Incompetence Rears Its Ugly Head

The BBQ Pit
1

I fucking hate the stupid.

The director of my unit at work has moved on to greener pastures. More specifically, he left before he could be fired, or so go the rumors. It wouldn’t shock me if this were true, since he’s the author of the clusterfuck we’ve been working on for two years, which was scheduled (by him) to conclude after six months. The current best estimate is completion sometime in 2006. All of this is beside the point, really. Just background.

Anyhoo, after he left there was a lot of speculation as to who might try to apply for his position. Weeks pass, no position announcement. More time passes, no position announcement. Finally, at a staff meeting, one of my co-workers specifically asks the former director’s boss, DirectorChick about the director’s position, and when it might be open for applications. The answer?

“We’ve hired a consultant to write the job description for his position. Since his position was highly technical we feel that we need a higly technical job description. Also, we need to determine exactly what the responsibilities for his position are. When the consultants are done, we’ll advertise it so that we can hire the appropriate person from outside the organization.”

Let’s break this down. Translations to the right of the original statement, in italics.

“We’ve hired a consultant. . .” We’ve wasted money

“…to write the job description for his position.” To hire someone to do something any idiot should be able to do.
"Since his position was highly technical we feel that we need a higly technical job description. " We don’t really know what he was responsible for, other than the current nightmare.

“Also, we need to determine exactly what the responsibilities for his position are.” We didn’t pay attention to what he did, so we don’t really know.

“When the consultants are done, we’ll advertise it so that we can hire the appropriate person from outside the organization.” We’re not hiring someone who has any experience with the massive project that is underway currently, and we aren’t going to hire any of you in any case.

So I have to ask myself, “What in the fuck does this person do?”

She had an employee directly under her start a 12+ million dollar project to create an enviorment that, initially at least, would not work in the manner described, because the technology didn’t exist. This employee had to be rescued by the people under him to put together a project that WOULD work, within the budget (We scrimped $2million off the cost, BTW), and in a reasonable timeframe. This employee reported to no one but DirectorChick. DirectorChick reports to the president of the Organization.

And yet, DirectorChick, who spoke with this person daily, was responsible for evaluating his performance, and who approved his massive project, hasn’t got a fucking clue as to what he did. She can’t even write a fucking job description for the position.

So I ask again, what in the fuck does she do?

Argh. Too long, and not even a good rant. Sorry, I’m still too pissed off.

2

Nope, it was fine. I worked for a gummint contractor for years. I feel your pain.

3

This is one of those deceptively malevolent rants. On the surface it appears shallow, up-front, common. But there is a latent enrgy in the overall piece which is most disturbing.

“The Stupid” – set apart as an entirely different order of sentience from the OP
A snarky & bitter description of a character only obliquely involved with the rant
An attack on the competence disappearing manager’s management.

So far, typical corporate frustration. We’ve all seen a shade of this in Office Space. But then we have

The Translation sequence and the double query after the upper manager’s duties. Not to mention the requisite pepperings of “fuck” throughout. No. This is a *very * therapeutic tyrade from someone who’s very employment depends on keeping clenched jaws and a mind as sharp as a razor.

My money says **Welby ** goes postal within 3 days.

4

That could be very theraputic.

5

One thing I failed to mention: she made the word competency into a verb today.

“We’re going to see that all of the managers are compentcy-ized* in thier areas of influence.”

  • Spelling approximated.

It might be closer to an hour from now that I go postal. I have a late afternoon meeting.

whimper

6

May I recommend not driving nails through the baseball bat before you go to work? 'Cuz that way you can hit them more before they die. Just saying, is all.