All Men Are Created Equal?

Somehow, somewhere, years ago some corporate executive decided that everyone (including management) should be addressed by their first name at huge corporations like the Shitshow ('Bill' rather than 'Mr. Smith'). I never liked that because it's just a phony attempt to give the perception that we are all equal, when nothing could be further from the truth. Upper management is so far removed from the everyday engineer that we might as well call them "Mas'er". You see, my manager "Bill" never invited me to his house or to go golfing. He only invites other managers. Hell, "Bill" hasn't even invited me to lunch and barely acknowledges me with a nod when we pass in the hallway.

It's even worse with corporate executives. We're supposed to call them by their first name also, in the chance they might take a surprise tour of our cubicles one day to "boost morale". Your no-good flunktional manager is sure to be standing right by him when this happens, with his nose firmly up the executive's ass.

"Bob, I'd like you to meet Jim, our sector president."
"Hi Jim," you have to reply.

"Hi Jim ?" The guy makes millions of dollars a year, flies the corporate jet, and drives a Bentley, yet I'm supposed to call him "Jim". It's ridiculous. He could crush me with one memo, and I'm just gonna call him Jimbo? Luckily, I probably won't ever see him again, so I won't have to call him anything.

Because I'd rather call my bosses Mas'er than their real names, I throw rocks.

A Tale of Two Cities - II

As mentioned in the post titled “A Tale of Two Cities” the executives recently moved into a brand new building. Part of that move was the renovation of unused space to turn it into cubical farms (see Time To Brag).

It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out the outcome. The executive building is actually pretty nice with granite and marble everywhere. It even comes with a gated parking lot of the executives. The executive floor is full of mahogany, cherry wood, big screen televisions, and leather conference chairs. It even comes staffed with it’s own security guard to make sure people have their badges and a receptionist to welcome people to the building. It truly is fitting for the flunky executives who lead the company into a sea of red.

On the other hand the cubical farm leaves much to be desired. In a move to be the “greenest building” at the Shitshow very few overhead lights were installed, instead they installed a couple of skylights. This idea was so well executed about 1 in every 10 cubes falls in a dark void because the skylights are too small and too far apart. To continue with the greenness, air conditioning and heater ducts were placed in the floor. In theory this makes sense, place the cool/warm air near the people instead of having to try to blow it 20 feet down to the people (the new City Center in Vegas uses this strategy brilliantly) but as you can guess the Shitshow did it Bob style. There was no thought on where the cubicles would be placed in relation to the floor plan and the embedded air ducts. Needless to say some people have constant cold air blowing directly on the feet while others don’t have any air at all. The last brilliantly executed green strategy was to allow more natural light in through 10 foot tall windows on one side of the building. What the Shitshow didn’t account for was the reflection off the neighboring building. Any cubical on the wall of windows in unusable in the afternoon from the the glare and heat being reflected into the cubicles. Lastly, in an effort to save money by not having to staff high school drop outs and grandmas as security guards (see Shitshow Insecurity) the building is fitted with a badge-reading motorized turnstile door. Of course the door rejects half the people who start walking through it. This causes a huge backup of people trying to get in and out of the building. In fact, one person had to walk half a city block to another door because he kept getting rejected by the door. Despite all these flaws, the building is highly celebrated amongst the Shitshow managers as a cost saving and green success.

Because the executives are lavished to no end while the minions are forced to work in a building (assuming we can get through the door) that the Shitshow could only be proud of, I throw rocks.

Gone Phishing

The other day, a manager at the Shitshow received an phishing email. For those of you who don’t know, a phishing email is an email requesting personal information that appears legitimate but is actually sent from a cyberhacker. I have to say this email was good. It looked exactly like the real emails that the IT department regularly sends us.

What is even more shocking is that we actually have a manager competent enough to have caught it. The manager asked our IT department if the email was real, and they quickly told him it was a fake. This is where the cleverness ends. The manager then decides to forward the email (with the suspicious link in it) to all the other managers and tells them “Don’t click on this link”. Then those managers blindly forward that email to every one of their engineers, with the dangerous link still in it. They didn’t even bother taking it out, or a perform a simple “Cut/Paste As Text” operation. They just left the dangerous element in there.

That’s akin to sending everyone a virus and then telling them “Hey! Here’s a virus, but don’t click on it” Of course, when busy engineers get several dozen emails a day, they’re too tired to read any of them thoroughly. Chances are someone is going to click on the link accidentally – a link they would have never gotten in the first place had their managers not blindly forwarded it in the first place.

Because management doesn’t know how to modify an email that they forward, I throw rocks.

It's just a matter of time

Last year I worked on a huge project, many hours or overtime were spent cleaning up other peoples problems in order to deliver the best product possible to the customer. Years of previous work were riding on this portion of the project. It was a hard time but we got through it and after weeding out all the bob figures early on, we actually had a great team.

9 months later the Shitshow finally gets their act together to give awards out just for this project. Really, 9 months later? In 9 months:

A non Shitshow company could have designed, developed and brought to market new products.
A human live could have gone through the entire gestation cycle and been born.
College students could finish 25% of their education.
Heck, it only took an additional 3 months to construct the original Disneyland

Because the simple task or printing out certificates and ordering lunch takes 9 months, I throw rocks

A Tale of Two Flunky Managers

As if working for King Kong isnt bad enough, imagine working for King Kong and the Zookeeper at the same time. Meaning both of them come to your meetings all the time and give you "direction" and "career advice". King Kong's typical career advice usually consists of him screaming at you for 5 to 10 minutes and then telling you phrases like "do this because I say so" or "I know more than you, Ive been doing this longer".

Anyways, I digress. Recently the Zookeeper made the project that I work on a "lean initiative" project. Who knows what the hell that means? Part of this lean directive was to prioritize tasks and make sure that each member of your team has one task at a time and not to start a new task until the current one is completed. The Zookeeper told me that if I dont use this lean strategy then "its my way or the highway". Nothing motivates people like bullying and intimidation tactics. I decided to start using this strategy because I have no choice and then King Kong comes to one of my status meetings and gets concerned we are "spending too much time on problems and not sarting new tasks to flush out new problems". King Kong goes into his usual fit of rage on me so I tell him that his boss, the Zookeeper, told me to do this. King Kong just sat there with a stupid look on his face and said he will talk to him about "the direction the project needs to go in". I never heard back from either of them.

Because Shitshow management cant even agree on a flunky management style, I throw rocks.

Why don't you?

Very few people know the true identity of Jacko, but those who do always ask me the same question:

“If you hate your job so much why don’t you just get a job somewhere else?”

What they don’t understand is that having the Shitshow on your resume for more than a couple years is like have an albatross around your neck. Non-Shitshow companies know any skills you might have had have been withered away by working at the Shitshow. In fact I know of a young hot company, ironically in the same industry, which automatically throws away any resume that has more than 2 years of experience at the Shitshow. Their reasoning is that if it took you more than 2 years to figure out you work for a Shitshow then you’re probably a Bob figure or a Shitshow-router and know nothing more than how to hold endless CCB, hold flawed RCCAs, and update useless Wikis.

Because the Rime of the Modern Rock Thrower is a tragic tale without escape, I throw rocks.

An Assembly-Line of Shit

There are several reasons to call your workplace the Shitshow, but in some cases, the building you work in is literally an assembly-line of shit. To be more specific, we have such inadequate bathroom capacity that the toilets are in perpetual use. The stalls are used so constantly that I forgot what a cold toilet seat even feels like. You’d think they installed seat warmers.

After lunch, it’s pretty much a guarantee that all of the stalls will be taken. In fact, there is a one hour window that you’re better off avoiding the bathroom all together, if you can hold it. Otherwise, you’ll have to try every restroom on the floor, or even go to another floor, before you find one that’s available. Usually, you’ll find the one with the lock that’s been broken for the past three years. Nothing like taking a dump while holding the door with one hand - thank you maintenance people!

While bathroom capacity is a problem, it doesn’t help that the quality of our cafeteria food can easily make you go several times a day. So even in the afternoon, it’s not uncommon to have to wait for a stall. This steady stream of new “inventory” creates a constant odor that never gets a chance to air out. In addition, the toilets get clogged daily, adding to the odor. Nobody ever tells anyone, not until someone comes along who has the ingenious idea to just keep flushing until it overflows all over the bathroom floor. This happens about twice a week.

Because bathroom capacity is so poor that we’d be better off making reservations, I throw rocks.

Blocked by the Shitshow

Recently this website was blocked by the Shitshow. Don’t worry; you can still throw rocks, and many times these rocks can be thrown from work. I’ll list some ways to still be able to read this website while at work

1) Follow the website on Google. If the Shitshow hasn’t blocked Google Buzz, new Throwing-Rocks post will be available in Buzz.

2) If the Shitshow has blocked Gmail or Google Buzz, you can subscribe to the blog with your non-Gmail email address. You can even use your work email address which will make it easier to forward to your co-workers, print out at work, and distribute hardcopies.

3) There are multiple options to subscribe to this blog besides email such as Atom feeds and other readers.

Because the Shitshow blocks this website, I throw rocks.

Savings Initiative - III

A few months ago, there was an article in a prominent newspaper that our program might be on the cutting board because of escalating cost. The next day, management sent out an email asking for everyone to stop what they are doing and start brainstorming some cost-savings ideas. They even gave us a charge number.

While it was a noble effort, it fell short in one obvious way: it wasn’t anonymous. These Savings Initiatives always fail because nobody has any good ideas, at least none that they are willing to share with management without fear of repercussion. There are plenty of obvious ways to save cost. The problem is nobody has the balls to suggest them. If management really wanted some good ideas on where to save cost, they should make an anonymous suggestion box. I could surmise what some of the suggestions would be:

1. Fire all the Flunktional Managers. Nobody knows what they do except go to meetings and check email.
2. Fire half of the IPT Leads. Most of them just go to meetings and check email.
3. Get rid of any metrics tool that is only mandatory because it justifies the job of the tool’s creator.
4. Get rid of any meeting that is only mandatory because it justifies the job of the meeting’s creator.
5. Fire anyone whose job position is justified by a meeting or a metrics tool.
6. Fire anyone in management that does not have formal business training.
7. Fire all contractors and just pay performing employees well, underperforming employees not so well.
8. Get rid of All-Hands meetings. Management is never honest with us anyway.
9. Get rid of performance reviews. They mean absolutely nothing.
10. Get rid of Matrix Management in general.

Of course, these suggestions would probably never make it to anyone. Afterall, middle management would be the ones compiling the suggestions. Any suggestions that might threaten their job security would surely get lost in the tally. But at least employees would feel better that we got to tell management what we really think of them.

Because I cannot mention the big white elephant in the room (poor management) as an area for improvement, I throw rocks.

I'm also gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday, too

As if it were a scene from Office Space my co-worker was asked to work this weekend. Turns out after months and months of work, peer reviews, and customer reviews some one finally noticed an error in one of the inputs that all the previous mentioned work relied on.

Imagine that, after all those wiki updates, new processes, and flunktional management “oversight” fundamental errors still make it through months of work before being noticed.

I’m sure a 6 month RCCA (Root Cause Corrective Action) investigation will prevent this from occurring again. Of course no one will point out the true root cause of a plethora of Bobs providing key inputs and college new hires writing processes these Bob figures are supposed to follow.

Because weekends are spent by the few good workers fixing the errors that Bob created following processes written by college hires I throw rocks.

An easy way to throw rocks

Some aspiring rock throwers think that throwing rocks is hard and takes a lot of planning. The truth is lots of little pebbles thrown at the same time can be just as effective as one rock.

One easy way to throw rocks, and one a method I use daily, is to regulate your bowel movements to occur on the clock. Think about. 5 minutes a day (10 minutes for some people), 5 days a week, and 50 work weeks in a year equals a little over 2.5 man days. This turns out to be thousands of dollars per rock thrower per year literally flushed down the drain.

Because at times throwing rocks smells better than Queen Perfume, I throw rocks.

Savings Initiative - II

So as mentioned in a previous posting, it’s that time of year again for a Savings Initiative. This time, the goal is to improve on schedule, and it's not the result of us going over schedule. In fact, most teams are doing pretty good on schedule, as evidenced by the fact that they got rid of mandatory overtime. So why the Savings Initiative?

Because we can always do better. That and the fact that a top Flunktional Manager needs something to do. And so he pulled out of his ass a goal to reduce schedule by 10%. Next, he assembled a team of individuals to identify problem areas and come up with solutions. Sounds reasonable so far, right?

As usual, the problem is in the execution. The Flunktional Manager handpicked the same group of introverted, submissive lackeys that he always picks for such assignments, then made himself head of the team. The team is comprised of the same old bunch of ‘yes men’ that failed to offer new perspectives the last time this exercise was attempted. But why would they have any new perspectives? Not only does the flunktional manager encourage new ideas by personally shitting on every single one that he doesn't like, but these engineers have no knowledge of subjects like Operations Management or Organizational Behavior (neither does the functional manager for that matter). They’re engineers, and non-creative ones at that. These dolts who couldn’t brainstorm a daydream in a field of dandelions. So what did the workout team come up with? Here are the problem areas they identified along with their suggested solutions:

Problem: Insufficient definition when creating schedule
Solution: Follow program guidance per document AP-492.

Problem: Insufficient training for making assignments
Solution: Look for opportunities to train where possible

Problem: Insufficient schedule coordination
Solution: Coordinate better with everyone

Problem: Insufficient communication on the teams
Solution: Encourage your team to have more discussions

They actually sent these results out to everyone on the program so that we may see the fruit of their efforts. While poor communication has been plaguing big corporations for decades, while researchers have written extensive papers on the subject, this team managed to figure out how to solve it in just one breakout session: encourage your team to communicate. Of course! It's just that easy. Why didn’t I think of that?

Because the Shitshow can turn a noble exercise into a complete joke by using the wrong tools for the job, I throw rocks.

By any other name

For those of you that work at a Shitshow and think my just switching companies things will be better let this story be a lesson to you.

John left the Shitshow about 4 months ago, for a company across the street. Having to put up with King Kong one too many times, John was fed up. Knowing that I was a rock thrower John recently sent me an email summarizing his experience at his new job:

“I was hired to work on a specific project for Jack. Once I started the job, the Jack avoided me like I had the plague. A couple weeks later Jack left the company. I thought this was a little strange but I figured my new flunktional manager would know what I should do. After talking with flunktional management I discovered the job I was hired to do didn't actually exist. Unbelievable, I made it all the way through the HR process, and the job I was hired for didn’t even exist. So flunktional management gave me some other job with no oversight whatsoever. For the last 4 months I really haven’t worked for anyone despite doing work. With little to no direction I reached out to the local gurus to see if I was doing the right job and what I was doing was correct. They all agreed I was doing a great job. Last week a greybeard joined the program and stared telling everyone I was all wrong and didn’t know what I was doing. He talked to the customer, program management and everyone else behind my back. Now the gurus who approved my work now claim they never saw it and suddenly agree with the grey beard that it is all wrong. Now this greybeard tries to blow me up in every single meeting and everyone thinks I’m a complete idiot. “

Because a Shitshow by any other name is still a Shitshow I throw rocks.

King Kong in the Elevator

So today at the Shitshow, I ran into an employee who has gone to human resources multiple times about King Kong and she stopped me to tell me a story. Before I tell you what happened, let me give the kind reader a little background on the history between these two employees. One time we were all sitting in a worthless daily status meeting to discuss "progress" and she was commenting on her problem report titled "Bad Attitude Seen in Test Case" and after she commented about her status, King Kong blabbers out "who is going to fix her bad attitude!". Nearly everyone in the room sat their speechless and just stared at King Kong as he started to laugh hysterically. Keep in mind, this is a functional manager......so she went to Human Resources.

Anyways, she stops me to tell me a story that she was riding the elevator up to the top of the building and along the way, it stops and in walks King Kong. She said she simply said "hi" and King Kong looked the other way and pretended to ignore her. I mean, think about how bad is this is? Two people are confined in an elevator that is like a box 5 feet by 5 feet in size. Shouldnt the flunktional manager be a "people person" and take the initiative to smooth over the incident? It seems like the 25 year old female employee was mature enough to at least extend an olive branch of peace and tell him "hi". You figure a 55 year old flunktional manager could at least be mature enough to tell her "hi" back. What a total joke.

Because King Kong insults employees and wont apologize and then goes on to ignore them in elevators, I throw rocks.

In Remembrance of... - II

9 years ago today, two employees at this Shitshow lost their lives in the 9/11 attacks. A tragic event for their families, friends in addition to everyone that was somehow impacted by the events that unfolded that day.

In remembrance of these two employees the Shitshow decided to put up large wall displays (36” by 48” or larger) as a tribute to them. The displays include their pictures along with a nice little biographical description of them. But as it does with every job, the Shitshow half-assed this job too. The pictures the Shitshow decided to use were enlarged from their badge ID photos, photos that are even low resolution for a 1” by 1” photo on an ID badge. The end result is pixilated blurry pictures of two great losses. I guess it was too much work for a Bob figure to work with the widows of the two employees to find a nice suiting picture for a tribute.

Because when the Shitshow does acknowledge a tragedy the execution is disgraceful, I throw rocks.

Savings Initiative -I

Well, it’s that time of year again for a Savings Initiative, where the whole team tries to come up with ways to save money on the program. In aerospace, there are three things that can kill a program: cost, schedule, and weight. Any time the program has grossly exceeded one of these limits (i.e. skyrocketing costs, way behind on schedule, or the product weights too much), Program Management delegates a Savings Initiative to identify the causes of these excesses and resolve them. Unfortunately, what management never seems to understand is the conflicting relationship these three areas (cost, schedule, weight) have with each other.

For example, two years ago there was a Savings Initiative on weight. All things fly in Aerospace so they need to be as light as possible. Everyone was asked to brainstorm a bunch of ideas on how to save weight and submit them to management for review. Most of the good ideas were rejected because they only saved a little weight. But some of the really crazy ideas got approved even though they were unlikely to work.

So fast forward to a year later and guess happened? The crazy weight-savings ideas added alot of cost, mostly because they couldn’t be built. So schedule falls behind as we try to fix all the problems the weight-saving ideas created. And that’s where we are now – management has now delegated there be a Savings Initiative for schedule. This Savings Initiative really takes the cake though because management decided to tackle this one on its own. To be continued…

Because everything management tries to fix at the Shitshow creates new and worse problems, I throw rocks.

Perks of the Job – II

Today a college friend who works in the entertainment industry told me about a company wide picnic she went to today, the second one in two weeks. This one was done to the tops: hot dogs, hamburgers, bbq chicken, an ice cream sundae bar, frozen novelties, cotton candy, popcorn, rock climbing, super slide, henna tattoos, face painting, carnival games, caricatures, prizes, and more - all for free!

Last week at the Shitshow’s morale event I had to pay for soggy tacos and to hang out on a rundown cement patio with my co-workers.

Because I pay 5 bucks to be demoralized at the Shitshow, I throw rocks.

In Remembrance of...

The following story isn't funny, but it is true. Sadly, someone at one of the other local Shitshows apparently took their life last week. I don't know much about it, other than the man was middle-aged and had worked at the Shitshow for several years. Then last week, he shot himself while at home. Apparently, the Shitshow that he worked at hasn't even acknowledged his passing. For the next few days, his computer was left on and his cube still looked occupied. Then after the long weekend, all his stuff was cleaned up and his nameplate gone, just like that, with no mention of what happened to the guy in cube 3N4B2.

And that's it. Back to business as usual. After working for several years at the Shitshow, the memory of him was simply cleaned up and never spoken of again. In the same manner that he vanished from this earth, so did his legacy at the Shitshow. Funny, I thought that one the most important assets we have at the Shitshow is our people. If that were true, shouldn't they at least say a few kind words?

Because the Shitshow can't acknowledge a tragedy and give its due respect, I throw rocks.

Overtime

One of the benefits of working at the Shitshow is that they actually pay overtime. However there are strings attached to getting paid overtime.

First of all you need your flunktional manager to approve overtime for a certain period. If your manager is King Kong, good luck with that…he can’t even approve a credit card charge. Secondly, overtime has to fall within certain rules such as it has to be at least 2 hours a day and be at least twice a week. Basically they don’t want people charging if they need to stay late once a week to meet some deadline no matter how important it is.

So this is how I throw overtime charging rocks.

1) During a busy time, ask for approval but get put the end date as far into the future as the automated process allows
2) Tell my program management I can’t work overtime until my flunktional manager approves it. This results in the flunktional managers getting nasty gram emails from the program managers until it gets approved
3) When possible, rearrange my task such that I’m charging overtime for overhead activities (like mandatory training). This sits off an entire chain of nasty grams and requires responses from multiple people.
4) When I’m in a position of loosing my sick time (it gets cut in half every year at the Shitshow) or vacation time, charge 8 hours for sick/vacation time then overtime for any real work I do that day. In fact Nunn once charge 8 hours of vacation time followed by 8 hours of overtime on the same day and King Kong blindly signed the time card

Because I have to jump through hoops to get paid for the work I actually do, I throw rocks and charge it as overtime.

Party Like a Rock Star

Today at lunch I ran into King Kong. Trying to connect with me he decided to sit down next to me and eat his lunch. This was a dream come true. Knowing he was armed with a cafeteria full of chairs, I treaded lightly. During our casual, “hey look at me I’m a worn out flunktional manager but can still relate with the younger generation” conversation he asked what I was doing this weekend. I told him that I was just going to relax and get caught up on personal business. He was shocked and somewhat disappointed. He looked at me and said “When I was your age I used to party like a fucking rock star!” I swear to you, that is a direct quote. He then went on too talk about all his cool plans for the weekend which involved riding dirt bikes and drinking. Very reassuring that a guy in charge of peoples careers and oversees multi-million dollar projects at the Shitshow still knows how to live it up.

Because King Kong still parties like its 1999, I throw rocks.

King Kong: A Love Story

So when you see horrible manangement like King Kong you often have to wonder how someone like that got into that position in the first place. So I did some research on King Kong and found at that he graduated from the esteemed university of Chico State at the age of 28. How freakin impressive! I also found that his father used to be a manager in our department.....well now this is all starting to make sense! I mean, how can a person so incompetent get into a position of management? Only at the Shitshow! Nepotism runs deep! I mean who can get away with having a retention rate of less than 5 years for all employees, throw chairs as a way to cope with anger management, scream at the top of his lungs at employees, have every project that he is in charge of go millions of dollars over budget and years behing schedule......that's shitshow management material if you ask me. If anything, the Zookeeper should be worried that King Kong might take his job for flunking more than he ever could imagine.

Because my dad didnt get me a promotion to management at the Shitshow for throwing chairs and screaming at employees, I throw rocks.