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4th November 2011, 05:31 PM
whats this cobblers about a SPO who is brilliant at bringing a job in on time and on budget but cant cost a job for toffee?
seems to me, who was a SPO many years ago, that running a site is the same as managing a site and therefore pretty much the same skills are used
unless you meant you are good at 'cutting corners', 'getting away with it', or 'fudging' dino?
If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers
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4th November 2011, 05:49 PM
P Prentice Wrote:whats this cobblers about a SPO who is brilliant at bringing a job in on time and on budget but cant cost a job for toffee?
seems to me, who was a SPO many years ago, that running a site is the same as managing a site and therefore pretty much the same skills are used
unless you meant you are good at 'cutting corners', 'getting away with it', or 'fudging' dino?
I get told by a manager how much time I've got and what resources (people etc) I'm getting, and get on with it (I've usually written the WSI/PD so usually have a mental image of what needs doing) - seems fairly simple to me. What I don't do is management stuff like having meetings with the client, costing it all etc, I just make a big hole and record it, and prod whatever worrkforce I've got in the same general diection. If SPOs elsewhere are being expected to manage then they should be holding out for management wages and a better job title - sounds like you were being ripped off to me! Presumably in your current elevated position you're similarly ripping off the SPOs working for you?
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4th November 2011, 05:57 PM
Dinosaur Wrote:I get told by a manager how much time I've got and what resources (people etc) I'm getting, and get on with it (I've usually written the WSI/PD so usually have a mental image of what needs doing) - seems fairly simple to me. What I don't do is management stuff like having meetings with the client, costing it all etc, I just make a big hole and record it, and prod whatever worrkforce I've got in the same general diection. If SPOs elsewhere are being expected to manage then they should be holding out for management wages and a better job title - sounds like you were being ripped off to me! Presumably in your current elevated position you're similarly ripping off the SPOs working for you?
so you manage your staff, your time and your resources then - sounds like a skill called management
If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers
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4th November 2011, 07:34 PM
P Prentice Wrote:so you manage your staff, your time and your resources then - sounds like a skill called management
Actually I tend to get fed up with my diggers and do as much as possible of it myself, but that's just a personal quirk.....
SPO is just trendy-speak for the good old-fashioned 'supervisor', and PO = Assistant supervisor, (who, yes, always had to dig the site with whatever they were given) its just that as a cost-cutting measure they seem to have done away with Site Directors who now lurk in the office as managers so they can bill for huge amounts of mileage since they have to drive to site anytime the client is being awkward or whatever.....not entirely clear where the savings are but at least the managers/directors make a better living now :face-approve:
Where in 'Senior Project Officer' does the word 'Manager' appear? - there are only two common letters!
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4th November 2011, 07:40 PM
Oh, and while admittedly I haven't bothered reading the latest in the ever-lengthening series of strangely-varying requirements to become a MIFA, am I not right in recalling that, certainly in the past, one of the useable qualifications was having managed projects over a certain cash value? - sounds like a Managers club to me, at least back then
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4th November 2011, 10:14 PM
Dinosaur Wrote:Oh, and while admittedly I haven't bothered reading the latest in the ever-lengthening series of strangely-varying requirements to become a MIFA, am I not right in recalling that, certainly in the past, one of the useable qualifications was having managed projects over a certain cash value? - sounds like a Managers club to me, at least back then
As far as I am aware, that is nonsense. You really need to get up to date. The requirements now, if anything, seem even easier than they did say ten years ago.
Also there seems to be a remarkable amount of occasions where job titles vary widely with role - since when has PO meant assistant supervisor and SPO just supervisor? I would have thought PO meant project officer and SPO meant senior project officer, i.e. one step down from manager. Is there really so much variance from one place to another or am I completely missing something.
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5th November 2011, 01:17 PM
RedEarth Wrote:I would have thought PO meant project officer and SPO meant senior project officer, i.e. one step down (Dino's underlining) from manager.
Seem to recall that's what I've been saying? - explain that to PP could you?
Sites traditionally had site directors, who got the funding, dealt with outside influences and stuck their name on the final publication, and supervisors who actually dug and recorded the thing, all they've really done is change the job titles (managers and POs) and dumped more work on the POs, presumably so that the 'managers' can 'direct' more projects at a time, thereby reducing the wages bill (shift more work down to a lower pay grade).
Agree that the meaning of PO/SPO seems to vary quite a lot from unit to unit, with varying levels of responsibility/expectation, although the ultimate control of finances, contracts, spending oodles of money etc usually seems to be retained firmly under 'management' control, which suits me fine since I'm a natural site no2 (dig and record the thing, can't be ar**d with spending half my day on the phone arranging meetings and finding out why the bog hasn't been pumped out and Johnie's pay was 26p out, that's manager stuff)
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5th November 2011, 01:33 PM
P Prentice Wrote:unless you meant you are good at 'cutting corners', 'getting away with it', or 'fudging' dino?
Never yet had a curator query how I'm doing a job (that includes several projects involving weekly site meetings with EH on Scheduled sites), or bounce a report back for anything other than nit-picky format issues, never for content (in fact the most recent one got an overnight response from the curator that they liked it, which was a novelty). As far as I'm aware most if not all of the curators I deal with on a regular basis regard me as a 'safe pair of hands' - can you say the same?
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5th November 2011, 04:02 PM
Dinosaur Wrote:Actually I tend to get fed up with my diggers and do as much as possible of it myself, but that's just a personal quirk.....
SPO is just trendy-speak for the good old-fashioned 'supervisor', and PO = Assistant supervisor, (who, yes, always had to dig the site with whatever they were given) its just that as a cost-cutting measure they seem to have done away with Site Directors who now lurk in the office as managers so they can bill for huge amounts of mileage since they have to drive to site anytime the client is being awkward or whatever.....not entirely clear where the savings are but at least the managers/directors make a better living now :face-approve:
Where in 'Senior Project Officer' does the word 'Manager' appear? - there are only two common letters!
Your own words SPO = supervisor, PO = assistant supervisor. You can see where the confusion might arise.
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5th November 2011, 06:15 PM
RedEarth Wrote:Your own words SPO = supervisor, PO = assistant supervisor. You can see where the confusion might arise.
The only confusion currently seems to be that PP is asserting that these are all some form of management, but then in his world the forkforce getting out of bed of a morning involves some sort of management skills
Why do you always quote the whole previous entry? - makes the thread look really rather more impressive than it actually is.......
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