Category: Job Jollies

So today I contacted some of the people now working for me, to let them know about the reorg.

One of them was Bob (not his name), who oversees the Frotzing Group (not their name). About two and a half reorgs ago, Bob and the Frotzing Group worked for me, then the group was split out so that Bob was my peer, answering to the Old Old Boss. Then when the Old Old Boss got reorged away, Bob was still my peer under the Old Boss. Then the Old Boss got reorged away, and Bob and I were both working for the New Boss. Now I work for the New Boss, and Bob works for me again.

Got it?

In the meantime, Bob has Jerry (also not his name) working for him. Jerry didn’t work for me when Bob did, but does now.

Anyway, late in the day, having talked with Bob and some of the other leads under me, I sent out an e-mail to the entire group, including Bob and Jerry, letting them know about the new reorg, and how pleased I am, and look forward to yadda-yadda-yadda, etc.

So Jerry sends a reply back to Bob:

So, Frotzing Group now works for Dave again. What do you think of that?

Except, of course, he doesn’t send it to Bob. He just hit Reply and forgot to change the name. So I get it …

Well, what can I do but reply:

Well, I’m pretty excited about it.

Dead silence for the rest of the day.

Today’s Quality Lesson is …

Boss is visiting.

Boss is smiling.

Boss is coming to the house for dinner tonight.

Boss has approved a tidy raise, retroactive to when it sould have been in place.

So far, so good …

So here’s the scoop.

The Good:

I’m not sure why I find this funny. Well, yeah, maybe I do.

So I get a call this a.m. from my New Boss’ secretary, setting up a phonecon for this afternoon. Blood pressure rises, of course, especially as the afternoon wears on.

I mean, it’s to be expected, since last week was a Big Conference of Senior IT Folk in New York. But given the dead silence for so much of the last month, it’s a little … unnerving. It’s not like he’d fire me over the phone (though I suppose it’s vaguely possible it might have been a ruse to be sure I’d be in the office for someone else to come in and Do the Deed), but it could have been anything from, “Well, Dave, I think you’re the cat’s whiskers, so I’m making you Manager of Much Stuff,” to, “Dave, you’re now Third Assistant Bottle Washer. Oh, and you’re being transferred to Baton Rouge.”

The tension level didn’t improve when I got a call from the CIO secretary saying that New Boss wanted to push the call back half an hour.

So, just got off the phone with New Boss (actually, just got off the phone with Margie, since I try to remember to tell her this sort of stuff before I blog it), and he’s pleased with how things are going, and wants to fly out here to meet with me early next week, to be followed by another meeting of folks here the week after, going over how we’re going to reorg the department and all that.

That’s all a good thing, right? Sounds that way …

One of the great classic commercials was set in a Medieval monastery. A monk laboriosly caliagraphs a manuscript, then takes it to the Abbot for review.

“Very good, Brother Dominic,” the Abbot says, slowly reviewing the pages. “Very good.” The Abbot gathers the manuscript together, and hands it back to the beaming monk. “Now, I’d like … 200 more.”

Brother Dominic’s expression is just about what you’d expect.

So I’ve been slowly getting some feedback and input and assignments. The Big Boss has been sending me terse but supportive attaboys. The Mr. Consultant Man has been feeding me things to do, then sending back glowing responses, each time with an Abbot-like, “So now take a stab at …” Such as this assignment to design the Document Repository of the Future:

Now how about taking a shot at a requirements document for the environment we dicussed… Assume base Products of [high end database portal] and [mystery product I’ve just heard mentioned by name]…also assume it would be a distributed environment where by adding additional capacity should be as easy as plugging it in…Nodes should find each other and reconcile docs…Also assume that a document naming scheme would be based on allowing documents to “self-route” to the appropriate repository..

Use both sides of the paper if necessary.

I have no idea if the intent that this be a six month project, or a two day white paper. And, yes, I suppose I should find out. I guess it’s encouraging that this is thought to be within my abilities (and responsibility), unless it’s a setup for failure, but it still seems a bit on the vague side for my own liking.

The beat goes on.

Well, yesterday wended its way to a conclusion without the promised callback from my new boss. I even rang up his secretary to touch bases, just in case I hadn’t gotten word about something.

I drove home with my handphone on, which is a good thing, since he called, of course. We had a very pleasant chat for about ten minutes, from which I drew the following:

Um … nothing new to report.

I called my New Boss’ cell phone early this morning, since it’s been over two weeks since the “Here’s what’s been announced to senior management about yoru job, but don’t talk to anyone about it until we talk this afternoon” message.

I got his voice mail. I left a message, saying that I’d really like to talk about what he wants me to be doing, what I’m doing at the moment, etc.

Cue Maytag Repairman Tableaux. Crickets chirping. Etc.

I did hear from my boss-of-two-reorgs-ago that there’s a Big Summit of Sr. IT Management all next week in NYC. It may very well be that New Boss’ reorg of his department will be discussed and finalized there, and I’ll get my instructions as to what to do.

Or … maybe not.

At any rate, it’s not hurting my writing time any …

College buddy, maid-of-honor, gamer, good friend, and occasional commenter here, Mary, has been let go from her job (scum-sucking idiots that her former employers are).

If anyone knows of some volunteer coordinator, show planning, museum adminstrating, or general “managing things and making processes flow more logically and productively” sorts of jobs in the San Diego area, give a holler.

We’re thinking of you, Mistress Mary.

No New News or direct contact from my New Boss regarding What the Frell I’m Doing, but ..

… he approved the expense report for my trip two weeks ago.
… I got approval for my new laptop.
… he replied very quickly to an e-mail I sent him querying about some software he’d mentioned during my trip out there.

So I’m clearly … well, so far so good. Or not bad. I guess.

… before traffic in the area around the office becomes possibly nightmarish, with the opening of the new shopping mall across the street.

On the other hand, there are some pretty fine stores to have within walking distance at lunch …

Got an e-mail from my New Boss regarding some (or all?) of what I’ll be doing. It was a forward of the e-mail making the announcement to the senior IT management. It also told me not to discuss it with anyone until he calls me in the afternoon.

Of course, that was Tuesday morning.

I sent him a “Hey, don’t leave a guy hanging” message on Wednesday morning.

I think I need to call him today. Maybe after I click SAVE.

UPDATE: Got his voice mail. He’s in Europe this week, now that I think about it. I know he’s opened his e-mail (well, at least I’ve gotten Return Receipts). I’m reluctant to call on his cell … yet.

Is it a bad sign when you get a note from your boss (CC your peers under him) that, effective immediately, you’ll be reporting to his boss directly?

I am now (since the re-org, mentioned a while back), the IT Manager in charge of Documentation Services. Which means I’m the guy who gets talked to about global annoucements, web sites, and intra- and extramural communiques from IT. Woo-hoo and all that.

So one of the things we’re doing is rolling out a new consolidated web site regarding IT Procurement — how IT folks can purchase hardware and software for their sites. There are standards lists, contact lists for the Purchasing group, forms, and instructions.

Somebody mentioned, a week or two back, that while we’re at it, we should include some information about a directive that the CIO put out at the beginning of the year about how IT folks should go about purchasing Microsoft software. This particular directive will require a lot of extra effort on the part of IT staff and the business ops folks they interface with, but will also provide a much more solid set of data on how much we’re actually spending with Microsoft (long story there), which would indeed be a Good Thing.

The folks who think it would be a good idea think so because nobody’s following the directive.

Well, that’s cool. I can certainly help with that. One of the things I’m here for, eh? Just forward me a copy —

Oh. It was a verbal directive, to the CIO’s direct reports. Which may explain the current problem.

Okay, can anyone describe what exactly the directive said?

[Cue Peanuts Grown-Up Voice]

Uh-huh. Well, that’s interesting. Speaking as a guy who used to have to do that sort of ordering and requisitioning, here are two very common questions that will occur to anyone who has to do this, with what I understand the answers to be. Am I correct in those answers?

Silence. Shrugs. Scuffing feet. Looking at each other.

Well, yeah, I do kinda need to know, because if I communicate this info out there, then if there are any questions, they will come back to me with them.

Silence. Shrugs. Scuffing feet. Looking at each other.

Okay. Can someone touch bases with the CIO to get clarification, or perhaps get something in writing?

Silence. Shrugs. Scuffing feet. Looking at each other.

I don’t know if the problem is (a) nobody thinks these are important questions, (b) nobody wants to ask the CIO because he thinks this has all been settled since January, or (c) nobody wants to ask the CIO because they think it’s an idiotic question, or (d) nobody wants to make a statement about it because then they’ll get all the heat for it.

*sigh*

So. Let me see if I can get some answers. Including, if need be, contacting the CIO.

Before it gets published under my name, either I can answer questions about it, or I should know who can.

(title with apologies to Adam)

My company is international in nature, and has about 650-odd IT folks in it. And while I was complaining between the lines a month of so back about my job’s scope being narrowed and my being pushed a rung down the management ladder, it was somewhat gratifying today for me to send an e-mail to the entire IT group about the new web portlet my team was publishing (and which had been desperately needed for many years). First time I’ve gotten to do that in a long, long time.

Now for the complaints and political howls of outrage to start rolling in.

Heading home early today, since (a) Margie is sick, and could use the help at home, (b) I’m not feeling much better (but better enough that I get to play Florence Nightengale this time out), and (c) I worked through lunch and extra hours last Friday. So there.

Folks have exactly 21 minutes to call me and bitch.