Charge Numbers

The other day King Kong called me into his office to explain a new charge number recording practice that the Shitshow is currently rolling out.

He explained that this will help the Shitshow and flunktional managers determine where charge overruns are occurring allowing them to create new targeted processes to eliminate future overruns.  In theory this seems like a good idea.  But of course the Shitshow’s implementation is laughable.   

Despite already having a specific charge number for a specific subsystem, you are now required to add an additional 2 fields of information to the charge number.  One field requires you to state what type engineer you are with a 2 letter codes.   Of course this code or the description of the codes doesn’t line up with the HR provided job title or functional assignment codes so basically you just have to pick whichever code seems the closest.   

The other field is a free-for-all which is defined by the program based on the suggestions by the flunktional managers.  King Kong then walked me through the 6 letter codes he suggested to the program I’m currently working:

script development, script debugging, script running, test development, test execution, test debugging, test preparation, test setup, test setup trouble shooting, test review, test analysis, test report generation, test report editing, test report review

Afterwards King Kong asked if I had any questions.  I responded with “Yes. Can I have a charge number to figure out what charge number I should be using?”  King Kong’s face immediately turned red and he then loudly lectured me, with spit flying out of his mouth for added Kong effect, on the importance of this initiative.

Because figuring out what charge number to use is the hardest part of my job, I throw rocks.  

The Politician – II

Like many bright-eyed new hire flunkies, the Politician joined the Shitshow because he thought it would be a great opportunity.  And like many college new hires, the Politician quickly established himself as a complete moron. 

The Politian’s first self direct initiative was figuring out how to reduce cost at the Shitshow.  He figured this was an excellent project to utilize his freshly minted west coast overpriced degree.

Many nights and weekends were spent by the Politician on this pet project of his.  After a month of hard work the Politian had his initial findings.  He figured out how the Shitshow could cut the cost of its namesake product by 90%!  When he shared the findings with me, I asked if he realized the raw materials made up 30% of the cost, he said “yes, but that’s because we don’t mine and produce the raw material ourselves.”  I then pointed out that most of the contracts were cost plus, so if he did find away to cut cost by 90% he’d also cut the profits by 90%, he just looked at me with a puzzled look on his face. 

The next two months, the Politician tried to share his plan with any flunktional manager that would listen to him.  He was dumbfounded why no one would take him seriously.  As ridiculous a failure as it was, it served as a realization.  He would need to hatch another plan to float to the top so he looked into the fast track program for new and inspiring Shitshow leaders…

Because the Politician’s story gets even more ridiculous, I throw rocks.  

I’m Going to Disneyland

The Shitshow loves giving with one hand then taking away with the other.  When you interview with the company they brag about all of the benefits such as vacation, 401k matching, and of course sick time.   What they don’t tell you is that what the Shitshow giveth the Shitshow taketh away. 

You see, when it comes to sick time everybody gets 10 days a year. On the surface this seems pretty reasonable until you’ve been there for a year.  After a year, then every year after that the Shitshow takes away half of the sick time you accumulated that year and throws that away. 

That’s right, if you’ve managed to stay healthy all year long, the Shitshow takes away 5 days of your sick time.   So the internal optimist would say will at least you still have 5 days, which after all is better than nothing, but of course that that’s before you look at what the Shitshow does next. 

If you leave the company on your own terms before you retire you loose all of your sick time, flushed down the Shitshow drain.  If you retire from the Shitshow you get paid out a whopping 10 cents on the dollar for your sick time.  So those 10 days a year only pays out half a day if you never call in sick.  What a deal! 

Realizing this, I throw rocks every year right before the date they cut my sick days in half…I call in sick and go to Disneyland!  Additionally to help burn those sick days I also use a full day of sick time when I schedule my 30 minute biannual dental check-ups and cleaning.   

Because the Shitshow’s sick day policy makes me sick, I throw rocks.   

The Politician

We’ve introduced a myriad of characters on this blog. Some characters are specific people like King Kong, T-Rod and Queen Perfume, while others are an archetype like the Flosser and Locomotive Breath.  Today I introduce the Politician. 

The Politician’s story is going to take a couple posts to chronicle to the depth it deserves so I’ll just introduce him here.  In short he has the intelligence of a typical Bob figure, is more self delusional than any new hire I’ve ever met, and recently racked up tens of thousands of dollars in debt running for a political office (while still working), campaigning against government waste not realizing the his job serves as the poster child for government waste.   

Because the Politician is considered my peer, I throw rocks.  

On the Fast Track

Because the Shitshow cares about career development they have created a fast track program for new hires to join.  Young and talented engineers can apply to the program and on their own time take on various projects working with various Shitshow executives.  The idea is to get these rising stars in personal contact with the movers and the shitters of the Shitshow. 

One current project the fast trackers are working on is communication.  Despite the company wide emails sent out, apparently non-vital Shitshow news isn’t being disseminated thoroughly enough.   The main cause appears to be people deleting the emails without reading them.  Imagine that, people who receive around 100 emails a day delete irrelevant emails without reading.  Sounds like an issue for the fast trackers!

I was fortunate enough to walk pass the results of the fast trackers brainstorming results on how to fix the communication problem, enjoy!

1)      Have the flunktional managers hold mandatory meetings where the information is read to all of the minions because people value what their managers have to say

2)      Place the information on the wiki because people often times read and post to the wiki

3)      Make eye catching flyers and post them around the Shitshow because people will stop and read eye catching flyers

4)      Place the flyers in bathroom stalls because people like reading while in the bathroom

  Because I can’t make shit like this up, I throw rocks.

Shitshow Characters: Locomotive Breath

To continue our Shitshow character series, this week we introduce a new character - Locomotive Breath. Every Shitshow has a Locomotive Breath.

Locomotive Breath - A close-talking co-worker whose breadth can knock you out at any time of the day, and has a habit of swinging by your desk regularly.

In the morning, he usually has "morning dry-mouth rinsed with coffee" breath. In the afternoon, it's a medley of garlic, stomach acid, and cigarettes. Needless to say, he never brushes his teeth. He has no idea how bad his breath smells, and he is usually in a leadership position where nobody dares to tell him. He also refuses mint gum when offered the hint.

Normally, it wouldn't matter if a random co-worker had bad breath because you could simply avoid him. But when the co-worker is your Team Lead, then he cannot be avoided. All you can do is hold your breadth and try to do listen. You must pay close attention and do exactly what he says because if you don't, he might repeat himself, or worse yet, he might come back and clarify.

Because there's no motivation to do work like the fear of suffocating from a lack of oxygen, I throw rocks.

Can you Cross Cover?

Last week, I received an email from Queen Perfume’s flunktional manager asking if I could cover for while she is out on her 3 week vacation.  I figured this was a great chance to throw a rock so I responded to her flunktional manager with the following email:

Given the fact I have more than a full time job just covering my own work, on top of mentoring a senior engineer two levels higher than me, and the fact I’m already doing half of Queen perfume’s job, I don’t have the bandwidth to do the rest of her job.  

Of course I never received a response from the email however my flunktional manager wanted to talk to me today.  I walked into his office wearing a Mickey Mouse t-shirt, jeans with a hole in them, and a 3 day old beard, telling him I didn’t have too much time to talk so if it was fast we could talk now.  He assured me it would only take a couple of minutes and told me to close the door behind me. 

My flunktional manager told me that some people feel that my emails are a little brash.  I just laughed.  He then gave me example paraphrasing the email I sent to Queen Perfume’s flunktional manager.  The only thing I could think to say was “I guess it could come across brash.”  He then gave me great life advice that I should be careful what I email and think about it before I hit send.

Because I’m the one that smells like a rotten egg after throwing a rock at Queen Perfume, I throw rocks.  

T-Rod - III

So I’m pretty tried today. Last night around midnight I received a desperate page (that’s right the Shitshow still uses pagers) from T-Rod.  From the sound of things on the phone, it sounded like things were in serious trouble, threatening years of hard work and tons of money.  Being a team player, I came into work to put out the fire. 

When I got into work, I again asked T-Rod to explain the situation. Even in person with him pointing at things and talking slower, his explanation still made no sense.  Being a little confused about the situation, I decided the best thing to do was to walk over to my own computer terminal and look at the data. 

After waiting 10 minutes for the terminal to boot up, I looked at the data T-Rod was so worried about.  I pulled up the simple window calculator, typed in two numbers and hit return and figured out that there was no issue and that T-Rod was even a bigger Bob figure than I had previously accounted for. 

Without getting into the actual details of how T-Rod was so wrong with a elementary math concept, I’ll give you an easy to follow analogy referring to time. We all know that a quarter ‘til 11pm and 10:45pm is two ways of stating the same time.  Well, T-Rod didn’t.  Seeing how simple his error was, I explained it to him even drawing a picture.  His response was “Cool.  Thanks for coming in man, right on.”

Because time is not on my side, I throw rocks.     

InSecurity’s Inaction

Every day, I leave work through the main exit where just outside there is a trashcan that almost always has garbage laying around it on the ground. I always thought this amounted to people with bad aim, missing the trashcan when they throw their garbage away.

As I was leaving work yesterday, I walked by the inSecurity guard, who was humming to himself, staring at something outside. I walked out the door and noticed what was amusing him. It was a crow, struggling to pull a plastic Taco Bell bag out of the outdoor trashcan. He has just pulled it down to the ground, but had not yet opened the bag. He began pecking at it, and it was just a matter of time before the contents of that bag were spilled all over the place.

I thought about why the inSecurity guard was just staring at the impending mess that would soon need to be cleaned up. I wondered why he didn't do anything about it? Maybe he was just curious about what would happen, not understanding the principles of "cause and effect". Or maybe he cared about the bird and wanted it to get into that bag. Afterall, birds need to eat. I'd like to believe that was the reason for his inaction.

But I know the real reason the inSecurity guard didn't stop the bird from making a mess is simply laziness. As far as he saw it, it wasn't his problem (a typical response from any Shitshow employee). It was the cleaning lady's problem. Sure, she probably gets paid even less than he does. He probably even flirts with her. But when it comes to making her life easier, that's not his job.

For a brief moment, I considered shooing the bird away myself. But then I thought, "Let the damn bird eat. What do I care if it makes a mess? This place is a Shitshow anyway"

By allowing nature to take its course, I throw rocks

Thank You for Not Smoking

Because the Shitshow cares about the health and wellbeing of all of their monkey minions, they have recently enforced a “smoke free campus.”   On the surface of things, this seems like a great idea, after all no one like having to walk through clouds of smoke while at work.  But as always, this was executed in pure Shitshow style. 

Before the “smoke free campus” was in effect, there were designated areas for smokers scattered throughout the campus.  These areas were usually some out of the way place where non-smokers never had to walk by or through.  There were multiple areas like this so a smoker taking a break usually only had to walk a couple of minutes to the smoking area. 

After the “smoke free campus”was instituted,  all the smokers now smoke at one of two places.  The first location is on the public sidewalks next to one of the main employee entrances.  So now, every person either entering or leaving the Shitshow, including distinguished guests and potential customers, get to walk through the clouds of second hand smoke. 

The second place smokers now puff away is in a courtyard that is shared with another company who by the way doesn’t have a “smoke free campus.”  Of course, this courtyard is at the entrance to one of the Shitshow’s largest buildings.  The old smoking area was behind the building near a loading dock no one ever used.  Now, the second hand smoke in the courtyard has more then doubled after the new policy was implemented so anyone walking through the courtyard is guaranteed to get a free lung full of secondhand smoke. 

If that’s not bad enough, what used to be a 10 minute smoke break has now turned into a 20 minute smoke break because smokers now have to walk off campus to get their fix.  Despite what the Shitshow would like to believe, most smokers keep charging their time when on these smoke breaks. So what used to be half an hour of wasted time is now an hour of wasted time per day, per smoker.  Way to cut cost! 

Because the Shitshow’s solution to dealing with smoking on campus is to below smoke in everyone’s face, I throw rocks.  

Let's Talk about Safety

The Shitshow sent out yet another mind blowing safety memo.  This time the memo is on tips for holding a great safety conversation.  That’s right, tips on how to have a great safety conversation.  Enojy!


1)  Talk about safety after someone almost gets hurt as they are more likely to listen. 
2)  Talk about the good parts of not getting hurt, after all no one likes filling out all that extra paper work if they do get hurt.
3) Don’t tell people about safety, instead ask them about safety.   
4) Don’t rely on generic handouts or memos. 
5) Ask people to stay safe and identify any unforeseen safety issues.
6) Make people feel good when you talk to them about safety so they have a positive correlation with being 
safe.
7) Start with an ice-breaker.
8) Be a winner, and let people know they are a winner.  People like winners

The memo then closes with directions on how to use these eight great tips. 

When using these tips to help you talk about safety, don’t use all of the tips at once.  You’ll find that it’s better to be use only 1 or 2 of these tips based on the situation instead of trying to use them all.

Because it’s safe to say that every safety memo is a complete joke, I throw rocks.  

Capping the Bonus Profits (BP) Well

So a few months ago, we all got an email from Corporate that annual bonuses will be capped at 5% for employees. Most of us brushed this off since we haven't gotten anything near 5% in several years. But in retrospect, we should have suspected that something fishy was going on.

Because when you think about it, it's kind of like having your wife buy you a life insurance policy when you're in excellent health. Kind of odd, right? Then when you find out she's been putting asbestos in your oatmeal, it all makes sense.

Similarly, when it turned out that our company made record profits this year, it made perfect sense why they capped the annual bonuses at 5%. And sure enough, when it came to bonus time, we got exactly 5% this year. Amazing right? It just leaves us all wondering what it might have been had they not changed the policy.

The best part of all this is how the fat cats benefited from the new policy, because anyone who is at a senior management level or higher gets stock options. And when we have record profits, it's good for the stock price. And when we have record profits and minimal employee bonuses, it's even better for the stock price. And even though stock price might go up half a percent, it can make the value of the stock options go up by fifty percent. A fifty percent bonus. Not bad.

Because executive bonuses are exponentially-inversely proportional to employee bonuses, I throw rocks.