On Vacation: Cut Off – Intentionally

Started the 3-weeker today. Made a vow not to access my company emails at all during that time. I have even disconnected my cellphone: 'can’t be reached. I will return as if “New.”

And I Stayed Late?

I planned on working late today to clear up as much as possible before I go on long vacation and to prep things for my absence. It was a good, foolishly naïve plan. Forgot that it was a springtime Friday in the middle of the quarter: good weather, no end-of-quarter deadlines, weekend. The Prez and every single Veep was gone by noon (if they came in at all). Half the Management was gone by 3 p.m. 75% of the cubes by 4. By 5 just me and the cleaning lady. Biiiig empty floor.

I left at 8, I prepped it anyway. I like the office when I’m all alone: you get a lot of work done, you can talk loud, and it feels like home since you can raid the refrigerator for leftovers since it all gets thrown out over the weekend.

The Tragik Komedy of Precision Ben - Part V (finished)

[A Tale in 5 Parts: Part I - 8/23, Part II- 8/28, Part III-9/04, Part IV - 9/11]
This Part V was started on 9/18 . . .

Impasse
Standstill
Ben you hate me I hate you we
Love
Hate
This place after forty years
It’s been our home our only home our
Child.

Like any good marriage in distress
We sought counseling
..and were counseled
..to seek
..a mediating
Board.

(A Note from The Cube, 5/18: 'have to stop here - for now - too difficult watching it, remembering it - will try to finish . . .)


(5/11: So, then, this is how it's playing out:)

I will make my name in futures
I will forget the past

Yep, Ben, that’s what you said…

So the Board brought in the Future
..and the Future looked like them.
Found a new President
..one of them.
Found a new Team
..from them.
Started a New Company
..by them.

Don’t you know, Ben,
This is your mantra –
You never chanted it quite like this
But this is how they sing it now:
Everything Old is bad
Everything New is good
New is the Future
Forget the Past
(Knowledge)
Steal from the Past
($$$$)
To build the Future.

Isolate,
Prevaricate,
Castrate,
Ben.
The Past is gone.

How could you know the Future
..for them
Was without you?

And me?

Me they lost me first
..with their first lie
..and your first vote.
Me and the 3rd shift:
(but of course they didn’t tell you that, still – )
Did you hear us say good-bye?

The office is still yours:
..so big.
The white offices around:
..new faces.
The factories you built:
..farmed out.
They even forced your mistress out:
..so quiet now.

Take your few handful few new clericals
And issue your memos to the wind –
They will report your every word, never fear,
Every word to be discarded

in smiles and yeses and silent ignorances.

50th Anniversary looms:
In honor of the savaged Past
They will honor the Future.
Honored you are, Ben.
Honor for the dead and dying.

Do you hear your voice echo?

I will make my name in futures
I will forget the past

Accrued Benefits

I still have almost 4 weeks of vacation due to me - the "accrued benefits" of not taking a vacation for over 2 ½ years. (I have to agree with the Counters here: lying in bed sick for a week doesn't quite count as rest).

Almost 4 weeks. Now they tell me I have to "use it or lose it" before the 4th of July.

This is odd, because I just took a week's vacation a month ago. Apparently the Counters reign over the Accountable: the message was filtered down from HR to my VP to my immediate supervisor/lead, who told me this with horror in her eyes, because she knows what is coming up.

Then again, she took off two weeks a month ago at the same time I had my 1 week vacation - mine planned a half year in advance - without particularly caring about accountability for the department. Because she left 2 days before me, she even wrote a company-wide email referring all of her caseload to me. (And me? I had no one to slough it off to, so all I could do was apologize and tell everyone to put it on my desk. Yep, it was there WAITING, Waiting, waiting.)

But now I gotta go on vacation again, starting next week. 'Wonder how we'll work that out?

Variation on a Theme

The decision was made 2 months ago. Now it's being re-decided. Not "reconsidered." Everyone seems to have forgotten that they made a decision at all.

This is funny (not ha-ha), because we have a memo setting up the old decision-making meeting, a summary of the issue as distributed at that meeting, and a memo issued after the meeting confirming the decision made.

But nobody - nobody - remembers it.

Avoided eMails Bite the Butt

Ohhh was I smart not to read my late-afternoon Friday emails: they would have sent my head spinning through the roof!

A "flurry" of emails always indicates one of two things:
1. A joke that everyone sends to everyone else, ignoring the fact that their names were already on the distribution list of the email they received containing the joke in the first place; or
2. Accelerating hysteria on some issue that nobody has bothered to get the facts about, opinions being easier to cite than research.

Since jokes don't make my head spin off, accelerated hysteria was the criminal this time.

The head spinning has to do with the fact that I have already written four reports on the topic (in descending order: the original researched info compilation, a summary of the research info, an analysis, and a summary of the analysis). The hysteria came from the fact that Veeps apparently have the collective memory of a ferret: no one appears to remember a thing that was contained in the reports already received.

Wait!, oh, stupid me: memory's not the problem. I forgot Rule #1: IF YOU WRITE IT, IT WILL NOT BE READ.

We are now scheduled on Tuesday to have a special teleconference with an attorney on the topic. Let's ignore the fact that the research reports were derived from the attorney's analysis of the situation in the first place. He has his own Rule #1, too: At $400/hour, 15 minutes minimum charge, I will listen to any redundant, ill-considered or stupid questions asked.

His Rule #2 makes even more sense: At $400/hour, 1 hour minimum, I will research any topic, even if I have already reported on it.

Avoiding eMails

Last Friday there were a flurry of emails in the afternoon - which I didn't read. It was Friday afternoon, only two hours countdown till time to go, and that flurrying about indicated something that would either:
a. upset me, or
b. give me work over the weekend, or
c. make me feel guilty that I wasn't working over the weekend.

Y'see, I'm taking the advice of the "motivational" seminar they had me attend a couple of days earlier: "You (I) hereby understand that you (I) cannot, will not, and will never be able to CHANGE THE UNIVERSE." So, since I can't, won't and will never - and they paid good bucks to have me taught that - I might as well put the lesson to practice. It'll keep till Monday morning.

Starting to think about leaving

Always considered job loyalty a given. Came here for that reason: with a 15-year termer saying "I'm one of the new people," there was a sense of security and family about this place. A lot of problems, true, but like old-time families (before divorce was de rigeuer) they worked things out. Or covered them up. Or, at any rate, survived them. Survived them, yes: got here at the tag end of that era and saw how it worked.

Now, since the "new" team has been here for 3 years, loyalty from the company down is certainly no more. Lookit all the old-timers harassed off. I'm new enough to escape that purge, but it still ain't fun to watch.

Job loyalty... Oh, what am I saying: hypocrite - I sure was ready to leave this place a couple of years ago when my "old" manager was getting too oppressive. But that was Dan the Hyper-Active Boss Man, and he had actually only come a couple of years before me - and he was going crazy because the New Team was isolating him, and he reacted in all the wrong ways.

But why leave here? To what? 'Haven't looked for a better job ever before: there were enough recession-driven layoffs, bubble-burst collapses and we're-bought/you're-out situations to make most supposedly career-track jobs into just extended short stays. This here is what's out there.

But - what used to be a "family" is maybe now more like a dinner party - and did you ever feel like you've stayed a little too long and it's time to leave?

Waiting for Buzz 2

From yesterday:

Set-up five meetings for Buzz on the day of his return...

My guess is he'll leave halfway through the day "for health reasons." He's not a martyr, just an old man not being treated well.

Waiting for Buzz

Buzz has been gone on vacation for almost three weeks - comes back Monday. Not soon enough: the buzzards have been circling his VP desk for the past two weeks, picking at the department in his absence, pulling away bits and pieces of authority, throwing on budget items that they don't want, letting certain "authorizations" slide till their cancellation is a fait accompli. Well, he's nearing retirement - could have retired a year ago. Guess they're just trying to hasten the process or take advantage of the carrion that is us. There won't be a low-up when he returns, just a sigh.

Set-up five meetings for Buzz on the day of his return.

Selling Ginsu Knives of the Soul

Note from The Cube: 'Have been required to attend bi-monthly offsite one-day seminars this past year - part of a Company "Improvement" Policy designed to upgrade work skills without actually investing in higher education. There is an entire workbook of programmed "notes," but these are the personal additions in the margins . . .

50 cliches in a row - rapid fire - impressive. I bet she sells Ginsu knives on the side.

Who is the audience for her? Us?

Loud.

Chitlin' Circuit entertainment: Energy + Volume

Can we drop any more names? No, because she will be selling their books and tapes later today and this is the set-up to the pitch.

Note that, so far, 40% of this seminar is interchangeable with last seminar on a different topic.

Good idea: Skills not Pills.

Long on generalities that could go with any "motivational" topic.

????Thinking about that: I didn't know that this was supposed to be a motivational seminar.

Asking questions but not looking for answers - already has "answers."

It's a genre.

White noise after a while.

Diva acting. (I suppose I could do this, too - do do it - but get tired of it quickly)

"Motivational" seminars: without context of society - very Me oriented - lip service to religion and culture, but self-esteem is the core.

Very smugly proud of how "innovative" she is. Maybe she's right, since this seems new to so many. But, after only 1 seminar, I already know the slogans for this one - and, theoretically, it is on a different topic.

Deadline Workers

Just a little note on yesterday's deadline.

Nancy's a bug, but she's fun to work with on deadlines. 'Real pain-in-the-ass for everydays, but bright and competent and funny when the pressure's on. Means she's meant for crisis mode, not everydays. Or she's schizo - but it works for us.

Solly's the opposite, though: probably everyone's best friend on everydays - keep him away when there's a deadline. Exactly the things that make him OK to deal with on the daily routine - steadiness, no sense of stress, always a joke, never pressuring you with an urgency - those things seem like such a backwards drag when there's a hard due date and a rush. Solly don't run - never - Solly walks.

So ya live and learn. Too bad we can't swap out Nancy and Solly on an as-needed basis. Then again: What do they think about me?

Made Another Deadline

Made another deadline
Hip-hip-hooray!
Doesn't mean an awful lot
But we had to stay:
Some till seven, some till eight
Some till overnight -
Whew, that's late!
But we did it on time
And we beat the clock
Now they're shipping that order
On the loading dock.
And it doesn't really matter
If there'd been a big delay
But we did it on time -
Though they said we couldn't do it -
Yeah, we did it on time
Today!

Meeting @ 3 p.m.

16 people in a meeting room meant for 8. Palpable excitement or mis-planned location?

Projector works fantastic but laptop connection to the network dead. Fiddle for 10 minutes. Deader.

Paper now. Economy drive on, so double-sided landscape-oriented spreadsheets, auto-stapled on the wrong corner. The awkward shuffle of upside-down-backward docs.

Font so small you can't read. Economy.

No idea what is being discussed, but assigned to (shuffle, shuffle) help finish (shuffle) . . . something. We'll have another meeting later to clarify.

Mtg. over. IS came in. Fixed network connection with flip to function key.