Category Archives: work

Demoted…

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At midnight tonight I’ll officially be reduced in grade and my supervisory authority will cease to be. I’ll revert to being a simple action officer – working projects and meeting deadlines. The only timesheet and evaluation I’ll have to worry about are my own. The only training I need to think about is mine. I’ll be back in the organizational sweet spot of being a technical expert. If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll get to feel like part of the solution instead of part of the problem… and make a few extra dollars for my troubles.

All things considered… Best. Demotion. Ever.

Closed door…

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There’s a good chance that when I’m sitting in an office alone with the door closed I’m doing something important and I don’t want to be interrupted. The closed door should have been a dead giveaway. The shake of my head when you peered through the window could have been another good indication. The look of disbelief followed one of smoldering hatred when you walked in and started talking about getting your timesheet signed should probably have stopped you dead in your tracks. But no, despite the voices coming out of the speakerphone middle of the table, I actually had to tell you that I was on a teleconference and that no, this wasn’t a good time for us to discuss it. Actually, I think the exact phrase was “Christ on a crutch, I’m on a call here. Get the eff out.”

Fact is, I was doing a phone interview for a promotion with a different big government agency. If I don’t get the position, I know who I will forever blame for it. If my boss was sitting behind closed doors, wandering in just to discuss routine operational questions would be the furthest thing from my mind. The door’s closed for a reason. If it’s critical, I’ll make my own decision, leave a note, or send an email, but unless the fence line is about to be overrun by shotgun toting rednecks, I’m not taking it upon myself to decided whatever’s on my mind is more important than whatever the boss happens to be working on.
Good judgment, I suppose, isn’t something I should expect… but the ability of people to operate without me at my desk for 30 minutes seems like something they should be able to manage. Or not.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of previously de-published blogs appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

A matter of priorities…

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So far we’ve had two meetings today with the Uberboss. One topic was a training program that no one wants to participate in and the other is about a report that literally no one is going to read. How do I know that no one will read it? Easy. The office that requested the report in the first place no longer exists. But I digress.

I’m not saying that management has its priorities jacked up, but at some point in the near future, we might want to actually schedule a meeting about the year’s budget request that has been rejected twice now by the home office. Way back when dinosaurs ruled the earth and I was an MBA student, I learned that having a budget and sticking to it was among the most important things I needed to do as a manager. Maybe I missed the day when they went over the part where they were joking and really the budget was just something you should blow off since no one really needs money anyway. Or maybe he just went to a different school.

So, once again our fearless leader is at war with his own superiors. Yeah, I’m sure this is going to end well. Maybe we should just schedule a meeting to talk about new signage for office doors… Which would be funny if it weren’t already on the calendar for next week.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of previously de-published blogs appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Telework…

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Not long ago We received the following message from our Operations office: The facility will remain closed today. By direction of the Uberboss, no one will report to work. Personnel can work from home. Please check Facebook in the morning to find out if we will be open tomorrow.

This is fine, except for two issues. The first and easiest to address is that I’m pretty sure 60% of the people in this office don’t know Facebook from Foosball. It works fine for those of us who aren’t horrified by the very thought of the internet, but for the rest, well, I guess they’ll figure it out when they show up and the lights are off.

The second issue is more telling. Feeling cheeky (imagine that), I asked simply, if “personnel can work from home” means we are authorized to telework. No, came the response from the Uberboss, it means you’re authorized to work from “an alternate workplace. We don’t telework. I don’t believe in telework.” So, yeah, we’re authorized to work from home – as long as we don’t call it telework, apparently. This would be more reassuring if it wasn’t coming from the guy who thinks you need to have paper on your desk to actually qualify as doing work.

Why on earth someone would think that an information age employee needs to be physically located in an office during pre-determined hours is simply beyond me. We don’t create physical products. Our office isn’t open to customers – We’re behind a locked door, behind a security guard, behind a fence toped with razor wire for God’s sake. It’s not like a customer is going to accidentally wander in and discover that none of the project managers were actually there. The fact is we don’t telework because then the Uberboss can’t see us and would actually have to rely on managerial skill to make sure projects were being finished well and on time. Easier to just wander by, ask why there isn’t paperwork on your desk, tell you do do something random and unrelated to your primary function, and wander off to annoy the next employee.

At least I’ll never have to wonder what it’s like living in the 19th century. From where I’m sitting it seems to be filled with a whole bunch of stupid.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of previously de-published blogs appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Funny (not)…

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Anyone who has worked in a cubicle farm for any length of time knows that the “open” work concept is basically one step removed from hell. You can’t have a private conversation, unless you take you cell phone to the hallway or parking lot. Everything on your desk is considered community property. And worse yet are the people who think you need to talk to them or interact in some way simply because you happen to be in their line of site most of the day. The fact is that no, I don’t want to see the hilarious e-card some random person sent you because a) it’s not going to be actually funny; b) I don’t really care; c) I only tolerate you because I don’t want to get sued for saying something inappropriate.

It’s nothing personal, though. That’s how I feel about most things and people. What I’d really like you to do is bugger off so I can at least make a vain attempt at getting some of my work done. Baring that, I’d at least like to be able to sit quietly and try to identify the exact moment where my career plummeted off the rails.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of previously de-published blogs appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Getting short…

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There’s something very freeing about working on short time. As I’m reeding the calendar these days, I’ve got a grand total of 5 days when I’m actually going to be in the office out of the 14 that I’ll officially be carried on the roles of the Engineer Regiment. In school it was called senioritis. Here, it’s called short-timer’s syndrome and impacts everyone who is near retirement or who is on the way, but hasn’t completed out-processing. Symptoms are a generalized loosening of the tongue and a Give-a-Shit indicator that’s plummeting towards zero. It’s a few days in the middle of a career when the job you’re leaving doesn’t matter all that much because all you’re really worried about dealing with is the personal minutia that will get you out of town and the pressure of making a good first impression at the new job hasn’t spooled up yet. It’s like the peaceful calm at the eye of a hurricane… and I’d never realized it before, but it’s a hellofa fun place to be.

I’m going to enjoy my short timer status for the next few days, wrap up a few loose ends, and say my professional smell ya laters on my own timeline. If I happen to get any work of major import done between now and next Friday, you can be pretty sure that it’s purely a fortunate accident because I’m pretty much focused like a laser on the making as expeditious an exit as possible. For now, everything else is background noise.

Guesswork…

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We’ve had three successive meetings this week about the exact same topic – Which 10-12 people are “essential” to continue operating in an emergency even if that means they must work from a fallback location somewhere outside the commuting area. Also of topic: Are we calling things the correct name? – Crisis Action versus Crisis Management. Continuity of operations versus relocation. Telework versus alternate workplace – but what no one is talking about is how they intend to pay for any of it or where people might reasonably be expected to go. Which is all well and good until someone actually wants to put their plans, and I use that term loosely, into action.

What I’m guessing will happen at that point is 75% of people who you previously decided are essential are going to be launched to the four winds trying to find safe shelter for their families or themselves, trying to keep their home from being overrun by floodwater or looters, or will just plain decided they want to go somewhere else when the excrement intersects with the ventilator. Fact is that you can give people whatever title you want, but you can’t make them do much of anything once they’re outside the four walls. That’s one of the perks of being a civilian instead of a soldier.

Until you can actually start answering some of the hard questions, good luck in trying to nail things down how anything might actually works in a worst case scenario. What you’re doing is not planning, it’s charitably described as guesswork.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of previously de-published blogs appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

General alarm…

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For the record, when the building is locked down and employees have been told to “shelter in place,” it’s not a good idea to send people out of the designated safe zones to track down people elsewhere in the building. We have these fancy things called telephones on our desks that are like search parties, but not as apt to end up getting you smashed on the head or eviscerated by flying debris. Also, your senior staff and supervisors all are issued cell phones/blackberries. Texting and email works pretty well on those even when you can’t get a call out. Plus, you’re paying like $10k a month for them so why not given them a workout?

I won’t even go into how we heard nothing from your vaunted security and operations staff. MIA. The whole time we were locked down. I have to admit that telling the director of the organization with which we share the building that we didn’t want to talk to them about what went well and what didn’t was a nice touch… Especially since we’re technically their tenant. I mean we certainly wouldn’t want to consider ways we could do things more effectively in the future. Way to make friends and influence people. The two senior people in the building continuing their urination contest during a period of crisis is sure to fill the workforce with a sense of confidence in their leaders. Nice work, Captain Queeg.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of previously de-published blogs appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Dan Rather…

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Everyone has their quirks, but the one that probably annoys me most (at the moment) is one individual who has taken to providing regular accounts of the morning’s news to me before I even sit down at my desk in the morning. I’m not exaggerating. He’s standing at my right elbow before I’ve even set my bag down each morning and starts in with whatever “emergencies” are happening around the country. If there are no fires or earthquakes, he’s on to the local news and weather… and I’m still trying to get my computer booted. This drones on for 20-30 minutes every morning despite my best efforts to politely redirect his attention and sometimes my blatantly impolite efforts of staring at the now-booted monitor and responding to his review of the highlight reel with the occasional grunt. Uh huh.

I’m deeply interested in the events of the world. Before I get to the office, I’ve usually at least scanned the headlines of the local paper, the New York Times, CNN, and the Washington Post. If it’s a light news day, I’ve probably already looked over Drudge and the AP wire as well. But at half past six in the morning, I don’t want to have a philosophical conversation about what’s going on anywhere. What I want to do is spend the first 30 minutes of the day focusing on email that came in over night and otherwise preparing for the day before the rest of the staff wanders in. But no, instead of doing that, it’s like I’ve got my own dim witted Dan Rather giving me a daily morning news brief.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of previously de-published blogs appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Just like that…

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I’ve had nine months to think about what this post would look like, but surprisingly it’s not one that I started working on in advance. Now that the day of jubilee has arrived, I find myself at something of a loss for words. How do I sum up the experience that has been finding my eject handle? Is it defined by the statistics? 273 days on the hunt. 91 days of frozen time. 385 resumes submitted. Sometimes I felt like I could count off the hours of each one of those days. Almost a year of complete confidence tempered by false starts and rejections. And then moments of unadulterated joy. Whatever the moment is, it’s not defined by the statistics.

I’m feeling very conscious of those who made the jump before I have. Of how much I miss them and how much I’ll miss a few of those I’ll leave behind. I’m conscious now more than ever of home, of family, and of friends from whom I’ve been too long separated. They say you can’t go home again. I’ve been away long enough to know that everything has changed – and that nothing that matters has really changed. I’m coming home and I’ll take it as I find it, changes and all.

There is plenty of time to go into specifics later. For now, let it suffice to know that tonight I will sleep the sleep of the vindicated. My great experiment in Memphis is drawing to an end. I’ve survived my ride on the crazy train. And I’m coming home.

When I sat down to write, I thought this post would be a valedictory. It seems my nerves are still too raw for that kind of triumphalism. Give me a day or two for the reality to sink in, though, and it’s a fair bet that you’ll be reading posts with some serious swagger.