The Truth About Middle Management

Middle Management is a strange stratum of organizational hierarchy found on Earth and, regrettably, throughout most of the civilized galaxy. It consists of individuals whose primary function is to attend meetings about meetings, forward emails with “FYI” in the subject line, and ensure that information flowing between the people who make decisions and the people who do actual work is thoroughly garbled in both directions.

The role was invented quite by accident when early human organizations grew too large for everyone to simply shout at each other across a room. Someone had to coordinate the shouting, and thus middle management was born—a solution that immediately became a problem requiring its own solution, which naturally required more middle management.

A middle manager’s day typically consists of:

• Attending meetings they don’t understand about projects they’re not involved in
• Scheduling meetings for other people who don’t want to attend them
• Asking for status updates on things that would be finished already if they’d stop asking for status updates
• Forwarding motivational quotes about “synergy” and “thinking outside the box” while sitting firmly inside a cubicle
• Explaining to their superiors why things went wrong and to their subordinates why things can’t be fixed

The truly remarkable thing about middle management is that despite being universally acknowledged as inefficient, every organization in the known universe continues to produce more of it. This has led xenosociologists to theorize that middle management may be a form of corporate mitosis—a natural reproductive process that occurs when organizations reach a certain size.

IMPORTANT GALACTIC NOTE: The planet Bureaucratia-7 in the Tedium Sector serves as a cautionary tale for the entire galaxy. Following a catastrophic administrative error in the year 2847 (Galactic Standard Time), the planet’s entire population of workers and executives simultaneously emigrated, leaving behind only middle management.

Remarkably, the planet continues to function.

Well, “function” may be too strong a word. The planet continues to exist in a state of perpetual reorganization. Committees meet to discuss the formation of other committees. Org charts are revised daily. Mission statements are workshopped endlessly. Everyone has a title like “Deputy Associate Vice Coordinator of Lateral Integration,” and absolutely nothing gets done.

The planet’s economy is based entirely on the production and exchange of PowerPoint presentations, none of which anyone reads. Their main export is a profound sense of existential futility, which they ship to other planets in the form of management consultants.

Visiting Bureaucratia-7 is not recommended unless you enjoy sentences that begin with “circling back” and end with “let’s take this offline.” The planet’s tourism board has been trying to approve a welcome brochure for the past sixty years, but it’s currently stuck in review with the Sub-Committee for Visitor Experience Optimization Initiatives.

On Earth, middle managers are often identified by their ability to use twenty words where three would do, their extensive collection of coffee mugs with inspirational slogans, and their peculiar habit of describing simple tasks as “action items” or “deliverables.”

Despite their reputation, middle managers are not inherently evil—they’re simply trapped in a system that requires them to justify their existence by creating work that justifies the existence of other middle managers, in an endless cycle that would be beautiful if it weren’t so utterly pointless.

Survival Tip: If you find yourself in a meeting with middle management, bring a fully charged device and master the art of looking thoughtfully engaged while thinking about literally anything else. This skill, known as “active listening,” is the most valuable thing you can learn from middle management, and possibly the only thing.