It's About Liberty: A Conservative Forum
Topics => General Board => Topic started by: AlanS on August 05, 2014, 10:30:44 AM
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg#t=101 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg#t=101)
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One of the u-toob commenters made me chuckle when he said,
"You've all been in this meeting. And you all think you are Anderson. But not everyone is Anderson. Some of you are the other characters. Trust me."
In truth I am Anderson. I am the expert. And I do work for idiots like Walter and his clients. Years ago I worked for a guy who taught me an interesting perspective on meeting expectations - especially totally unrealistic ones.
Whenever he was asked if he could create or provide something his answer was "Yes, but it will cost you". He invariably made certain that the consequences of the request were factored in. And why? Because we work with idiots.
They'll ask you to refill the paper tray and build a full-size exact replica of the Queen Mary with the same lack of regard. They have no regard for the gravity of their demands because they don't have to - that's what we're here for.
So I always say "Yes, but it will cost you" because it satisfies two personal requirements - it acknowledges that I am willing to entertain their requests (no matter how foolhardy) but conditional upon their acceptance of the costs and risks (which I pad as necessary).
Edit: altard-proofed
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That's just damned cruel, 'Soup! Make them justify the expenditure (Capital or operating, you don't care!) and thus be accountable for the final result?! That's just mean, man!
::thumbsup:: ::whoohoo:: ::bustamove::
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I don't know how y'all do it, working with the publickkkkk, but kudos to you.
The publickkkkk is safest when I'm sequestered at home.
Transparent red lines. Yeah, okay.
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I am also Anderson. I was always the "expert" ( sales engineer) who was in there saying what we can and cannot do with the product. Also , if you aren't introduced as the "expert" and you aren't the one directly responsible for the deliverable.. you are one of the other characters..
The Sales guy would also cringe when I said we couldn't do it- but sometimes we just couldn't. Of course you don't say no. My variation on "it will cost you" was "that would be a feature request" - but in my case when they ask for the replica of the Queen Mary its because the people in the meeting have so little understanding of their own problem, they they don't have a clue what they are asking for. When confronted with this group I would have simply fallen into "We'll try and I will get back to you on that " mode hoping to find someone technical enough that they would understand the answers when finally given. Bottom line with this group you could have delivered anything and they would have accepted it, because they had no clue what they wanted other than getting this check mark achievement taken off their performance goals.
Life is so much easier when you stop trying to do things right and simply let people (morons) screw themselves.
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I don't know how y'all do it, working with the publickkkkk, but kudos to you.
The publickkkkk is safest when I'm sequestered at home.
Transparent red lines. Yeah, okay.
Actually in my experience in retail this happened far less often with the "public" - who are used to following a certain script in certain venues. This scenario is far more common when meeting with fortune 500 Companies because some edict to draw 7 red lines comes down from on high because some CEO saw a buzzword presentation on it in the stockholders meeting or in talking with "market analysts" This edict gets transferred to a group who inflates balloons. They then try to outsource the effort because no one in the group understands it - after all - they inflate balloons. So they don't care out it turns out, they just want to be able to tell the CEO the Red Line project is underway and going well. Meanwhile, they have a balloon that needs inflating, but they are pretty incompetent at that as well, so they take a hard balloon job ( like making it the shape of a kitten) and try and sneak that work onto the table and get it funded under the CEO Red Line project so at least they get something out of it.
I used this video this morning to explain to my children what "daddy does" - and they seemed to walk away with a bit more respect :)
BTW I posted this same thing under the funny things I saw on the net thread so a merge is probably in order.
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The conversation is here, so I'm thinking we can leave it as a double post.
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This is every software requirements meeting I have ever been in.
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I am sorry, I have run my own business since 2003 and have never been privy to any such meeting as this. Then I read from you guys that it is representative of what passes as business meetings. I am amazed the whole world isn't in gridlock by now. Do people like this really get paid to "do" this type of work. I feel sooooo out of the loop, please assure me this us just a SNL type parody of life.
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I am sorry, I have run my own business since 2003 and have never been privy to any such meeting as this. Then I read from you guys that it is representative of what passes as business meetings. I am amazed the whole world isn't in gridlock by now. Do people like this really get paid to "do" this type of work. I feel sooooo out of the loop, please assure me this us just a SNL type parody of life.
Lucky you.......
The world is in gridlock. heh heh heh
The bigger the company the more of these meetings you go too. If you don't have things to do, meetings are great because they are the best source of wasting time on the clock. If you have things to do, meetings like this are maddening, because you will have to work late.
The first company out of college was exactly like this parody. I could have sworn "office space" was written from inside that company too. It was a huge shock for a recent grad to land in such a dysfunctional company. The company founder was a good inventor, but was the worst businessman. It was a horrible experience and in some ways still clouds my thinking at times.
Can't imagine the meetings in a government agency.
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My closest situation to this was serving on a local historic preservation commission. Now that was a waste of time, but it was volunteer work that was not critical to anything but the design and style of a business sign. It set me off government work for ever.
I honestly found more fulfillment working in a factory after that, at least you had to produce so much per hour to get paid.
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That's just damned cruel, 'Soup! Make them justify the expenditure (Capital or operating, you don't care!) and thus be accountable for the final result?! That's just mean, man!
::thumbsup:: ::whoohoo:: ::bustamove::
Mama di'nt raise no foo :supercool:
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I am sorry, I have run my own business since 2003 and have never been privy to any such meeting as this. Then I read from you guys that it is representative of what passes as business meetings. I am amazed the whole world isn't in gridlock by now. Do people like this really get paid to "do" this type of work. I feel sooooo out of the loop, please assure me this us just a SNL type parody of life.
Large organizations become inherently unwieldy. There is an entire class of apparatchik whose sole function in the organization is to perform tasks that have nothing to do with the actual mission of that organization. The most obvious examples are the groups responsible for regulatory compliance. It's a big chunk of the economy, and it produces zero goods or services. The people who work in those specialties are practically government bureaucrats who just happen to be paid by private companies. They guard the regulatory regime just as jealously as any civil servant. That's where a lot of this sort of thing comes from.
There's also the inescapable fact that the more intermediaries there are between the one paying the money and the one being paid the money, the more nonsensical and ambiguous projects there are. Everybody's playing with the firm's money so who cares, right?
What this video absolutely nailed is how these types are incompetent know-nothings, yet always have the absolute grandest self-appraisal.
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"What this video absolutely nailed is how these types are incompetent know-nothings, yet always have the absolute grandest self-appraisal."
You cannot afford such waste in a small family run business, everyone pulls their load in a family business, heck, I'm retired and I still pitch in, "just for the fun of it"
Imagine if all this waste could be harnessed for something really productive.
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I am sorry, I have run my own business since 2003 and have never been privy to any such meeting as this. Then I read from you guys that it is representative of what passes as business meetings. I am amazed the whole world isn't in gridlock by now. Do people like this really get paid to "do" this type of work. I feel sooooo out of the loop, please assure me this us just a SNL type parody of life.
Oh, but the world is hip deep in stupidity. well, not all the world just most of western civilization. Look at what the Germans did following Fukushima nuclear disaster following a seaquake and tsunami. Somehow the feckless central government got the message that wind and solar can take up the slack for nuclear power and now they're paying for that bad insight. Here in this country we have dumb ass after dumb ass claiming global climate change is not only happening but it's man's fault all the while ignoring thousands of bits of information that are directly contrary to the premise.
My only hope, our only hope is for a destructive war that can wipe them all out.
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That's just damned cruel, 'Soup! Make them justify the expenditure (Capital or operating, you don't care!) and thus be accountable for the final result?! That's just mean, man!
::thumbsup:: ::whoohoo:: ::bustamove::
Mama di'nt raise no foo :supercool:
I'll give that an "Amen!"!
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I am sorry, I have run my own business since 2003 and have never been privy to any such meeting as this. Then I read from you guys that it is representative of what passes as business meetings. I am amazed the whole world isn't in gridlock by now. Do people like this really get paid to "do" this type of work. I feel sooooo out of the loop, please assure me this us just a SNL type parody of life.
Oh, but the world is hip deep in stupidity. well, not all the world just most of western civilization. Look at what the Germans did following Fukushima nuclear disaster following a seaquake and tsunami. Somehow the feckless central government got the message that wind and solar can take up the slack for nuclear power and now they're paying for that bad insight. Here in this country we have dumb ass after dumb ass claiming global climate change is not only happening but it's man's fault all the while ignoring thousands of bits of information that are directly contrary to the premise.
My only hope, our only hope is for a destructive war that can wipe them all out.
I guess they missed all the news about the cooling going on, record low highs in Death Valley, etc...
Here's to the Great Wiping! ::beertoast::
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I worked for a guy once who really is an expert in my field. Genius, I'd say without hesitation.
His stock line was, "You can have it good, you can have it fast, and you can have it cheap - but you'll have to pick two."
Some people had heard the line before and smiled, usually making some funny comment about wanting all three before choosing two.
To people who were confused he would continue, "You can have it good and fast, but that won't be cheap. You can have it good and cheap, but that won't be fast. You can have it fast and cheap, but that won't be good. If you want all three, you have to pick two."
He did it with a boyish grin on his face with good humor, but in the end he was dead serious, and with rare exceptions, he efficiently managed client expectations with this approach.
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My son's brain kept working on the problem... his solution?
Draw two perpendicular lines in green ink.
Draw two more directly over them in red ink.
Then draw the remaining 3 "transparent" lines over the now entirely Red lines
Because there are only two lines visible to the eye, they can still said to be "perpendicular" even though there are "7 lines" there.
My son is apparently an expert.
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I'm gonna gently drag this back over here ;')
OK, now fess up...how many in the position of the "expert" have dream sequences during the meeting where they pummel every last one of these morons?
;D
Truth be known I want the "whimsicalmamapig experience" ;) I just want to do things, to create things, to make things better. Unfortunately it's not in the cards - at least not for me. I live in a lefty world, work at a trade infested with lefties, and suffer through a time of lefty resurgence.
The interesting aspect that hasn't really been highlighted is how much PC figures into this mess. Discretion deters me from offering up specific details that would reveal too much personal info on an open board, but suffice it to say that in as much as I recognize that some of my clients are (shall we say) "challenged", most of my contemporaries are super-challenged - and the people I work for are just plain idiots.
I can offer up one anecdote. When I first started with this outfit I had a manager who disliked the tagline I use on my email. Now as a "progressive" company management encourages their employees to express themselves (in theory). One of those avenues to self-expression is email. I had noticed that most of my co-workers sported pithy sayings as a signature line to their emails. So I added my own:
"Political correctness is tyranny with manners." -Charlton Heston
I got (and still receive) huge kudos for it but my manager hated it. Several times she suggested that I choose something else. When I would ask why she was never sure but thought it would be "better for me" if I did. She was caught in a leftist dilemma - political correctness dictated that no one should do anything that might hurt the feeeeeeeeelings of a targeted audience, but at the same time she knew that I out produced every one of my contemporaries - almost double in most cases. And my work was peerless. No one ever had to correct my output.
In the end she reluctantly gave up trying to change me. She felt that she would suffer embarrassment from my use of the expression and I think that eventually she was relieved that the embarrassment never manifested itself. We got along well because we came to understand one another.
When she retired her successor was innocuous enough, and favored my tagline. After two years he took another position within the company and was replaced by a twit. This next guy was truly a blithering idiot. A consummate prog, he immediately took offense to my tagline and told me to remove it. So I replaced it with something twice as bad ;')
Soon enough he noticed it and confronted me (in an entirely non-confrontational way if you catch my drift) and expressed concern about my new tagline. I shrugged and smiled and muttered something about brevity being the soul of wit. He asked if I would change it and I said, "I just did". He asked if I would change it to something "less inflammatory" and replied, "Well that would be my Heston quote".
He (again) expressed concern about "what people might think" and I replied "Who gives a damn what 'people' think? Shouldn't you be more concerned about getting things done"? and entered into a Q&A session:
Me: Am I getting the job done?
He: Yes - of course.
Me: Is there a specific area of my work-related activities that concern you?
He: No.
Me: Are you receiving complaints from our clients about me or my performance?
He: No.
Me: Of course not. But are you receiving feedback from our clients?
He: Yes, all very positive.
Me: Have you had occasion to doubt my ability to perform my duties or complete any tasks?
He: No.
Me: So, at a time when you are having serious performance issue with more than half of your staff why are you insulting me and wasting my time with this extraneous bullshyt?
He: I wish you wouldn't use profanity.
Me: Sorry. Why are you wasting time on this non-issue?
He: I think it reflects poorly on our team.
Me: Bullshyt! (Sorry!) C'mon Phil, that's crap and you know it. I'm the best you have - likely the best you'll ever see. I get things done - the things that the rest of the "team" run away from because they are so difficult. I take on the hardest projects. I'm not afraid to tell it like it is - and to anyone. That's why the top brass come to me and ask questions - they know that they will get the unvarnished truth.
He: I know that but you're encouraging the others to misbehave.
I can't win for losing ;')
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"So I replaced it with something twice as bad ;')"
::thumbsup:: ::hysterical:: ::bows::
"He: I know that but you're encouraging the others to misbehave."
Suggested comeback - "Bullshyt! I mean, that is just utterly ridiculous! Stop treating the others with kid gloves! If they are screwing up and not doing their jobs, warn them of the consequences, document their performance and act accordingly! Stop being the cool parent and stop enabling these idiots to behave like spoiled children! You have to start doing your job better!"
Good luck with that!
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Bottom line is he didn't like your tag line, didn't like the previous one either, and was going to come up with any convenient rationalization -- no matter the stretch -- to enforce or emphasize his preferences. His reference to the effect on other people -- good or bad -- is common, as in, even with something as insignificant as a damn profile tagline, your first duty is to consider "the community".
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When she retired her successor was innocuous enough, and favored my tagline. After two years he took another position within the company and was replaced by a twit. This next guy was truly a blithering idiot. A consummate prog, he immediately took offense to my tagline and told me to remove it. So I replaced it with something twice as bad ;')
My new tagline would have been:
So let me get this straight... a tag line suggesting that Political Correctness is a form of tyranny results in my boss using political correctness as an excuse to act like a tyrant and demand that I remove it?
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When she retired her successor was innocuous enough, and favored my tagline. After two years he took another position within the company and was replaced by a twit. This next guy was truly a blithering idiot. A consummate prog, he immediately took offense to my tagline and told me to remove it. So I replaced it with something twice as bad ;')
My new tagline would have been:
So let me get this straight... a tag line suggesting that Political Correctness is a form of tyranny results in my boss using political correctness as an excuse to act like a tyrant and demand that I remove it?
Yea, that's a little wordy ;')
How about: "STFU he explained"
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"So I replaced it with something twice as bad ;')"
::thumbsup:: ::hysterical:: ::bows::
"He: I know that but you're encouraging the others to misbehave."
Suggested comeback - "Bullshyt! I mean, that is just utterly ridiculous! Stop treating the others with kid gloves! If they are screwing up and not doing their jobs, warn them of the consequences, document their performance and act accordingly! Stop being the cool parent and stop enabling these idiots to behave like spoiled children! You have to start doing your job better!"
Good luck with that!
In a stroke of managerial "brilliance" he did one better - he kicked me out of his group. Down through May and June things started coming to a head and I found myself increasingly unwilling to dance. I will admit that I crossed the line of insubordination by mocking him. I couldn't help myself - I was working 12-14 hour days busting my butt to make things happen (see: The Expert) and he was consumed with micromanagement - but only of the extraneous crap. Several times and at several crucial junctures he left me hanging or sabotaged me with "spot-checks" of procedural trivia. Sometimes I look back and wonder why I didn't deck him!
The day that I officially finished my project and announced that I was embarking on a well-earned vacation he announced that I had been reassigned to a new group that was coming as the result of a reorg. When I came back two weeks later I discovered that my new position was in another town working as an assistant to someone who had been a subordinate and doing work that was clearly outside my skillset.
I think that they are trying to induce me to quit but I'm not inclined. I find it telling that they would rather have incompetent help that kisses their asses then proficient employees. I have five years to go to retirement and my inclination is to coast - like the rest of them. I may or may not be able to drag this out for the full five years but I'm definitely up to the challenge ;)
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"So I replaced it with something twice as bad ;')"
::thumbsup:: ::hysterical:: ::bows::
"He: I know that but you're encouraging the others to misbehave."
Suggested comeback - "Bullshyt! I mean, that is just utterly ridiculous! Stop treating the others with kid gloves! If they are screwing up and not doing their jobs, warn them of the consequences, document their performance and act accordingly! Stop being the cool parent and stop enabling these idiots to behave like spoiled children! You have to start doing your job better!"
Good luck with that!
In a stroke of managerial "brilliance" he did one better - he kicked me out of his group. Down through May and June things started coming to a head and I found myself increasingly unwilling to dance. I will admit that I crossed the line of insubordination by mocking him. I couldn't help myself - I was working 12-14 hour days busting my butt to make things happen (see: The Expert) and he was consumed with micromanagement - but only of the extraneous crap. Several times and at several crucial junctures he left me hanging or sabotaged me with "spot-checks" of procedural trivia. Sometimes I look back and wonder why I didn't deck him!
The day that I officially finished my project and announced that I was embarking on a well-earned vacation he announced that I had been reassigned to a new group that was coming as the result of a reorg. When I came back two weeks later I discovered that my new position was in another town working as an assistant to someone who had been a subordinate and doing work that was clearly outside my skillset.
I think that they are trying to induce me to quit but I'm not inclined. I find it telling that they would rather have incompetent help that kisses their asses then proficient employees. I have five years to go to retirement and my inclination is to coast - like the rest of them. I may or may not be able to drag this out for the full five years but I'm definitely up to the challenge ;)
Sounds like time for a visit to HR because of a Hostile/Stupid Workplace. Or at least a talk to his boss.
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Sounds like time for a visit to HR because of a Hostile/Stupid Workplace. Or at least a talk to his boss.
Not to belabor the point or go any further astray but my new boss's position was just recently invented (inserted a new layer of management). My new boss's (also new) boss doesn't want to rock the boat, and my new boss's new boss's new boss is a hard-leftist plick.
The markings are on the wall (and it's done in my blood!).
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Yeah, forget the inHuman Resources asshats, they talk the feeeelspeak bullshyt and prosecute a deserving neerdowell if a line supervisor/manager has documented everything up the ying-yang 12 times over...but when it comes to punishing/gassing someone they deem a real threat (boat-rocking common-sense-loving logic-grounded Liberty types) it is amazing how fast they can manufacture shyt and kick a butt out the door! There are those rare cases like 'Soup's appears to be where the jackwagons will punish the productive but are unwilling to outright gas them, hoping to squeeze some productivity out of them until they leave...which they almost always do...
Effing cowards. I'd try to skate as much as possible, make it look and sound like you GAFF about your productivity but instead just give them only enough to make their choice hard one for them to know what to do next (shouldn't be too hard, since these people or limited to begin with!)...if you produce just enough they may chortle among themselves and think they've cowed another PITA right-winger and leave you alone...or they'll invent new ways to torture you...or a mix of both...these assholes can flip and flop all over the damned place and not making sense is an innate skill for these douches!
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You could have put some choice Rev. Wright quotes on your email, like the timeless favorite "G**damn America", and he probably would have been fine with that.
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HR folks are generally the worst and most incompetent people in a company. I think companies often push people they cannot fire into this department.
With some exceptions. In that company I noted above, there actually was a competent HR person. She was the entire department, due to the company small size. (about 50 people worked there at its height) One of the few I saw that actually did what an HR department is supposed to be doing.
This company may have been small, but the nonsense was at a huge company size. Like I said before, it was my first "professional" job after college. This company unique position in its industry allowed the b*lls**t to continue for many years. No one at the time could do what they do, so they could get a premium price and people were happy to pay it.
It was founded by a married couple in the late 1980's. At the time they were no different from any other in that industry. The were very small, and struggled to gain their footing. This was the story told from the handful of employees left from the early days, and it sounded like working there was actually fun and rewarding. Many times were seat of your pants sort of thing.
During the 1990's they got some great contacts (how they did, I could never figure out), and got some amazing contracts with some major firms. They bought expensive equipment to fill those contracts and did real well with it. Up to that point they did all the work with a group of people who they hired without really looking deep into their backgrounds and didn't care much about college or even high school had been attended etc. So they had some people who were loyal because nobody else would have hired them to do what they ended up doing. Not a bad thing, most of the those folks could and did do their jobs well.
So at that point the couple thought, we need to be more "professional" since we are growing. So they hired the HR lady. I was the HR ladies first hire (they had done it themselves up to that point). Unfortunately for the HR lady, myself and the people she hired after me, the couple weren't quite ready to give up control of hiring.
The wife was the worst, she would talk the talk, using every buzz word you could think of. But when it came down to it, she was a control freak. Everything need to be cleared by her. Even management were micromanaged. The managers (before they had learned) decided to increase morale by fixing up the break room (since many tech firms at the time were doing things like that). They put in games like a dart board, ping pong table, a couple of computers so people could check email etc. New tables and chairs, a couple more microwaves and an additional fridge to complete it. It was awesome and people loved it. For the three whole days we had all that stuff.
Since management hadn't cleared it with her, she was mad. Really mad evidently. All the stuff was returned. Even her husband (her business partner!!) could not talk her out of it.
The biggest problem with the wife running things, her interests had moved on from that business. She was more interested in her other interests, hobbies (since for the first time in their lives they had money) and a second business she wanted to start. So when nobody was allowed to make a decision the business suffered badly. You couldn't ask hubby either, because she second guessed him even.
At that point all of us hired by that HR lady had targets painted on our backs. We all got fired over time, along with that HR lady. By the time I got fired, the end game was clear. They had begun to screw with longtime clients, many they had probably busted their butts getting in the 1980's. They didn't care, since most were not "big time" like newer flashier clients. But they still brought home the bacon. The problem was the product we did was being eaten away (quickly) by better technology. Technology we had nothing to do with (we weren't a tech firm). They needed those older clients because they weren't going to new tech and frankly many wanted to keep doing business with them.
You won't be surprised to know that company no longer exists. The couple is now divorced (I think they had separated even before I got fired) and live across the country from each other (she in Florida, he in California). He now runs a business licensing to others the work he once did, but can't do anymore. She is out of the business doing something else.
It was an experience I never expected and sometimes wish I hadn't. It was pretty bad.
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Alphabet Soup: I admire your poise and discretion. The reason I started my own business is that I instinctively knew I did not have the tact to survive. Sometimes i think we should can the tact and just laugh in their faces and point out their absurdities. We enable them to stay stupid. We need to take back the high ground of common sense and rationality. Where are the Greeks when you need them? I once took a course at college on the philosophy of art, we got stumped with the definition of conceptual art. I though the prof and the rest of the class were all nuts then and that was in the 70's look how far they have come since then.
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you should have told him to tell them that when they're good enough.....