Flunky See, Flunky Do

Basically everything done at the Shitshow makes little to no sense and adds little value to our end product. I have spent many hours thinking about our various nonsensical processes and the way the Shitshow conducts business and it literally leaves me scratching my head trying to make sense out of the madness. I mean for example, we write some retarded document that no one uses or reads which may lead me to ask the question "why do we even write this document if no one ever uses it" and some flunky will give me the response "well, we've always done it this way"......

After years of thinking about this, I have come to realize there is no logical reason why we do most of the things we do on a daily basis at the Shitshow. It's just that people have been doing the same thing for years and they learned that from people who were doing the same thing for years and it is a never ending flunky cycle. Much like "monkey see, monkey do", this is "flunky see, flunky do". If any of these people had any brains, they would question why they do things like this, but if they do, the Functional Management will immediately criticize them for "refusing to follow process" and this leads to nothing ever changing at the Shitshow.

Because my coworkers are a bunch of process programmed flunky androids who lack the capacity for independent thought, I throw rocks.

Queen Perfume

There is one Shitshow router that I feel the need to introduce, Queen Perfume.  If you’ve read the post about Shitshow routers, the example given is about her.   The reason Queen Perfume needs special introduction is because she’s a special class of flunky, she’s half Shitshow router and half Bob like.

Not only does she just route other people's information to higher ups, she is never around.   She shows up to meetings late and leaves after ten minutes (if she shows up at all) on topics she should own.  She “works” from home every Friday, and she never shows up afterhours even if by her role on the program she is the right person to be showing up.  Instead I get to show up, and pick up all her crap.  Her direct program manager even asked me for help because Queen Perfume wasn’t around and he didn’t trust her technical ability to be able to address her own problem.  I reported this to another program manager, in an attempt to throw rocks, and the next day he lectured me about being a team player.  It was like I was in Planet of the Apes.

To top this off, she douses herself in foul smelling perfume which lingers behind everywhere she has been.  Not to long ago, I thought I smelled Queen Perfume around, but she wasn’t in her office.  I decided to follow the direction of the scent to track her down.  Like a basset hound I was able to follow her perfume trail to the conference room where she was in a meeting.

Because I can follow the scent of Queen Perfume, and get lectured about being a team player when I point out I’m doing her work, I throw rocks.

The Young and the Talented 2

In my day to day experiences at the Shitshow, it never amazes how management thinks up new ways to under utilize people's skills. One of my coworkers is a very intelligent engineer with two degrees from an Ivy League school and not too long ago, he was sold on a new job assignment at the Shitshow as being "a good career path" by functional management. As it turns out, he showed up to his first day of his new assignment and his job was to use a digital multimeter and measure the resistance of wiring to make sure it was within operating specifications. Keep in mind that he did this 8 hours a day.....everyday. Dont get me wrong. This is a job that needs to be performed but by an engineer with a Master's from the Ivy League? Give me a break. This should be performed by a technician making minimum wage. Needless to say, this engineer has left the company for greener pastures after less than 2 years working at the Shitshow.

Because highly educated people's skills go unused and they become dumber with every passing day at the Shitshow, I throw rocks.

King Kong and the Zookeeper

So the other day at the Shitshow, I was in a meeting with about 10 people and King Kong was one of them and he went off in his usual primal rage and screamed his lungs out at me in front of a group of people for no apparent reason. Being that this is about the 15th time this has happened this month, I decided to go to King Kong's manager's manager who apparently has an "Open Door Policy"......from here on out, he will be called the Zookeeper since its his job to keep King Kong, and the other animals, under control.

So I walk in the Zookeeper's office and immediately notice Jack Welch (former CEO of General Electric) books on display. How he gag vomit if he saw how the Zookeeper managed his group of flunkies but thats a topic for another post. So I walk in and ask to talk to him and explain the situation of King Kong erupting into primal rage all the time at me and how I think its unprofessional and it creates a hostile work environment. The next thing that happens is the Zookeeper starts laughing and literally says this, I shit you not, "well thats King Kong for ya".......are you kidding me? I almost fell out of my chair. So I told him that I dont think a manager yelling at an employee in front of an audience of people is a laughing matter and he told me that I am being "sensitive" and then asked me "what do you want me to do about it?"......

At this point, I am utterly speechless and am wondering how this flunky became a department manager but I guess he just out flunked the other flunkies to the top. The Zookeeper then proceeded to tell me stories about how some program manager from some program dropped an F bomb at a meeting with him once and how he dealt with it. If only Jack Welch could see the Zookeeper now.

Because my manager is a total flunky with anger management issues and his manager, the Zookeeper, is an even bigger flunky, I throw rocks.

Employee Retention Policy

Gregory was an ambitious young engineer who recently got his Masters degree at a prestigious university. He was already highly regarded by his team as a high performer. Management might even have referred to him as "one of our top young guys". Like all high performers at the Shitshow, Gregory eventually realized that he was severely underappreciated. After years of hard work, initiative, and out of the box thinking, he had nothing to show for it. Not only was he grossly underpaid, he wasn't getting any real benefits either: no career development, no leadership opportunities, no creative assignments, no training that would give him actual skills, and of course, no formal recognition that would make him noticed by Upper Management. All he ever really got were good performance reviews, which somehow never got reflected in his pay raises. He always got verbal promises of being "taken care of" in the future, which always seemed "just one more year" away.

After years of broken promises, Gregory finally grew a pair and stormed into his Functional Manager's office. He demanded more money because, by golly, he actually deserved it. To his surprise, his Functional Manager actually agreed with this assessment. He couldn't argue. Indeed, Gregory was a very high performer and severely underpaid compared to everyone else. The Functional Manager told Gregory to give him a few days and that he will see what he can do. A few days later, he called Gregory into his office and told him there was one way to get more money: Get another job offer.

GET ANOTHER JOB OFFER?!?! That was the suggestion. As if that were not blatantly obvious already, his own company was telling him their official policy was to tell him to look for other jobs, and that once he found one, then maybe they could match the offer and give him fair pay. All the hard work and initiative that Gregory had demonstrated over the years meant absolutely nothing. "That's just how these big corporations work," they told him. It's as if your girlfriend told you that the only way you can get her to marry you… is to find another girl who will marry you.

So for several excruciating months, Gregory busted his ass looking for other jobs. It wasn't fun. He stayed up late, researched companies, sent out resumes, and prepared for interviews. He eventually got a good job offer. Needless to say, he took it.  Did the Shitshow actually think that after several months of strenuous job searching, he would accept a counteroffer from the very company that caused him all that unnecessary pain? Apparently, they did. So much for the Shitshow's ingenious plan on keeping around good employees.

Because the only way to get more pay is to go astray, I throw rocks.

An Abundance of Dunces

One thing that I love about the Shitshow is that when a program is growing, new layers of management are created so that inept managers can keep getting promoted. But when a program is shrinking, the level of managers stays about the same. Rather than simply fire the incompetent managers and keep the good ones, management creates several different strategies to keep themselves around.

Strategy #1: Promote yourself to some sort of sector level position, that way your job is not dependant on one program. There are clever ways to do this, just as long as you can attach yourself to a position where you can talk about things “at a sector level.” Even if you are just forwarding emails, now you are forwarding emails “at a sector level”

Strategy #2: Take on a dual role. Rather than just being a Functional Manager, offer to be Functional Manager/IPT Lead. You’re so good, you can do the work of two people!! In reality, taking on a dual role isn’t more work because Functional Managers don’t do anything anyway.

Strategy #3: Come up with a new process tool, then force everyone to use it. Once they do, you can make the argument that the new process tool is the most important, crucial element of the entire program. Without it, without you, we’d be lost. You can police everyone and make sure they are using the tool, make monthly progress reports on tool usage, notify people when the tool is down or being upgraded, etc. Get the tool implemented “at a sector level” and you’ve got it made!
Note: Make sure you don’t give any credit to the engineer who actually designed the tool and made it work, since all you know is how to check email on your Blackberry.

Out all of these strategies, you can only hope that your inept manager will take Strategy #1 because Strategy #2 and #3 will just create more work for the engineer. Obviously, Strategy #3 will create yet another useless process tool that will only take away time from the real work that the engineer needs to get done. With Strategy #2, the overburdened Manager/IPT Lead will delegate most of his work to the Lead, who will do it because they want to get promoted to IPT Lead. As a result, the Lead has no time to help the engineer or fill him in on anything. Thus, a lot of your work will be spinning wheels trying to figure out what to do exactly and why.

Because the best case scenario to get rid of an inept manager is to promote him, I throw rocks.

"Help Needed"

One of the things that I hate worst at my Shitshow job is when people ask me "do you need help" or "is help needed". In theory, this sounds fantastic. Think about it.....if someone is late or struggling, the logical thing to do would be to ask them what they need help with to get back on track, but of course thats only theory. In my current lead role, we are significantly behind schedule (par for the course at the Shitshow) and management constantly asks me "what help is needed" and I respond with the following:

- Non-new hire employees
- Employees experienced in what we are doing
- More computers
- More senior engineers and subject matter experts
- A realistic schedule and deadlines

Of course, when I ask management for these things, they tell me they will work on it but they never do anything about it. To add insult to injury, they will literally ask me every day, make me hold status meetings, and send out daily email all concerning "help needed". After dealing with this utter nonsense for months on end, one begins to lose his goddamn mind and start responding to management with phrases such as "the help needed has been the same for two weeks, do something about it" or "who cares, youre not going to give me the help I need anyways." Phrases such as this, while 100% accurate and true, do no go well with the management, as one can imagine.

This dog and pony show of help needed is just so when the shit hits the fan, management can point fingers every which way and say "we asked him everyday what help he needed" and try to place blame elsewhere. Another popular manager phrase is to say "you were not vocal enough when asking for help needed", but I would send 10 emails a day and leave countless voicemails.

Because when I ask for help functional management spits on my ass without the courtesy of even calling it rain, I throw rocks.