If I only had the guts

The other day I was listening to the radio on the way to work.  I usually listen to morning talk shows that I find entertaining, in hopes of keeping my mind off the pending doom of getting to work.  In between commercial breaks I was flipping through the channels and came upon a show talking about people quitting their jobs without having a new job lined up.

Much like the Jack In The Box workers, and the Garbage men, the callers had inspirational stories and outlooks on life.  Most of them quit because their current jobs didn’t bring them happiness.  Strangely, this radio topic made me depresses because it made me realize I do not have the guts (the proverbial “balls”) to just right out quit.  Additionally I realized that if I quit, they win.  If I had the balls I’d become the biggest Bob figure possible and force them to lay me off that way I’d get a severance package, get state unemployment and I would have the joy of free riding until they laid me off.  That would be a very long term plan though, it took the original Bob about 10 years to get laid off.

Because I don’t have the guts to quit or to Bob it up, I throw rocks.

Idiot's Guide to Matrix Management

I really have to give credit to the evil genius who came up with the Matrix Management concept. Somebody figured out that when people work directly alongside their bosses on a daily basis, the boss might notice they are hard workers. This is especially the case if the boss is a good boss. If the boss is a good boss, the subordinate will try to work harder in order to please the boss. A genuine relationship starts to form between the boss and subordinate. The boss in turn, will be more inclined (and accountable) to give his subordinates high performance reviews and pay increases that they deserve. The result is higher employee satisfaction, higher work output, and better overall products and services form the company. So what’s the problem?

Well, some corporate executive realized he had nothing to do one day, but saw a need to increase shareholder value (short-term, of course). The easiest way to do that is by cutting payroll to reduce the bottom line.

The solution: Create multiple bosses. Then separate the real boss (Functional Manager) from the employees, so he does not see what they do on a regular basis. Instead, employee feedback will come to the Functional Manager from unofficial bosses, like team leaders (Lead and IPT Lead). The genuine relationship between the employee and the manager will thus be broken.

But there is so much more to it than that. The evil genius in this multi-boss setup is the fact that people generally forget the good stuff and only remember the bad. So on average, performance reviews and pay raises will be lower than they were before, only because team leaders will simply forget to tell the functional managers all the good stuff.

Here’s an example:
You had 11 accomplishments in the first 11 months of the year, plus 2 accomplishments in the last month. You made 2 minor mistakes in the first 11 months of the year, and zero mistakes in the past month. Now what feedback will your real boss (Functional Manager) get from the team leaders (Lead and IPT Lead)?

They will tell your Functional Manager only what they remember: that you had 2 successes and made 2 mistakes last year. Beforehand, your boss would have remembered the 13 accomplishments…because you would have reminded him and held him accountable if he didn’t! But now, you don’t know who to hold accountable. So what should have been an outstanding performance review and pay raise, has become an average performance review and average pay raise.

Now across the board, employees are dissatisfied that they have three bosses and get no recognition for their achievements. Performance is down, programs fall behind schedule, and all the smart employees look for better jobs, leaving behind only the idiots still willing to work under such horrible conditions. But hey, I think the stock price went up about ten cents back in the nineties.“Problem” solved.

Because I have three bosses who I can't hold accountable for anything, I throw rocks.

Matrix Management Model

The Shitshow loves to Re-org itself about every 6 weeks but one of the things that never changes with the business model is the Matrix Management Style.

For those of you who don't know what this is, see the below excerpt from Wikipedia, "Matrix Management is a type of organizational management in which people with similar skills are pooled for work assignments. For example, all engineers may be in one engineering department and report to an engineering manager, but these same engineers may be assigned to different projects and report to a project manager while working on that project. Therefore, each engineer may have to work under several managers to get their job done."

Apparently, this style of management used to be really popular in the 1980s but nearly all companies have abandoned it for more efficient management models.....apparently the Shitshow missed that memo! So modern day companies like General Electric, Microsoft, etc all abandoned this model because, in their own words, "it literally doubled the amount of managers in the company and reduced accountability". Wow, does that sound familiar to anyone who works at Shitshow? There are about 3 managers for every engineer who does real actual work.

Well, I guess they call it the Shitshow for a reason. Without the Matrix Management Model, what would all these process oriented functional managers do all day? Who would run the countless department meetings that waste people's time?

Because there are more managers at the Shitshow than people who do work, I throw rocks.

Mandatory Training - II

I finally completed my mandatory training, and yes I did charge overhead (see Mandatory Training post), and I can now say without a shadow of a doubt it is a complete joke.

Most of the mandatory training is a result of some lawsuit that was filed against the Shitshow, some headline grabbing scandal, or just pure stupidity from a Bob like figure which cost the Shitshow embarrassment.

I’ve always thought it was funny that I had to take laptop safety course when I don’t even have a laptop, but since some Bob figure lost a company laptop we all get the opportunity to learn about laptop safety.

Because some Shitshow executives made some officials very upset we all get the opportunity to take ethics training.


Now if you didn’t know better one could claim that training is a good thing because people will learn and make fewer mistakes in the future.  Or that education is the key to success.  Not so at the Shitshow!  Why you ask?   Well, as a result of having so many Bobs at the company, the training is so watered down that anyone with some sort of intelligence can just skip ahead to the test at the end, without reading or listening to any of the training material, and still pass.  How is that possible?  With answers like:

A. You should follow the law and ask ethics or HR when you have questions
B. Do what is easiest
C. Pretend it didn’t happen
D. All of the above

it’s pretty hard not to pass.  That said, plenty of people have to take the quiz multiple times.

Because mandatory training is a complete joke and waste of time I throw rocks.

Fail Your Way to the Top

One of the things at the Shitshow that literally makes me want to dry heave in the toilet until I am blue in the face is what I like to call "fail your way to the top". When I first started working at the Shitshow, I thought the key to moving up the Shitshow corporate ladder was to finish things ahead of schedule and below cost. Boy how I was wrong and this couldnt be any further from the truth. As it turns out, the key to success at the Shitshow is to go as far as you can over budget and schedule because when this happens, high level management becomes concerned and they alert all other types of management and your project gets put under the microscope.

When this happens, flunky managers of all shapes and sizes start coming to daily status meetings that they otherwise would never attend which gives people high level exposure. On top of that, they often take "corrective action measures" and "apply lean principles" to help a troubled project recover from its schedule and costs problem and this nonsense then becomes the new gold standard of process.

You see, when you finish something on time or schedule, management does not care and nobody will give you recognition or even know your name. They only care when things get so screwed up that a higher level manager is putting heat on them to fix the mess.

What is even more disturbing is that the same people who screwed up a program or project so bad in the first place, are now considered "experts" by the functional management since they helped to fix their huge mess even though they created it in the first place.

Because my on-time completion of projects goes unrecognized and the flunkies fail their way to the top, I throw rocks.

It’s time for a re-org!

One thing the higher ups like to do when things don’t seem to be working is to introduce a new organizational structure.  When the re-orgs occur the VPs send out emails explaining how the new organizational structure will do one of the following:

-help reduce cost
-help focus on execution
-help improve quality
-help focus on customer satisfaction

However, the odd thing about theses re-orgs is that nothing ever really changes. Programs still run over budget and schedule, things still break, and customers still get upset at the Shitshow.  How could this be?  Perhaps it’s due to the fact that it’s always the same managers and executives running the shitshow before and after the re-org.  Sure, these managers and executives might have a new title, a new management position, or a new responsibility after the re-org; it’s the same people as before the re-org.  That’s right, underperforming managers and executives aren’t fired or demoted, they just get new titles, promotions, or different responsibilities.

Because a Shitshow manager with any other title is still a Shitshow manager, I throw rocks.

Routers

Much like computer routers which interconnects computer networks and controls the information transfer between them, the Shitshow has a class of low/mid level employees who are nothing more than routers.  Shitshow routers are incompetent employees who can’t do any real work on their own.  Instead, when Shitshow router receives a task they can’t do themselves (which is almost any technically oriented task despite being hired as engineers), they find someone who can.   When the work is complete, the Shitshow router collects the work and then presents it to management sometime taking credit for the work and sometimes sharing credit for the work.

You might think that these types of employees would get laid off because they can’t do any real work and thus just add overhead cost.  Wrong!  Instead these “engineers” win engineering awards and are given lead engineer positions.

Here’s a great example.  The other day I asked a Shitshow router to perform a very simple task.  I included management on the email so they would have insight into the work I was asking to be done and to show I was keeping her in the loop.  The next day the Shitshow router asks me to come to her office.  Turns out she had no idea how to perform the basic task I asked her.  I explained it in detail and worked the task in real time on her whiteboard so she could see what I did.  Within minutes I had answered my own question.  

So what does the Shitshow router do?  She responds to my original email, with management on distribution, answering the question I asked her by copying what I wrote on her whiteboard as though she did the work by herself.

Because Shitshow routers answer my questions with my answers I throw rocks.

Jack-in-the-Box

So after spending 30 minutes on my drive home from the Shitshow wondering if I should just run my car off the road and end it all, I decided to stop by a Jack-in-the-Box for some good ole comfort food. After all, nothing takes your mind off the Shitshow like a JumboJack with Cheese. So I walk into Jack-in-the-Box and notice a juke box with Stevie Wonder's song "For Once in My Life" blasting on the juke box. I just thought this was kind of strange and walked up to the register to place my order. The young man at the counter had a huge smile on his face and was dancing in place and the first thing he asked me was "Sir whats your name?" and I respond with my name and he says "well sir, can I take your order" and I order.

Now here comes the interesting part. As Stevie Wonder is blasting, I notice the whole crew in the kitchen dancing as they make burgers, cook fries, hand food through the drive thru window, etc. Here is an example, the chef would be singing along and dancing and finish a burger and wrap it in the plastic wrap and throw it to the guy at the drive through window and he would place it in a bag and then another employee would come and high five him for a successful catch. At this point, I am literally dumbfounded and speechless. Literally, in utter disbelief at what I see. How could these people be having so much fun?

Now what happens next is downright depressing. As I am waiting for my food, the shift manager comes up to me and addresses me by my name and asks me "why arent you smiling?" and I just stared at him like a deer in the headlights and respond "I have no idea" and he goes "if youre not smiling, youre doing something wrong!". At this point, I am 100% convinced this is a divine act from a higher power telling me I am wasting my life away at the Shitshow.

Now he brings my food and I sat there and ate my JumboJack and watched a bunch of people who looked like they were having the time of their lives making tacos and burgers in a Jack-in-the-Box. I then asked my self. Could these people know the Garbage Man? How could these people have such a great time doing such shitty work? Really got me thinking.

Because the weight of the Shitshow has crushed my spirit and everyone's I work with, I throw rocks.

Process, Process, Process

Since functional managers never produce anything of real value, the one tangible thing they pride themselves on is introducing new processes.  You see, every year functional managers create their plans that align supposedly align their work to the overall business, and it’s these goals that they get evaluated on at the end of the year by their directors (functional managers one level up).

Now here’s the kicker.  These processes are written by new hires!  That’s right, someone who has no idea how things work are busy writing processes.   This is the perfect case of Warm Body Syndrome.

If functional managers wanted process rooted in engineering experience they would have the few good engineers write the process, at least outline the process and then have the new hires make it look pretty.  Instead, new hires write the processes based on their work as they work on projects beyond their skill level.  The end result are processes that don’t make since, are riddled with low level how to detail, are just written to be written, and which show a complete lack of understanding the big picture.

Things get better, these over detailed, unnecessary processes are then forced on new programs as the baseline.  If an experienced engineer doesn’t follow these processes people like King Kong go wild and punish the program and engineer by making them jump throw additional hoops and made up new processes based on their mood.

If you think I’m exaggerating, there is a process which is over 50 pages long which details how to update one document.  If you follow another documented process you end up creating a 40 page review package for a one page test case.

Of course, since these processes are released functional managers achieve their business goals set up at the beginning of the year.  Their business goals are based purely on quantity not quality.

Because I have to follow a 50 page process to update one page in an already existing document I throw rocks.

Acronyms

One of the things at the Shitshow that never ceases to amaze me is the utter wreckless use of acronyms. Whether you are "submitting ECRs against the ICD for a CCB meeting in accordance with CMMI practices", whatever the hell that means......it's all Greek to me! Anyways, my first 6 months at the Shitshow literally involved me writing down acronyms for nearly everything you could possibly imagine. It was much like learning a new language. My first 6 months at work didnt involve me learning new engineering tools, or working in a lab designing circuit boards which would actually put some of my years of engineering school to good use. Oh no, I had to sit around and try to remember what the hell 5S stood for and what a RCCA is.

Since most people at the Shitshow havent done real technical work in decades, their brains atrophy and the ability for independent thought slowly dies. Hence, people create acronyms for seemingly obvious shit in an attempt to sound important or intelligent.

Because my brain is filled with Acronym Alphabet Soup and atrophies with every passing day at the Shitshow, I throw rocks.

Welcome to 2007

It’s been three and a half years since the release of Microsoft Office 2007.  Within the last week or so some computers at the shitshow are finally getting this “new” cutting edge technology. However, not all computers are getting this upgrade at the same time.  In fact, I’m guessing it will be months before we’re all using the same version.  In the mean time we’ll all get to waste time opening files and waiting for the file to convert to the right version. 

Because new software is three and a half years old, I throw rocks.  

Mandatory Training

It’s that time of year again, mandatory training!  Since the functional managers waste most of the overhead building roads based on maps to now where, they highly encourage us to do the mandatory training on our own time.  They start spewing lines like:

“together we can help the bottom line by not charging overhead for this training”
“I know this is asking a lot, but together we can make a difference”

Functional Managers even try to entice us to take group training during our lunch breaks by offering to order lunch for us.  I usually find these free lunches even harder to keep down than the shitshow pep talks about not charging overhead for mandatory training.

Guess what?  Title 29, Chapter 5, Part 758 of the U.S. labor law states that employees are to be compensated for mandatory training.   You know what that mens, I’ll be charging overhead when I take my mandatory training.

Because the law is on my side, I throw rocks.

Shitshow Amnesia

Years ago when I actually cared, I would come into the Shitshow at 8am and eagerly await the challenges the day brought with it. When I first started, it was not uncommon for me to work 12 hour days and sometimes even more since I figured this was the sure fire way to get promotions and work my way up the Shitshow food chain. WRONG! At the time, Bob was working with me and I would watch his daily Houdini act and wonder how he got away with it and wonder why my hard work didnt ever lead to me getting promotions and then one day it just hit me! The reason is due to Shitshow Amnesia. This is the phenomenon occurring at the Shitshow where no one remembers anything more than 2 weeks into the past. Whether you worked your ass off for 16 hours a day for 6 months or you showed up to work high on PCP, no one remembers it if it was over 2 weeks ago. No joke. This explains how Bob got away with his disappearing act for so long before it finally caught up with him. Shitshow amnesia should not be confused with Warm Body Syndrome (WBS) but they are indirectly related.

Over my years at the Shitshow, the utter complexity of the mess I see on a daily basis has led me to formulate many terms to better understand the nature and inner workings of the Shitshow. This is what I like to refer to as Shitshow-oloy, or the study of the Shitshow.

Because my job is such a damn mess that I have to make up words to try to understand it to keep myself sane, I throw rocks.

When Is Your Last Day?

Bruce had been with the company for 15 years, and was pretty good at his job.  After years of hard work Bruce was given a project lead role on a highly visible program, unfortunately that meant working with King Kong on an almost daily basis.  After feeling the furry of King Kong’s primordial rage after asking why multiple times, Bruce had finally had enough so he decided to start looking for jobs elsewhere.

Having been at the shitshow for 15 years this was not an easy decision, however dealing with King Kong and others had pushed him to the limit.  Bruce finally found a new job at a competitor, once the job offer was verified Bruce broke the news to his functional manager.

Bruce: “I’ve decided to take a job at a competitor”
Functional Manager: “Congratulations, when’s your last day?”

After 15 years of solid performance, Bruce decides to leave the shitshow in the middle of a highly visible project; the only thing the functional manager asks is “when is your last day?”

I would have expected something along the line of:
“Are you set on this decision?”
“Is there anything we can do to make you want to stay?”
“You’ve been here for 15 years, it will be a great loss if you leave especially in the middle of this project, are you sure about this”?

But of course not, not from the shitshow.  On his exit interview he specifically named King Kong as a reason for leaving.  Not that the shitshow would do anything as a result of this feedback about King Kong, at least Bruce felt like he was throwing a rock.

Because 15 years of service is greeted with “when is your last day,” I throw rocks.

Year End Performance Review

One of my least favorite things to do during the course of a Shitshow calendar year is the annual year end performance review. Typically during one of these sessions, your functional manager reads your performance reviews submitted by your peers and then gives you a year end rating ranging from "Needs Major Improvement" to "Exceptional Performance."  Here is where things get interesting.....

King Kong is my functional manager so my year end review has some enormous potential depending on how many banana's good ole Kong had for lunch. So typically I just sit in the review and listen to my manager spew meaningless corporate buzz words like "you need to align your goals with that of the company" and "you need to utilize the corporate culture to meet deadlines" but this year I decided to spice things up a bit....you may say throw a monkeywrench in King Kong's plans. So here is what I did.....

I wrote a list of all of the things that year that I felt the department could improve upon.....basically it was a list of shit that pisses me off. So I go in to the meeting and King Kong starts in with his usual rambling nonsense about corporate culture and the whole nine yards of nonsense. As soon as all of this is over, he gives me my rating of "Far Exceeds Expecations" and for about 20 seconds I almost felt good about myself but then reality set back in and all this means is that I would get a 3.5% raise instead of the usual 3.3%. So after this, King Kong asked me if I had anything to say so I just started reading off my shit list. Here is the amazing part, King Kong went from 0 to Apeshit in about 2.5 seconds. By the time, I got to my third complaint bullet, I noticed red veins popping out of King Kong's neck and his whole face was bright red and he began to scream at me for nearly 1 hour. When I say scream, I mean scream. Spit flying out of his mouth and all. So after I read through most of my list during intermittent silence from his screaming, I got up and said "I dont have to sit here and listen to you scream at me" and got up and walked off. That was my year end performance review.

Because my manager has the temperament of a prehistoric jungle primate with bipolar disorder, I throw rocks.

Career Management

Besides hiring people, see the "Hiring Process" post, and filling program requesting staffing needs, see the “Warm Body Syndrome” post, one of functional manager’s responsibilities is career development and career management of their employees.

When I was in pursuit of the vanishing job offer, see the “Now You See it, Now You Don’t” post, I decided I should stop by and talk to my functional manager.  Despite having an open door policy, it’s actually pretty hard to stop by and talk to your functional manager without notice.  When I stopped by, she was busy talking to another functional manager so I interrupted asking if she had a couple seconds.

I told her that I was applying to a job in another group that came from a need on the current program I was working.  I asked her “did you have any plans for me or should I pursue the current opportunity?”  Her response was “I didn’t have any plans for you; I figured you’d find something on your current program.”  I thanked her and went on my way.   I found it a little odd that my functional manager had no plan for me, given that is one of her primary responsibilities.  I’m sure once I didn’t have a charge number a great opportunity would have opened up for me, probably similar to Dave’s opportunity in the “The Young and the Talented” post.

Because functional manager’s career management is nonexistent I throw rocks.

Warm Body Syndrome

One of the things that I find the most amazing (or maybe hideously disgusting) at the Shitshow is what I like to call Warm Body Syndrome (WBS).

When I was bright eyed and optimistic about my new career at the Shitshow I used to think my hard work and strong performance would pay off and eventually lead me to become a manager, lead engineer, or senior engineer......once again, I was wrong. Promotions at the Shitshow have little to do with merit based performance and more to do with Seniority or Warm Body Syndrome. For all of you reading and wondering what this mysterious Syndrome may be, don’t worry, I will explain. When an opening for a lead engineer, manager, etc. becomes available the functional managers have a "meeting of the minds" and decide what Shitshow engineer should take this new role. Well, they don’t think of the best person suited to successfully execute this role or the person who has the correct experience for that position, oh no, that would make too much sense. They merely look at an organizational chart and see who currently isn’t assigned to a program and go from there. This is how new hires become leads on projects and completely incompetent people become managers and senior engineers.

Let me clearly illustrate this point with an example. Let's say Employee A decides to take a 3 week vacation. When Employee A comes back to work at the Shitshow, it is then functional management's job to find work for Employee A. Instead of maybe shuffling people around on projects, they simply say "oh hey, we need a lead engineer for XYZ and Employee A needs work" and the next thing you know Employee A is instantly promoted. In my years at the Shitshow I have seen the following:

- A lead engineer have absolutely no clue of basic engineering principles for the project she was working on
- Managers who have no people or organization skills
- Senior Electronic Engineers not know how to use an oscilloscope
- Software engineers who are tasked to program in languages they are not familiar with
- Mad scientist engineers put into positions of cost and schedule management

As you may well know, the above outlined situations never end well. All of these brilliant functional management decisions lead to cost and schedule overruns on every single program I have ever worked on and low employee morale which causes the good employees to want to leave the company for greener pastures. But hey guess what? If you mix all of these ingredients together, you get a Shitshow!

Because my hard work goes unrecognized and promotions are based on Warm Body Syndrome, I throw rocks.

The Technology Road to Nowhere

Not too long ago I was in a staff meeting for my functional group.  While I usually dodge these meetings like the plague I figured I could use a dose of functional entertainment. The topic of discussion was the technology road map that the function was pursuing including status from last year and the plans for this year and beyond.

Early on in the meeting I asked an earth shattering, mind blowing question:  With respect to our functional groups contribution to the end product how do we compare to our competitors?  Given that, what technologies should we be pursuing to close the gap created by our competitor’s offerings or increase our competitive advantage?

To me this seemed like a logical question, after all the shit show is a business with customers and as part of the shit show’s revolutionary stance on business, customer satisfaction is part of increasing shareholder value.

I wasn't surprised when the person leading the technology roadmap had no idea how to answer that question.  The functional manager had no idea either but mentioned that when seeking funding for these types of projects, building a business case like that didn’t really factor into the proposal.

Knowing this would probably be the case I took the calculated risk of using this meeting as an opportunity to throw rocks with an audience watching.  The risk paid off, it almost appeared that other people in the meeting were surprised at the lack of answers.  With any luck I was able to plant a rock throwing seed in some of the people attending the meeting.  Sometimes it just takes the right question to inspire people to start throwing rocks.

Because functional managers build roads based on maps to nowhere, I throw rocks.

Always Ask Why

One of the most gut wrenching and disgusting things at the Shithsow is watching management argue amongst each other and employees. You see, at the Shitshow often times managers began to feel almighty and powerful and mistaken themselves for an Almighty King or Deity. King Kong is no exception. In my many daily run-in's with good ole King Kong, I tend to often argue with him. You see I like to pride myself on reason and logic so if someone tells me to do something that makes no sense, I might ask "why do we do this that way".......... to a manager such as King Kong this may be taken as a direct insult because he is a bumbling idiot who doesnt like to be questioned and has foolish pride. I mean, heaven forbide we think of a better way to do something and improve a process or save some money.....not on King Kong's watch! In my humble attempts at trying to better understand and help the company, here are some of the responses I have received from King Kong when asking "why do we do this that way":

- "Because I said so"
- "Dont worry about it, just do it"
- "It's not your job to question process"
- "We've always done it that way"
- "I dont know"
- "Dirty Look From King Kong As He Walks Away"
- "Because it's part of the process"
- "If youre not going to do it this way, I will find someone who will"
- "One day when you have my job, you can do it however you like"

After years of listening to nonsensical phrases like the ones above that make my ears want to vomit, I have finally just decided to only ask this question in a meeting setting where King Kong can yell and scream and go apeshit and make an idiot out of himself in front of an audience.

Because King Kong is an egomaniac who doesnt respond to logic or reason, I throw rocks.

Now You See It, Now You Don’t

A while back I expressed interest in taking on more leadership roles within the company, knowing that functional management wouldn’t do anything for me I talked to my program management.  Immediately I was given a list of opportunities based on the needs of the program and people I should talk.

I started talking to the right people, who eventually put my in touch with appropriate functional management (a different function that I worked for at the time).  Things were moving along nicely and the functional manager was ready to give me a job.  After he tried to get the right paper work in, HR stopped it all progress.  I had to go through a formal interview process.

I jumped through the all the right hoops, as did the functional managers.  They interviewed multiple people and at the end I was the most qualified and best fit for the job.  HR sent me a formal offer! Things were finally coming up Jacko, needless to say I was excited until I looked at the salary.  Using my current salary, which was already too low, they just added a little bump to it thinking I’d jump at it.  Well I didn’t.  I researched what the fair market salary was per shitshow standards, about 25% more than the offer, so I countered with that.

After the counter offer, days went by and I didn’t hear anything.  I contacted HR to see what the status of the offer was and still didn’t hear anything.  About a week later I was informed that the job offer was rescinded.

Just to make it clear: they interviewed me and others, determined I was the best fit, formally offered me the job, I countered with a market based salary, then they took away their offer.  HR said that per shit show policy I did not qualify for the job based on my years of service and current leveling.  One would imagine that if this was the case I wouldn’t have been interviewed in the first place but that is probably expecting too much common sense from the shit show.  

Because jobs offers appear and disappear right before my eyes I throw rocks.

Hiring Process

Of the many daily occurrences at the Shitshow that make me want to gag vomit and puke until I am blue in the face, one of the most mind-blowing is the process to hire new employees. This whole process makes absolutely no sense and would make any sane individual want to pound his head into a concrete wall for hours on end if he had to try to make sense of this. Has anyone ever heard the saying "Our Strength is in Our Employees"...........well apparently the Shitshow turned a deaf ear to that one. One would figure one of the most important jobs a functional manager could have would be to scrutinize 1000s of resumes and search for certain engineering skill sets to find the most productive and best prepared employees possible - WRONG! Functional managers like to sit in their offices and search the internet for new flooring for their homes or sit in the coffee room and shoot the shit for hours so they delegate this work to who else, but new hires themselves. Yes, that is correct.......at the the Shitshow we have new hires hiring new hires which is a lot like the blind leading the blind. Let me give you an example, one time I was tasked to take a new hire out to lunch (the only reason I did this was to get a free lunch out of the Shitshow and keep in mind I was at the company about 2 years out of college) and prior to this I browsed her resume and noticed she claimed she "worked extensively with electronics". So while we were sitting at lunch I tried to make conversation and asked her if she worked with "digital or analog electronics" and she said "I dont know"...........after hearing this I nearly fell out of my chair at the restaurant and had to be taken to the hospital. In my interview review form, I wrote "DO NOT HIRE HER. SHE LIED ON HER RESUME"..............she has been working at the Shitshow for nearly 3 years now and sends me emails that look like children wrote them asking me questions that make absolutely no sense. Because morons at the Shitshow make my horrible job even worse, I throw rocks.

John Throws Rocks at Bob

John was a bright young worker and was someone you actually wanted on your team, a rarity at the shit show.  Of course functional management could careless that he was good at his job.  After functional management refused to promote him to a level he was qualified for, John decided to move on to greener pastures.


When John was around he liked throwing rocks, his favorite target was Bob.   As John explained, Bob embodied what was wrong with the shit show.  It’s hard to argue that point.   However, as I’ve said before, throwing rocks at the Bob’s and cockroaches is the wrong tactic.  Rocks should be thrown at managers, while lights should be shinned on the cockroaches.  Nonetheless John’s rock throwing is entertaining.


It started with random numeric pages; yes the Shit Show still uses pagers. John would page Bob with either nonexistent numbers or with other employee’s numbers.  Once John realized Bob had a text pager John started paging Bob with messages informing Bob his car was illegally parked and would be towed.  The truth was that Bob’s car was parked illegally; Bob would park in two hour parking for the entire 5 hours of his work day.  The pages became non-stop.  Even after work hours John would page Bob.  If John woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, he would page Bob before he went back to sleep.  Eventually Bob just turned off his pager.


Even after John moved on to greener pastures John would call Bob’s office and leave random messages, sometimes just typing in the background until the voice mail timed out.  Eventually John figured out he needed to shine a light on the cockroaches instead of throwing rocks at them so he started calling the lab where Bob was supposed to be working and ask if Bob was there, of course if the call came in before noon or after 5pm Bob would not be around, then get all upset on the phone saying “I’ve looked all over for Bob and can’t him anywhere, he’s not even answering his pager.”


Because John cared he threw rocks.  

Sunshine

In the basement lab where the roaring sewage pump resides, often times there can be extremely low morale. Currently, there is an older employee who was been with the Shitshow for almost 30 years now and is very close to retirement. Most of his 30 years of computer programming have taken place in the sewage lab so you can imagine that he is not a happy camper to say the least....we call him Sunshine. You need to think of this in terms of Lord of the Rings with the guy who lived in the cave in the dark and said nothing but "My Precious". The reason he was like that was years of solitude in his cave.....well the same is true for computer programmers in the sewage pump lab. On any given day at any given moment in time, the odds are that Sunshine will be in a nonsensical rant and enaging in non-stop complaining. At times this can be rather humorous when he slips into a fit of rage and starts dropping F-bombs about management but when you have worked in the sewage pump dungeon basement lab for months at a time with Sunshine, he is a sobering reminder about what lies in the future if one does not find a new career. To add insult to injury, our sewage infested basement where the lab resides has multiple labs and the Commander works in the lab next door. It turns out that the Commander and Sunshine do not get along to say the least. When they bump into each other, it makes for pure Shitshow comic relief. Both of them are sobering reminders of what the Ghost of Shitshow Future holds in store for young engineers. Because everyday I am reminded that I have no future or career at the Shitshow, I throw rocks.

The Young and the Talented

Dave was a young and talented employee.  With an undergraduate degree and masters from a top tier college, Dave had a sense of practicality attached to his degrees which is less common than you would imagine.

Dave was working for a about half a year when functional management needed to fill a position and they approached Dave with a great career opportunity.  Not knowing how functional managers more or less flat out lie about the upside of “opportunities” Dave took the bait.

Within no time Dave settled into his new position.  Six years of college was finally paying off!   His full time job was now getting signatures on documents so they could be released.  Just to make sure we’re on the same page, Dave wasn’t creating new documents or even updating existing documents, Dave was walking a signature page around for people to sign.  Often times Dave would get board at work so he would go to his car to listen to music or take a nap, or he’d work Sudoku puzzles to keep his brain from atrophy.   After about a year and a half of being a professional signature gatherer, with no clear exit path, Dave decided to move on to greener pastures.

Because the function managers banish the young and the talented to a life of gathering signatures I throw rocks.

King Kong goes wild on the Commander

Work is filled with interesting characters. From a guy who sleeps at his desk to Bob, there is endless entertainment. However, two individuals deserver there story to be told – the Commander and King Kong.

The Commander is a legend, good at what he does, hates everyone, is only working counting down his days until he can retire, and without saying he throws rocks when he can.

King Kong on the other hand is a life time low level manager. If Jack Welsh ran this company King Kong would have been fired long ago but since this place barley lays people off, King Kong has survived for years and years. I call him King Kong because this low level manager will erupt in a primordial rage when evoked – there are even stories of him punching a whole in his wall and yelling at his employee during a performance review because the employee was throwing rocks.

When the Commander and King Kong collide you know there will be entertainment. After one meeting in which both were attending, the two stayed behind to talk about issues. Without missing a queue King Kong was unleashed. King Kong picked up a chair and threw it in the direction of the Commander. If it was meant to hit the Commander no one knows, but nonetheless, stories are told.

After the event, the Commander has been banished to the sewage pump basement, locked up in a lab forced to work while King Kong continues in his role as a low level manager.

Because King Kong is allowed to run around wild while the Commander is locked up, I throw rocks.

Cost Plus Contracts

For those of you out there who are not familiar with shitshow rhetoric, 'cost plus' is a phrase used by the government to describe a contract awarded to the shitshow where 'cost plus a profit" is built in. This means if it costs the shitshow $1 million dollars to build something, they bill the government $1 million dollars PLUS some profit. For all you hard working tax paying Americans, this should make you want to go puke in the toilet all night if you could see how the shitshow spends your hard earned money. Countless engineering hours are pissed down the toilet in Configuration Control Board (CCB)Meetings, Engineering Review Board Meetings (ERB), Quality Audits (QA), and countless other alphabet soap type named meetings that make us poor engineers want to wash our mouths out with buckshot. Let's not forgot the army of independent auditors and contractors the government deems necessary to sit in the above mentioned pointless meetings to ask pointless questions and to generate pointless action items that waste thousands of hours that could otherwise be spent doing real, actual work. You see, the bigger the shitshow created, the more engineering hours that are charged and the more the shitshow can bill the government under the cost plus structure which means bigger profits for the shitshow. This is wrong on so many goddamn levels.

So folks, the next time you cut a check to the IRS to pay your Federal taxes, just remember that money is necessary to pay the 5 government bean counters to manage every engineer at the shitshow who attempts to do some real work. Not to mention, the shitshow does everything within its power to piss away as many of your tax dollars as it can also. So its a double whammy on your hard earned tax dollars.

Because I see my tax dollars squandered, I throw rocks.

A Tale of Two Cities

The other day one of the VPs, along with his wife, comes rolling up behind one of the office buildings in a limo.

Over in my office area we have to pay for Folgers coffee that we have to brew ourselves if a pot isn’t already made.

The executives are moving into a brand new building.

The low level employee's lab is set up in the basement right next to the sewage pump which breaks about once a year and floods the lab.

Executives preach how they are doing all they can to ensure we have the tools necessary to do our jobs.

In my office area the supply cabinet gets locked at 4pm everyday when the office administrator leaves for the day.

Because I work in a tale of two cities, I throw rocks.

Whistle While You Work

One morning in my parking garage, I was on my way to the shitshow and noticed a loud whistling sound coming from the area near the garbage dumpster. This strange sound sparked my curiousity so I walked to the dumpster and noticed a garbage truck with a garbage man with an iPod who was dancing and whistling while he picked up trash. I stood there in utter amazement and watched this man pick up other people's smelly garbage off the floor and dance like he was at a club and whistling like a mad man. After watching him for several minutes, I approached him and asked him the following question, "you look like youre having a great time, you must love your job" and his response literally blew my mind and has kept my up at nights. He responded "Yep, could you imagine what the city would look like if there was no garbage man" and then he started dancing again and picked up more trash and threw it in the truck. After watching this, I got in the car and went to work and was literally in shock. Upon getting to work, I got in my lab and noticed no one was whistling while they worked, in fact they all looked like they were on anti-depressants and attending a funeral. The garbage man would not approve of this!...........Several weeks later I drove to work and parked in the lot right next to a dumpster and saw another garbage truck with a different garbage man (in a different location mind you) who was dancing and whistling while he worked as he dumped trash. I mean, the first time was coincidence and now this established a trend. How could a man who dumps people's smelly waste all day and makes minimum wage whistle while he works and everyone I work with as an engineer looks like they are one bad meeting away from swan diving off the roof of the building? Questions like these keep me up at night and make me want to hand in my shitshow badge and drive a garbage truck. Because no one at the shitshow whistles while they work, I throw rocks.

Bob Strikes Again

If you haven’t read the Legend of Bob post, take a couple minutes to read it because Bob strikes again. I am currently working a project that is trying to use some of the work Bob did about 7 years ago. Turns out Bob’s work is riddled with errors, doesn’t work, and is just flat out wrong. Currently there is a team of people trying to decipher his “work” to determine if any of it is salvageable. More than likely we’ll just have to start from scratch despite functional management initial claims that we’ll be able to use it as is since it was done by a “senior” employee.

Because Bob strikes again, I throw rocks.

Greener Pastures

So over my many wasted and hopeless years of working at the shitshow, many people have come and gone. You see, when you work at a faceless corporation, many people tend to feel unfulfilled or as if they are getting dumber with every passing day. Due to this, the turnover of employees is extremely high at the shitshow since people typically dont like to make careers out of surfing the internet, sitting in worthless meetings all day, or dealing with corporate beauracracy. In my many years at the shitshow, I have seen people leave their engineering jobs to become the following full time:

-standup comedian
-freelance webdesigner
-bartender
-school teacher
-rock climbing instructor
-work at a furniture factory
-missionary in a foreign country
-photograhper
-low level politician
-farmer

Everyday when I sit in my lab and do nothing for 8 hours, I envy these people who have found greener pastures. I, myself, wish I had the drive to leave the shitshow once and for all and find a career which I actually enjoy. Because I envy these people, I throw rocks.

Shinning a Light

When I throw rocks I try to aim them at management and policies, people who might be able t change something or at least put in place a different failed procedure/process. However, in my early rock throwing years I used take aim at low level employees who were incompetent, the Bob’s of the world. While personally satisfying, no good would come from this. In fact some rocks would get thrown back in my direction out of spite.

Instead of throwing rocks at the human dead weight I now shine a light on them. Shine a light on the cockroaches. There are many ways to shine a light, here are a couple examples:

-When a “lead” or “senior” employee sends out an email that shows they are incompetent I forward it to their functional manager telling the manger I expect more from a person at this level.

-When a “lead” doesn’t show up to a meeting because they are “too busy to attend” (a.k.a. hiding as not to expose their incompetence), during the meeting I’ll ask where the cockroach is making sure their program managers hear the question.

Because I have to shine a light, I throw rocks.