Hiring a 'Monkey' to Do My Job

[cghoga]

Hello everyone,

I have been tasked by our VP to develop a strategy for filling a task I perform.

We do not have an endless amount of money to put toward this. This has to be a cost justifiable, almost frugal, solution.

The terms, "a monkey could do it" and "we need to get you out of the weeds" have been used.

I have come up with 3 options so far:

1) Hire from inside the company
2) Hire a temp/contract person from a third party HR firm
3) Create an internship program with local colleges/universities where IT students could work around their class schedules.

Does anyone have any tips, recommendations, or advice on how to fill the position and the best way to communicate this to my boss?

Thanks for any and all help!

 

[aarenot]

what is the task?

I am sorry for this next comment, but I just can not help myself.


If a monkey could do it, is it possible you could have a monkey train the VP to do it?

Seriously though, what is the task, I would offer some ideas if I knew tha task.

 

[flapeyre]

Personally, I'd buy a bunch of bananas and offer the boss one. It looks like he might not take the hint, though.

Tibi gratias agimus quod nihil fumas.

 

[aarenot]

Seriously,
Your profile says programmer, what are your qualifications for establishing a job description, searching for candidates, negotiating with a prospect, establishing the going rate for a job description, etc.? Sounds like upper management passing the buck on to someone else because he does not want to do his job, or delegate it to someone whos job it is. It may be understandable that you would work with management to establish the job description if you are the IT manager, but otherwise, it really makes no sense.
I would assume that you have programming to do, and it might be a better use of your time to do programming. No offense, but most HR people do not do this type of thing very well, so it would certainly be a challenge for a programmer.
I would ask for some helkp from someone whos experience, and expertise lie more along the lines of HR. I understand he is the VP, but if he is a good one he will understand that experience, skill sets, and wise use of resources would lend this situation towards having someone else do this.

 

[cghoga]

These are all very good.

I do need to update my profile. I am no longer a Programmer, but a Business Analyst transitioning to a PM role.

I agree I am not qualified to do this kind of thing.

What I ended up doing was creating a job description, listing the required skillsets, and I provided options for bringing someone on board.

I believe he has taken to HR for their final recommendation.

The VP thought it was great that I was proactive and provided options.

Thanks again for your thoughtful responses.

 

[eyetry]

FYI, title 'programer' is not neccessarily an indication of a person's skills or job responsibilities, especially on the internet. Anyone using an alias should know/assume that the people posting are potentially different than they appear on the surface. That doesn’t even get into the fact that titles like programmer, BA, PM, manager, Supervisor, Analyst, Systems…, Senior…., mean different things at different companies.

Perhaps, cghoga is being groomed for greater opportunities. Perhaps the terminology used by the VP isn’t a slam. Perhaps the VP is saying cghoga is to important/valuable to be spending time on certain tasks. Perhaps the goal is to find a cost effective way to free-up cghoga’s time so cghoga can take on greater responsibility.

Anyway, just some thoughts……. cghoga, sounds like your on the right track. I’d suggest getting more direction from the VP on his/her thoughts or HR Dept on how they would approach it, dollars avail and so on. Bounce your ideas off them. HR might want to get more envolved but I’d stay on top of it.

Luck

 

[manfmmd]

aarenot:

How would one go about updating their profile? I can't find where to change my "occupation".

 

[aarenot]

I do nto see that either manfmmd

 

[chiph]

Send a note to the site support ("Contact Us" link at top of page) and they can change your profile type for you.

Chip H.


____________________________________________________________________
If you want to get the best response to a question, please read FAQ222-2244 first

 

[johnherman]

A monkey might be able to do your job more efficiently....I remember a Dilbert cartoon where the monkey was using his tail to work the mouse while using both hands on the keyboard to the dismay of a watching Dilbert.

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The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was - Steven Wright

 

[Auger282]

We use interns from a local community college all the time.. free labor = win