When Being Indispensable Backfires

I can't complain. I had a career many would wish for. It gave a good living for my family.

That was a lesson from my father, a CW4. If you do something well, you'll be asked to do it again and again.

I'm an owner in my company and I try to watch for the same in my people. I'm sure it was a shock to my business partner, but I think of everyone in our company as I did my junior officers, NCOs, and Airmen back in the day. Some people need to learn to take care of themselves and will get into tough situations if they don't have someone there to mentor them through that lesson.

In my case I had a section in a bureau in our state DEP. Other managers didn’t have the experience I had so they kept assigning additional duties to my section knowing I would train, establish standards, equip, and accomplish the additional duties. They are paying the price for it now because too many key duties were assigned under one manager, so they have to reassign work and get people trained. There’s no easy way to say it, but when a manager doesn’t know what they should, and their supervisors don’t have the expertise to guide them, well they just flounder and don't get work out. In my case the problems extended to our Director and Deputy Secretary. I don’t feel bad for the higher ups, I feel bad for our rank and file.

Sounds like my last active duty assignment at Lackland. My civilian boss didn't want to do his job so his Lt Col boss and his GG-15 boss just went around him to me, the director of operations. One person can only do so much and when they leave, how do you make sure those tasks are still completed?

I also see this happening in lower level jobs in the civilian world. People come in with good attitudes and take on more and more work for the same amount of pay. When asked for a raise, the boss refuses to pay them appropriately so they leave. At that point, the boss is screwed because they can't find someone to fill that role and realize they were actually paying that employee very little to do 3 or more jobs and just taking advantage of someone wanting to do good.

Leaders have to be cognizant of these types of things and more. You can't depend on your subordinates to take care of themselves. If you find good people, don't use them up.