Dan, Hyper-Active Man: Turf Fighting Man, Part 1

[This goes back a week or so, to Dan, the Hyper-Active Man...]

So Dan, the Hyperactive Boss Man, is fast moving, super intelligent and abrasive to those who can't keep up with him - or who roll over at the sound of any bark, whether or not there is a bite to go with it. He can have a heart o' gold (which he does), but there's a tarnished pewter shell around it that is what most people see.

Which is tough, because without anyone trying to pierce through the shell, I think Dan's gold heart is becoming more and more leaden. He's hearing only his own voice most of the time, seeing only passivity from below. He becomes monomaniacal.

And that is nowhere more apparent than in Dan's defense of his department's Turf.

Or, at least, that's what it started out to be: his department's Turf.

When Dan was brought in, the department was weakened: months without leadership had left it buffeted by the whims and annual budget allocations dictated by other departments' managements - bosses who, for whatever reason, found no benefit for their own areas in having another division of the company in good health. (This should be a Note someday: Why Veeps, Directors and Managers don't see their departments as part of a whole that needs to be healthy. Why?)

Dropped into this situation, Dan started his first year leading the department with an inherited crippled budget, no seniority, and zilch morale within the ranks. He spent those first nine months building up #s 2 & 3, then took the vastly improved productivity he inspired to argue successfully for #1 at the next annual review: a reasonable budget to work with. He was successful.

Which earned him enemies in the other departments.

The Turf Wars, always going on one way or another in low-key guerilla fashion, flared into open conflict.

At first, as Noted, Dan fought for his department, pushing for logic in resource allocations and fairness credit due. But the push-back was fierce: from passive resistance to outright obstruction.

What do you do when the IT Veep simply refuses to allow your field reps access to the company network, claiming "security" at the faintest wisp of rumoured breach? At one point, a Cube Colleague's request from an IT staffer for a link to a certain network drive had the IT Veep pull in the Cube Colleague and, behind a closed door that kept her trapped inside his office, berated the poor girl for 10 minutes for "breaching security by bypassing established lines of communications" (i.e., through him).

Into that belch of fire strode Dan the Hyperactive Boss Man - and his voice was loud and bold. He physically stood in the doorway, keeping it open (and barring cowardly exit by the IT Veep), and announced for the floor to hear: "You don't talk to my people that way. You don't decide whether they are acting out of order without checking with me first to see if they are following my directives. You should look into fixing up your stupid-ass lines of communications."

And you'd think that would have made Dan a hero for standing up to the dragon, but it didn't: most were just scared at hearing a loud voice - and looked at the voice as the source of the trouble.

But, because most bullies are cowards as well, the IT Veep backed down a bit - or at least let up on targeting people from Dan's department to pick on.

It sure would have been nice if Dan had let it stop there: win some, lose some, in the cause of defending the borders.

But Dan began to enjoy the Turf Wars.