Worst. Job. Ever?
Friday, March 14, 2008 Filed in: Places
There are good jobs and there are bad jobs. What's
the worst job you've ever had?
My worst job ever was from a previous century as a product manager for Verizon (then GTE). The phone company.
So far as I can tell, the phone company does only one thing well. Phone lines. Nobody does that better. That's all the phone company can do.
Maybe that's all the phone company should be allowed to do.
A product manager manages products, develops products, and should bury products that are near the end of the product life cycle (all good things come to an end).
One of the products under my domain was broadcast faxing. The phone company in question (hint: Verizon) spent a million dollars to generate a broadcast fax product that made only a few thousand dollars a year.
Keeping the product updated would have cost additional tens of thousands of dollars a year at a time when broadcast fax usage was dwindling rapidly, thanks to the advent of the internet and email.
My recommendation was not to throw good money after bad, but to bury that which was no longer alive. Kill broadcast fax as a product.
Unfortunately, the executive within the phone company's hierarchy who had approved the original funding and launch of the broadcast fax debacle, was also the executive who needed to be persuaded that his original decision was bogus.
Even if he agreed with my recommendation, he needed to get approval from his boss to drop the product. Uh oh. That dreaded hierarchy again.
The phone company (it doesn't matter which one-- the similarities are remarkable) is a different beast. Their heritage is based on a century of installing and managing phone lines and that, for all intents and purposes, they do well.
But that's all and nothing else.
Some of the management techniques that were applied to product development and personnel management during my last century tenure at Verizon were obviously Ivanized-- inspired by the careers of Ivan IV and Ivan Boesky.
How bad is it? Remember, it's the phone company that also runs the cell phone business. I'm sure there's a reason I cannot buy a certain brand of cell phone, unlock all the features, and use it on any cell phone network I want.
See? Peacefully coexisting mini-monopolies are the modus operandi of choice for phone companies. They operate pretty much the same way utilizing the time-honored customer-be-damned attitude.
Phone companies are no fun to deal with, and less fun to work for. Verizon. Worst. Job. Ever.
My worst job ever was from a previous century as a product manager for Verizon (then GTE). The phone company.
So far as I can tell, the phone company does only one thing well. Phone lines. Nobody does that better. That's all the phone company can do.
Maybe that's all the phone company should be allowed to do.
A product manager manages products, develops products, and should bury products that are near the end of the product life cycle (all good things come to an end).
One of the products under my domain was broadcast faxing. The phone company in question (hint: Verizon) spent a million dollars to generate a broadcast fax product that made only a few thousand dollars a year.
Keeping the product updated would have cost additional tens of thousands of dollars a year at a time when broadcast fax usage was dwindling rapidly, thanks to the advent of the internet and email.
My recommendation was not to throw good money after bad, but to bury that which was no longer alive. Kill broadcast fax as a product.
Unfortunately, the executive within the phone company's hierarchy who had approved the original funding and launch of the broadcast fax debacle, was also the executive who needed to be persuaded that his original decision was bogus.
Even if he agreed with my recommendation, he needed to get approval from his boss to drop the product. Uh oh. That dreaded hierarchy again.
The phone company (it doesn't matter which one-- the similarities are remarkable) is a different beast. Their heritage is based on a century of installing and managing phone lines and that, for all intents and purposes, they do well.
But that's all and nothing else.
Some of the management techniques that were applied to product development and personnel management during my last century tenure at Verizon were obviously Ivanized-- inspired by the careers of Ivan IV and Ivan Boesky.
How bad is it? Remember, it's the phone company that also runs the cell phone business. I'm sure there's a reason I cannot buy a certain brand of cell phone, unlock all the features, and use it on any cell phone network I want.
See? Peacefully coexisting mini-monopolies are the modus operandi of choice for phone companies. They operate pretty much the same way utilizing the time-honored customer-be-damned attitude.
Phone companies are no fun to deal with, and less fun to work for. Verizon. Worst. Job. Ever.
