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Technology Stocks : COMS & the Ghost of USRX w/ other STUFF -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scrapps who wrote (13189)	2/28/1998 1:54:00 PM
From: drmorgan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 22053

Scrapps, -- I just went to a few company sites checking out the job openings available...it appears to be the same exact situation. Oh yeah, things are really hopping at almost all companies. There seem to be way more tech positions open than there are qualified people to fill them. I was mainly trying (it was late, :-)) comment on management positions and generally speaking a somewhat new (although I really don't know exactly how new) philosophy that is being discovered by companies who believe their professional employees like engineers for example, need very little management above them. In the engineering dept. of Raytheon where I work there are about 80 engineers who have no managers to deal with. We do report to a director, but this director does not deal with you on a day to day basis and has complete trust in his people. The President has openly made comments that he hates managers, he has been quoted as saying "Managers tell people what to do, leaders empower people". Let me give you an example of extreme waste. When I was laid off from MCD in '96 one of my friends in Sales was also let go. She was a star performer and had been recognized as such by the CEO who had started Megahertz. She had several sales professionals working under her but then they put in a manager over her! This was just political crap that a VP was pulling just to get her out because she was one who realized they had too many managers already. There are plenty more examples of small groups of professionals who have a manager to report to, who has a manager to report to , who has a ..... In my case I worked for a manager (no longer there) who was incompetent and completely out of touch in dealing with professional workers, his position where I work now is obsolete. I make decisions on a daily basis that in many companies they hire managers to make and believe me at first it was awkward. When I started I just couldn't get it in my head that I didn't have a manager to report to. Sure there is a director to go to if you have a problem but he only wants to hear possible solutions to the problem. We have an engineer we hired from MCD recently and he is amazed that he is empowered to make decisions and is very happy to take responsibility. My point in all this is that there are new ways of dealing with how a company's management is structured. Of course what works for one company may not work for others, but keep in mind that professional employees are dedicated to their career's and certainly most can rise to the occasion to make management decisions when they are called upon. Hopefully COMS will stay a competitive and financially sound company and I'm holding the stock I have because I do have trust the top management. Though if at some point in time things get rough and they start missing a lot of quarters they could look at how they have their organization structured and cut out any waste. I know I may sound a little harsh when it comes to talking about managers but If I hadn't joined RAC I wouldn't know that a company can exist and do extremely well with very few middle managers. Here's a question, COMS has openings for 21 Marketing managers, what I'd be interested in knowing is how many people does each manager have under them? As a high tech worker I am enjoying the benefits of a booming economy but know full well what happens when the situation is reversed, unemployment. RAC where I work went through some tough times in the late 80's, early 90's and cut people. When the bloodbath was over and they installed a new President they did not hire back the managers they let go, and they didn't hire new ones. We are now a lean machine that is very competitive and one that has no management fat. Plus we have very high morale and professionals are not leaving the company, unlike MCD who has been losing people. Of course with opportunity everywhere you will get people moving around, I just find it interesting that our engineers are very happy staying put. I really do believe that the management structure has a lot to do with it. Sorry for rambling Derek