No, but he sure seems to have a strong belief in the idea that nobody can enjoy work, and he also seems to believe that “companies/society/the system” are entities completely separate from “people”.
I hope he has a good source of bicarbonate.
Are you two responding to Evil Captor’s post, which immediately preceded your replies?
Well, the sneering and laughing is many years later, at the time we had no choice but to do what he told us. You’re right this was way back when few people had IT experience other than us programmers. It would have been nice if he’d listened to his experts, but he was known to be rather arrogant. It was also a bizarre company culture. The IT department was universally scorned as a bunch of know-nothings who sat around doing nothing. In terms of prestige, the janitors were above us. I never figured out where that came from, but it was still like that when I left. I was too young and naive at the time to do anything about it like I might today.
He’s griping about the EXISTENCE of the workplace. He’s dreaming big! Granted, his method (petty sabotage) is not likely to be a winner, but his point that workers should look after their own interests before their employers’ and not feel a bit of guilt about it is an interesting and thought-provoking one.
Yep.
Perhaps, but that’s not the point of a workplace griping thread. The point of the workplace griping thread is for us to entertain one another with tales of the awfulness we encounter at work.
I don’t think this guy’s stuff would fit in well in the thread.
Two call-ins (or no shows) last night, plus winter storm approaching hysteria in customers, so the people in my department spent more time helping the checklanes than anything else.
which was ok, really.
Weather was fine at 4 am-- when I went to work.
It got crappy thereafter-- driving home shortly afternoon was no fun.
Many people called in or left early-- nothing much was going to happen, since at least one delivery didn’t take place. A few had wrecks.
I miss living where when it snows, they PLOW-- my car was in a snowdrift, getting out of the parking lot was not fun (but doable). the drive home took twice as long as it should have, and I kept telling people to slow down, turn on their headlights, and DON’T REAR-END ME. I’m not sure it had any effect, but I neither got hit nor ran into anyone or anything.
It’s still snowing pretty darn hard.
A bit late for this suggestion but…
Why not call them up and ask them to return the $124.25 that was in your pants? (Gotta be specific like that). Be pleasant about it, but insist that they please return your money. Call a few more times, then let it drop.
Always remember Benfords law when making up numbers
One of Gully’s less-endearing traits is his fondness for speaking to people in the third person. He doesn’t want to sound forceful, so he says “one must” instead of “you have to”; he also delegates (and he actually means it, I think) but asks so many questions afterward and is so… flimsy in his approval that his subordinates are terrified of making decisions. Decisions he is not willing to make because he has delegated them. Thankfully, one of his two main subordinates is on paternity leave, so I’ve actually been able to finally get answers on yes/no questions I’ve been chasing since July.
In the last couple of meetings he’s told me to be nice to mo-Ron. Imagine the following said in a Sesame Street meets strawberry syrup voice: “Sometimes one must work with a person one does not quite like. There are people here I would never invite to my house for a beer, but we work together! We must all work together.”
Oh sure dude. For example, I don’t particularly like you, but we do work together. I can even extract answers and information from you, with enough work and patience.
But mo-Ron, it’s not a case of “I don’t particularly like”, it’s a case of “if I could, I wouldn’t see his face ever again except mayhap at his funeral.” Do you comprehend the difference, Mr. I Am The Boss But I Will Not Make Decisions?
Right after meeting with him, write an email saying:
*"Based on our conversation today, clearly we should deal with this situation via process XYZ, because …
If I’ve misunderstood this, please let me know. Otherwise I will start tomorrow to implement this this process."* And be sure to save copies of this email.
This will force him to respond if he disagrees; and will also provide you with backup if he ever comes back on you about this decision.
My boss tried that once, and she got back a six-paragraphs letter which boiled down to:
Why do you ask me this? This question should go to my subordinate. I am sure my subordinate will do his best to answer you. Mo-Ron will assist my subordinate in providing an answer. We must all work in this jointly.
Only well, it was six paragraphs. We’re having fun playing “escalate the cc’s” though: Gully copies his subordinate and mo-Ron on something about Logistics, I reply/forward it to our Logistics guy adding the boss. They send Ops info to the Logistics guy, he reply/forwards it to me adding the boss as well, etc.
OTOH, the same tactic you propose has recently been used successfully against our Finance people. I like it when a plan comes together.
Off topic: I always learn something new here every day. Even here in The BBQ Pit.
Dear Overseas Team:
Read all of the directions. Implement them in sequence.
Also, don’t tell the home office on Friday that everything worked fine and then when I come in after taking a sick day on Monday I find out it wasn’t fine. We could have taken care of it on Friday morning during the conference call we had scheduled but that your team cancelled.
Thanks,
TheFaerie
I’m almost to the point of creating a step by step document with written instructions and screen shots (1 step per page) just to get my point across. Phone communication is difficult because of the 11 1/2 hour time difference and the language barrier, but we all read the same language. It’s AutoCAD, not rocket surgery.
Any project managers here to empathize this this one?
My company doesn’t have any project managers but we do have a PMO (project management office). The people on that team don’t have PM certifications or even really any PM experience. They don’t manage our projects, just set up Sharepoint workspaces for them. They get rough task timelines from our managers and enter them into the Sharepoint workspaces so that they look like project plans. But the plans are never updated that I can see. They are also mostly pulled from someone’s ass, as best I can tell. They set up the project hours in our timecard system and if we have any problems with the timecards we have to ask them. It’s amazingly superficial and I really don’t see why we bother. I have a Pm certificate, so I know what’s missing. This blows me away that we work like this and I can’t figure out what they hope to accomplish.
They’re nice people, don’t get me wrong. I just don’t see the advantage of calling something a name that it isn’t. It’s like if you had a shipping department that wouldn’t handle packages or coordinate with the shipping companies, but instead kept track of all the other departments’ efforts to mail stuff.
It looks impressive when a department has a weighty title, I guess! We have a department here called “quality engineering,” even though only one person in that department has an engineering degree. The actual work that department performs is much more about quality assurance and compliance than actual engineering.
… that’s what I would expect from a department with that name, actually… in theory, it should be the team which ensures the quality of the quality system itself (process management and improvement, but not limited to production processes; manuals; training; etc.). A team that’s doing that for multiple departments shouldn’t consist exclusively of engineers, but have people with a variety of backgrounds.
The people who are supposed to supervise my team and make sure we don’t Break The System? They’ve been managing the system for between 20 and 5 years and they’re starting to get actual training on it now. The kind that consists of something beyond “write X here and SS03 here. Save.”
I feel your pain. I have created so many step-by-step manuals.
Pictures. Screenshots. A Mr. Rogers’ style DVD explaining how to be friends with this program and your computer. Coupons for a free weekend in Las Vegas (or where ever).
In many languages.
Some were even provided with Crayola Crayons to color the B&W illustrations provided on the attempt to draw their interest beyond TLDNR - and on the slim chance their kids would tell them how to utilize a $10 million custom program.
Sigh.
My job title is Quality Engineer (actually, “Senior Quality Engineering Specialist”). And I’m even an engineer! But I don’t do quality assurance. What I actually do is process chemistry.
I attribute this to senior management not actually knowing what the people who do the work, actually do. But they know that “Quality” is an important buzzword, so we should have one of those.
Sounds better than ‘Quantity Engineer’, though, doesn’t it?
Somewhat ironically, my goals for this year are pretty much “break production record (again) for units A, B, & C”. So it may not be what I actually do, nor what they call what I do, but it is what they want done.