Ah, now I get it. You feel underappreciated, which is creating a strain in your relationship with those in the hierarchy.

I'd say there's not much you can do about that, except learn to live with it or quit. The problem with being at the end of a hierarchy is that you're pulled between it and your own task, so either you flexibly give with the pull and let it dissipate, or you resist, which means you have to deal with a lot of internal stress, such as feeling unappreciated and that the ones applying it are flawed, rather than simply passing the stress on from above.

Let it go, mate. Life's too short.

Dear individual,

By the sound of it, it seems that you have a problem
with people who are in charge and who give you
orders, or as you put it, tell you what to do.
Sounds like there's an awful lot of resentment
coming from you to authority - a bit of an
inferiority complex there - at least that's the
way you're coming across.
Have you never been in charge? Is that what's
causing all this resentment?

You blame CEOs, management, et al. And dump them
all in as "academics, because they have certain
credentials.

Don't you realise as I've tried to point out in the
past that higher credentials are necessary because of
the value the job markets place on them. And that
the actual things that make for a successful career
things like - initiative, leadership, drive,
negotiating ability, willingness to take risks,
persuasiveness - these are things that aren's taught
in universities. People either have the talent -
or pick up the necessary
skills on the job, not in the classroom.

As for giving order? - the people that you criticise
are simply doing the job they were hired to do.
They are exercising their
professional judgement. This is the responsibility their
organisations, boards, shareholders, staff, et cetera expect
of them.

I really can't understand your logic.

You feel underappreciated,
They are exercising their
professional judgement. This is the responsibility their
organisations, boards, shareholders, staff, et cetera expect
Antisceptic & Lexi,
I used to think of you as being less ignorant as you portray yourselves but it appears now beyond doubt that I was wrong.
I'll stress again that it is not about me as you trying to make it look like to avert the focus from the real issues. It's about taxpayer funded wasting of resources & monies. The people I mention are ALP through & through even though some of them are trying to distance themselves from the ALP in the presence of Qld Coalition Govt ministers.
These people were originally hired by ALP cronies in Fed & State & Local Govt & they are still not performing to the standard their degrees supposed to. They got these positions because as you said Lexi, their credentials made them supposedly "qualify". Well guess what ? They're not up to scratch & that Anti & Lexi is my gripe not the silly notion of me having a "problem" with authority. Authorities have & are a problem amongst themselves or can't you see that either. Give me a competent academics & I'll give them credit as they deserve. Give me the morons we have & I discredit them as they deserve.

Everyone with whom individual disagrees, (especially if they represent "authority") is classified quick smart as either moronic, stupid, incompetent, ignorant - whatever......

Take your pick.

Indy, all that may be true, but what can be done about it from your end? I know exactly what you mean, I've been upset about the same sort of thing myself, but in the end I had to accept it wasn't my problem and that allowing it to bother me was not going to make it better.

As I said at the start, it comes down to a culture that is driven by process at every level, including selection of staff. The process isn't interested in what the outcome is, just that it is done in a certain way. So everybody is following their own little script, which defines how their performance is assessed and it becomes impossible to do anything that conflicts with the process.

Since you see yourself as an individual, like I do, you find that frustrating and you feel unappreciated, because the best you can achieve is defined by the process and you can see flaws which you aren't able to fix.

It's a problem everywhere, but I suppose that's not much comfort.

RObert
Glad to see those pressures were releived after the family issues were resolved.

Antiseptic
'What is something that our society values highly that is seen as an essentially male characteristic, rather than as an indicator of personal qualities that may be irrelevant to masculinity?'

There is much confusion these days about what it is to be masculine and a lot of mixed messages. What some men find confronting others may not. There is also no discourse on what is essentially valuable as 'feminine'. We seem to be in a state of flux but what we do with that is ultimately up to us.

It is a complex question, my gut feeling for what it's worth is that women and men ultimately want and need the same things. Love, respect, stability, friendship - you know... the usual stuff that makes us human.

I think the qualities that were highly prized in society that were considered uniquely male such as 'protector' has changed somewhat just as the role of female as 'nurturer'. We are now all fodder for the productivity agenda.

Another question we should ask, should men or women be shackled by societal expectations whether it be protectors or nurturers. Maybe this new approach will make it easier for men and women to make choices that suit their needs, and find complementary partners. It is easy enough to ignore any negative undercurrent ie. where one might choose a path different from the prevailing norm that might be considered lesser. But it is only an undercurrent and one that is easy to dismiss because really the majority of people do possess something resembling commonsense.

How much influence do most of us have on the status quo. The best any of us can do is live by example. And find a way to deal with situations and live life as much as is possible according to each their needs and ideals.

Even if we ask men of different ages what it means to be masculine there would no doubt be many different answers.