Managing Difficult People or Tales from “I-don’t-want-to-be-a-Manager”

I heard that once that if you keeping working your up the ladder, you will eventually reach your level of incompetence. I knew exactly when I hit the moment.
I had four degrees and a membership of an esteemed college. I had twenty years’ experience with patients, teaching and research.
And then …I was put in charge of …people!
How hard could this be?
Okay I didn’t have an MBA but I had studied psychology, I got people. Easy.
It wasn’t.
1.      I was assigned a secretary who couldn’t type or work the internet. She had to go. I wasn’t being mean, truly, but I had to have someone to help me not the other way around! Trouble was there wasn’t anyone else to sack her except me. What? Me? I want to be LIKED!
2.      My research assistant needed a mother. I already had kids. Give me a break.
3.      The sleaze bag I hadn’t wanted to employ was reported for sexual harassment (no surprise). I had to go home and get a longer skirt on before I was game to tell him off.
4.      The semiretired boss I was replacing was reported for sexual harassment. The guy would have run screaming if you raised a broken fingernail to him. But Gen Y don’t seem to like raising anything except complaints (okay I exaggerate but life was getting tense by this stage)
5.      Two people got pregnant and either cried or threw up every day and had to be sent home, one wanted to part time to train for the Ironman, one decided he wanted to play in a rock’n’roll band and could he leave now, but only for two months? There was NOONE LEFT to do any work. I was supposed to do what exactly?
6.      One woman (sorry but the bitch brigade are the WORST) who I had bent over backwards to accommodate reported me for BULLYING. Apparently I had looked at her when explaining why the roster wasn’t out. She was to blame but I hadn’t even grimaced. After the bullying charge murder was becoming a possibility though.
At the end of six months I was a wreck. I came to the following conclusions:
1.      Managing people is not easy, interesting or even vaguely rewarding. Well unless you’re a manager. I was clearly not.
2.      It is more fun complaining about managers than being one. Resigning would enable me to revert to this stance but I would sneak back and offer them a bottle of whisky.
3.      If you find a good PA/secretary, pay homage. They are the only people that make a manager’s life worth living.
4.      I really, really like writing fiction!