Well… That Didn’t Take Long…
I've been forced to be the Manager of this project's core development. I didn't want it, I told my Boss it was a bad idea - that I wasn't the right guy, that I'd be undercut by the Management Team anytime I tried to get someone to do something they didn't already want to do... all that. I even tried it for a few months, it was a mess, but I didn't really piss anyone off, and I went back to say I wanted out, it wasn't working, etc. Still, I was being forced to do this.
"We'll back you up." they said.
"You are to assign tasks and not keep them all to yourself - that creates a bottleneck, and overloads you. You need to assign some of these tasks to speed up the process."
And always: "We'll back you up - we're all on the same Team and we need to get moving."
Yeah, right.
Well... I can honestly say that it's taken about a week from the last of those talks to today when I found out that not every manager is on the same page. Specifically, there was a task that needed to be done and I had/have absolutely no pertinent experience on the issue. Sure, I can learn, but that's not the same, and it's not in keeping with what they have expressly stated they want me to go - delegate to better skilled people.
So I sent out an email with a lot of questions on this issue to try to come up to speed myself - as no one was standing up saying "Pick me! Pick me!", and I got a very knowledgeable response from a guy in London and I wrote back saying it was nice to see he knew so much, that I'd assign the ask to him.
The project manager read this and noted that if there was coding work, I'd do that, I agreed, updated the project plans to indicate all these changes - his assignment, new tasks for the identification others for the coding of the new custom fields, and thought - hey, this is going to work out pretty well.
Then the other shoe dropped.
Another manager sent me a nicely worded, but nasty intended email about checking with a person's manager before assigning work to them. There it was... cut right out from under me.
Should I have checked? Did anyone check with my manager before assigning me things? Nope. Wasn't I told recently - on several occasions, to do just that? Seems like it.
So I waled into my manager's office and said "OK, just do you know - that's the last time I'll do it. Period." I explained the situation and reminded him that I predicted this months and months ago. He said he'd look into it. I said nothing, and left.
If you're going to say I should do something, then you bloody well better back me up and make it known so that when I do, I do not have this guy slap me down. I hate this Keystone Cops style of management. I will do my work, but I won't be a part of that. Not anymore.
UPDATE: I was later told what happened... turns out his manager was upset and yet his manager and the Project leaders supposedly backed me. They didn't find out what happened, but they said the best thing might be to send all my 'assignment requests' to the Project Manager and let them physically make the assignments so there's no question of the authority. This is a mess. But I'm fine with passing on recommendations. Dumb, but workable.