in being a prole). Virtue comes from what you do in your position. Being a lead/foreman/whatever isn’t being a class traitor, being a shitty one who is cruel to their subordinates and licks the bosses’ boots is.
A shift lead is barely even middle class, in most of the factories I’m familiar with it is just as proletarian of a job as the regular worker. But even if this isn’t the case in your workplace, you should still go for it if it seems like something you would enjoy. Being middle class isn’t something that automatically stops you from having radical politics or makes you a class traitor, It just requires a little extra work to stay a leftist in the long term.
I’d like to point out that the IWW doesn’t consider you a manager (and thus ineligible to join) unless you have sole hiring/firing power. So I suspect you are in the clear.
I’ve been a manager, and hilariously I had the highest performing team in the company. They thought I was “Backing my team” when in reality I was giving my team permission to play World of Warcraft on company time as long as it didn’t bring upstairs down on us.
Same dog same. Got promoted to team lead and used the position to set ridiculously long deadlines for projects so my team could have fun playing games and watching twitch on company time. The benefits of being in a technical field where your boss doesn’t really understand what you do
It’s pretty funny that long deadlines mean no shortcuts, capacity to deal with troubleshooting and urgent requests from other departments, and general worker well being.
So we overperformed relative to everyone else stuck in rework hell, accounts and sales (the only people who mattered as far as the board were concerned) loved us because we were there to help, and clients were happy because the work was high quality even though we worked maybe 2 days a week…
I’m jealous, we’re currently working on like 2 day deadlines and the company is so small that the owner is within earshot at all times. Luckily he’s a total dullard and couldn’t run the company for 10 minutes without about 4 of us, so we have a lot of power over him.
One thing he sucks at is pushing back for project deadlines, so it usually comes down to me calling the client and re-negotiating for my team’s sanity.
I also have a standing order with everyone that any time he comes in and bugs us or tries to micromanage we all take a smoke break at the same time lol.
lol yeah I did the same, I ended up leading because my shitty boss quitted and even took R&D made in house to the competition. I mostly just gave lenient timelines and refused last minute changes that were reaised by business managers that didn’t follow proper procedure e.g. proper change requests with estimates and stuff. It wasn’t even giving ridiculously long times or whatever, just stuff that I deemed was fair, we were the fastest team anyway and management still decided to screw us over by forming a new parallel team that was both overworked and churned out a final product like 12 months too late. I ended up quitting, I don’t think I will lead anything again, kinda sucked. Management both plays favorites and just likes when people under them show “proper deference”, even if the people that actually do this serf act are duplititous untalented hacks.
We do a lot of design work where I’m at currently and when I started, production times were abysmal and QA was garbage (unbuildable drawings being sent to construction).
I managed to hack together a couple thousand lines of code over about 6 months that automated about 50% of the work and 100% of the QA process. Basically upended the old way we were doing things and allowed for a massive increase in production, quality, and leisure (scripts take 5-10 minutes to run so the drafters get a few extra breaks).
It’s weird seeing the power dynamic flip in situations like that. I moved up pretty quick and they tried their best to get me to be “on their side”, but I basically told them “everyone needs raises right now.” And they had to do it.
I’ve got that temporary break where my knowledge of my spaghetti code is the only thing keeping production afloat for the whole company so I can become that leverage for co-workers. At least until they decide that they’re comfortable making collective actions themselves.
It’s weird seeing the power dynamic flip in situations like that.
Yeah, it’s very unusual too. Glad you took advantage of it. I did have overwhelming leverage for a junior/mid-senior dev, but the CTO was no dummy and knew I was uppity, that’s why they ended up making a parallel team to mine and recreated my entire work from scratch. It’s still kinda baffling that they did that instead of just acquising. Would’ve been a lot cheaper too.
So I’m a Team Lead/Project Manager.
I’ll preface this that it was intended to be temporary but has since been 3 years, and I’m thinking of going back to an old position or new position outside of management.
I have about 15 people “reporting” to me. I am always on the side of labour, and have yet to be put in a position where I couldn’t side with my team. I have a lot of doubt in my abilities and fear my adhd shit fucking up some of my teams work. That being said, I’ve had multiple team members tell me I’m the best TL they’ve ever had… and it breaks my heart because of how little time and energy I feel I can spend with them and for them. That the bar is this low.
My issue is constantly running my head into walls when dealing with sr management, being lead to believe me and my teams voices matter when it doesn’t, constantly having to fight the same battles month after month as they keep pushing a broken system. It’s fucking draining.
I think it’s such a perfect trap. Groom future managers who want power and a voice, have them echo the company line and everyone is happy. Or burn out the trouble ones, let them think they can be a force of change, wear them down to nothing and wait for them to conform or depart, lower the will of anyone else who sees it.
Off to work I go.
