One of my common themes in speeches is that the hardest job in America is first line supervisor. There are a lot reasons for this, but one is that they get "numbers" crunched from above that they have to meet. But meeting those numbers requires working through real people, who have real problems --- child care that is not reliable, elderly parents who are making demands, girlfriends who are upset etc. Today's follow up
story in the WSJ Career Journal to an earlier story
Meeting Targets Isn't A Strategy, just points out that those number crunched targets, especially the ones that are forever increasing have other consequences as well.
