In software development, when a manager pair-programs with their developers it can be a great experience for the whole team. Even though the manager is ‘junior’ to most team members in skill, the manager gathers much more accurate data as to the state of the system and true pace of development.

This is exactly what happens.

In my current workplace, the managers/supervisors were previously working the welfare and child-care industries. Now they are in cultural heritage – a Museum, no less.

Nervous due to their own lack of commitment and qualifications, they speak to highly functional adults as though they are pre-schoolers, delinquents, dysfunctional families or recidivist criminals. Their staff are in fact highly educated (PhDs, etc), highly motivated, and often stepping down from management to retirement. It is an insult to our intelligence to be spoken to in language that is unfit for us. It is provocative, and then we get in trouble for being disrespectful if we respond in anything less than obsequious compliance (as though we are controllable subordinates). The incompetence of our management team is made clear every day of the week, but the atmosphere of intimidation and harassment discourages any complaints (and the nature of the work means we don’t encounter management too often).

Junior manager is possibly exposing herself as the weeks, months and years go by …