I was promoted to management over a year ago, welfare being basically my biggest focus, getting folks leave approved, ensuring they get the training or lateral moves they ask for, bringing new staff up to speed. Very rarely do I take time off them if they need away suddenly (you can accrue hours in my office), instead so long as they are all caught up I let them go and do my best to boost morale etc. But f**k me managing people is an absolute clusterfuck, lazy people who moan about staying an extra 15 minutes to finish off a report that they sat on their arse all day knowing they had to do, asking for paid overtime when they got away 30 mins early every day for the last week etc. Then you get people who are capable of doing their job but do it really half arsed and wonder why they don’t get moves etc and come and whine to you about being passed over for a move, then being professional and giving constructive feedback or take the time to build a work plan or organise training/secondments and they either fail to take on the learning or go and act like a fanny on secondment leading to the other department saying ‘ thank fcuk we passed him over’. That said I’ve got lots of really ambitious and keen folk on my team who make putting up with the above absolutely worth it, managed to help mentor one in particular towards a really good promotion opportunity which they’ve taken. Sometimes its like being a primary school teacher with the office politics but when you help make someone better at their job or do something to make work/life balance better and they appreciate it then its worth it.