Bye-bye Brownie!

Originally Posted by wolf

I'm pretty sure the CEO of IBM can't build a computer, and probably has trouble turning one on.

If true, too bad for IBM. I'll give you an example on a far smaller scale. When I was on the library faculty at Ft. Lewis College, our director had a degree in administration, NOT library science.

His policies made first the professional librarians hate him, then the rest of the faculty, then every student down to the first year freshmen.

Without adequate funding, he decided to automate the library. This was back in the day when you still found card catalogs in libraries, NOT computer terminals. He wanted to be first on the block, so to speak.

Now this was a worthy desire with much merit, but if you ain't got the funding, you ain't got the funding.

The library faculty and this director had many a stormy session where we librarians pleaded with him to apply for grants and automate the library over time. He would have none of it. Instead, he took the library's entire book and serials budget for THREE years and threw it all into the automation project.

We were forced to drop subscriptions for professional journals and the library didn't get a single new book in three years. As a result, the chemistry department lost its accreditation through ACS (American Chemical Society). My best student assistant who was also a chem major was turned down for admission to the prestigous program in graduate study he had wanted to attend (kid had a 4.0 and 800's on GRE's). The college damn near lost its accredidation through North Central, as well.

The President of the college ended up giving this guy with his MBA a glowing recommendation for a job elsewhere, just to get rid of him. The next library director had an MLS (Master of Library Science) among his credentials, needless to say.

Sure, good management is good management across the board, but it sure as hell helps to know what the heck you are managing.