kicking puppies is bad

We have 5.5 people in our group (one person is 1/2 time). Three of these people are management (I’m not one of them).  I feel like there is a problem when more than half of your organization is “management”.  I mean, there are three people “managing” while two people are “working”.  And since there are only two people “working”, there doesn’t seem to be enough “work” for the managers to “manage”. 

The heirarchy in our office goes like this: We have a director, who has two coordinators under her. Each coordinator manages a “group” (which consists of the coordinator, and one (or 1.5) other people). This means that there is a ”coordinator” whose entire job is to ”coordinate” me (and herself). This makes me sad.  The job I was hired for was “Sr. Statistical Programmer/Statistician”.  “Senior” apparently doesn’t mean what I thought it did.  During my interview, everyone discussed (at great length) the need for someone who could work independently.  This made me happy.  I was happy because I generally don’t like other people.  I don’t interact well with them.  I am good at what I do.  And I am good at doing it independently. 

Because they have nothing to “manage” (there are only two “workers”), it seems like they have decided to fill their time with “update meetings” and reading  “update memos” (written by me).  Unfortunately, the more “memos” and “meetings” they ask for, the less time I have to do actual work.  This means there is less programming getting done since I spend all my time writing memos and attending meetings.  Soon, all my time will spent in meetings or memo-ing and I will have no time left to program.   And then what will I write memos about?   

I *do* realize that I have no people skills (which is why I am a programmer and spend all day in an office with a computer).   And this probably means that I *do* need an interface person.  At my last job,  she was an administrative assistant (aka secretary?), not a PhD level researcher.  She talked to clients, figured out what their question was, wrote it down and gave it to me.  I looked at the data, figured out how to best answer their question, gave the answer back to her.  It worked really, really well.  At this job, I have someone with a PhD, and it is working less well.   As I understand it, her job is mostly the same.  Except she interferes with me accomplishing my job.  And she wants me to write daily email updates about each project’s ”status”.  And I now document every query in a memo (to her, that no one else reads).  This is frustrating, because the memo contains the same information as the daily “email updates” (literally, I often copy and paste them, sending her and email update with an attached memo that says the same thing).  And she wants weekly “group” (just us) meetings (where we discuss the same things, again).  And it isn’t like she doesn’t stop by my office daily to check in on things (where we reiterate the same points, again).  So the meetings seem a little silly.  

I am beginning to doubt my communication skills.  I mean, if I have to say the same thing seventeen different ways, does that mean I wasn’t being clear the first time?  I’ve won several awards for papers/presentations – which always led me to believe I was fairly clear.  And I generally think that it is fairly easy to understand what I say (or write).  I guess always knew I was a difficult person to work with, but does it really take someone with a PhD  just to manage me?  And shouldn’t having that person make my life easier, not more difficult?

I feel like I am stuck in a Dilbert comic. Only it isn’t funny.