Survey Says...

Today we returned to Eastern Standard Time. Again, my annual reminder of the feeble thinking designers of digital time devices. How hard is it to include a < back button? Sometimes I wish reality was a VCR Tape so we could rewind it back to a time when things were less FUBAR.

Yesterday afternoon, I anwered a call from some outfit that was conducting a telephone survey. Ordinarily, as a charter member of the Do Not Call Society, I'd have growled "Not interested" and then rudely slam down the receiver on the intruding bastards. But yesterday afternoon, the weather had turned nasty, which drove me to shelter in my basement office, ( which just happens to be next to the beer refrigerator.) Consequently, I was feeling somewhat mellow when the office phone (which does not have a caller id display) rang. Curiosity got the better of me, so I picked up the phone and agreed to answer some questions. (Full disclosure requires that I admit to really having nothing better to do.)

The overall design of the survey seemed amateurish to me. There were a lot of questions that were meaningless because they wanted Yes or no answers about things that were too vague to be useful. (Do you think your local officials are doing a good job? With no follow-up or expansion). I found those types of questions to be annoying and refused to answer them. After a few minutes it was clear that the survey was really about Mitt Romney and how I (as a registered voter in Mass) thought he was doing. I told the caller that Mitt should spend more time in the Governor's Office and run for re-election to that post in 2008. I would not vote for Kerry Healy for Governor - (The Jane Swift debacle soured me on women Republicans.) There were a lot of questions about an "Educational Reform" initiative of 1993.

I refused to answer any of these questions . ( I vote against any override or plan that would force people on a fixed income to leave town. Yeah, I know I am no longer on a fixed income, but I plan to retire again in the near future). Let the rich young yuppies who are moving into those Million dollar plus houses down the street pay for the middle school renovation project - I've been paying my dues to this town for over 25 years! The survey caller wanted to know how I felt about the current economy (Positive); Employment (Plenty of Jobs); and Same sex marriage (I have no problems with it). After 15 minutes I asked how long this was going to take. She said 10 more minutes. I told her to make a note that the survety was tedious and boring. From one of my underemployment jobs as a survey caller, I know that the caller gets paid on "completes" so I advised her to get to the end quickly.

This experience re-enforced my opinion about surveys. Most are ill-designed and therefore give ambiguous results. Besides, how valuable is the opinion of a beer swigging independent who has nothing better to do with his time? I would have liked them to ask me about Iran (Major threat to our best ally in the mideast); Iraq (We need to start our own "Oil for Protection" program); the UN (Useless and worse); Syria (et's drop the Big One and see what happens); 12 mile fishing limit (Extend to 26 miles); FEMA (Sounds like a gay rights organization. Well, I'm resigned to the fact that no one really wants to hear my opinions. I cannot side with either political side - since I believe they are both corrupt.

At least I got an extra hour of sleep last night. And I am resolved to install a phone with caller id in the basement office.

Murky Saturday

The weather here is Boston has been cloudy and rainy for at least two weeks straight. People tell me that this is what the weather is like in Oregon most of the time. I guess it is not surpirizing that the suicide rate in Oregon is among the highest in the country.

We are all in a foul mood. Everyone you meet is light-deprived and grumpy. I feel like going downtown and looting a big 48 inch plasma TV and spend the rest of the weekend watching Hi-def sporting events, and drinking beer.

But it is not to be. The inlaws have come to town for the gala family wedding celebration. The weather is not cooperating and our plans for some crisp Autumn leaf-peeping have been drenched. Most of the out of towners are sitting in the hotel, by the heated pool, pretending that they are in Florida. Perhaps tomorrow the rain will cease and we will at last get some light.

I was back to work this week on Tuesday. The new PM did not show-up. I found out on Wednesday that he had decided on a career change. This would have been disconcerting, in the light of other recent defections from the project team, if I were an employee who was invested in the successful outcome of this project.

This is the advantage of being a contractor: We do not take credit or blame for any outcome. We are viewed as leased lawnmowers. They bring us in for a specific purpose. Like a lawnmower, we are seen as work tools. Start it up, push it and it mows the lawn. When you are done with it, shut it off and put it in the shed.

Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining, I really like this arrangement. I get paid a lot and the works is easy. I just have to comment on it because it is a totally ineffective way to manage a work project. People are not like interchangable parts. And the "lawn" is more like safari grass than Kentuckey blue fescue. This is why nothing happens on time and under budget.

I got a call the other day from the Micromanager from phase 1. He has been asked to stay on and run the project thru the end of the year. Great, it will be nice to have some continuity, I said. But I was thinking, oh crap, here we go again.

Will this rain ever stop?

Endings

Well, the glorious two-week hiatus from work is about over. I could not have asked for better weather. I love this time of year. It was pretty busy, catching-up on my chores, watching the White Sox kick the crap out of the Red Sox, helping the kids find a new house and helping to murder my favorite cat.

I spoke to the PM for the new project early this week and he wants me to come in for the kick-off meeting next Tuesday (Monday is Columbus Day holiday. The day we commemorate the Italian invasion of India). Columbus, that erstwhile explorer, reminds me of a lot of managers. He had the right idea - If the world is round, then sailing West would take you to the Far East. The crackers in the bedlinen turned out to be the continent of North America which he did not foresee. So we are stuck with the term "Indian" when the correct term should be "Casino Millionaire." But I digress.

Going back to work should put me back on a less chaotic schedule. I have gained 5 pounds since returning to the free life - mainly owing to the inordinate consumption of Sierra Nevada's and Dewers. And snack food. The house has been full with children and grandchildren for the past month. They are staying here temporarily while they looked for their own home. (Their offer on a place closer to the town where they are working was just accepted, so they will be here until the passing of papers next month.) We are appalled at their diet. Most of the stuff they like to eat is prepared foods, donuts, fast food products, lots of soda and take-out. The pantry is full of tempting chips and snacks. These things we had eliminated from our eating lives.

Our disapproval of their food choices are met with obstinate dismissal. They are a bad influence on my weight loss program. We are very happy that they are with us, as opposed to being in California and when they get settled in the new place it should be less chaotic. We will probably miss the constant noise that is generated by young boys when they are not napping.

We are trying to figure-out the best way to tell the grandkids about the cat, which went to the vet yesterday on the one-way trip which we have been dreading. The cat was diagnosed with renal failure four years ago. We have kept him alive and relatively happy all this time by a weekly infusion of saline solution injected with a big scary needle. But, inevitably, his system began to shut-down. He lost weight, stopped grooming; he looked miserable. We decided yesterday that he was suffering too much. I stayed in the room while the Dr. gave him a lethal overdose of happy juice. Ten seconds later he was in kitty heaven chasing a fat mouse. I admit that I felt the same way Elvis described in the song Old Shep ("I had killed the best [cat] the a boy ever knew... ")

The new Roberts supreme court is currently reviewing the right to die case in Oregon. Conservatives are uncharacteristically going in favor of Federal Authority here as opposed to States Rights. John Ashcroft did not approve of the law in Oregon and his successors are challenging the ruling which blocked Ashcroft's directive regarding prescribing drugs. This will be a nice test to see whether Roberts is a conservative flunky or a man worthy of his robes.

As a man who has admitted to assisting in the peticide of a beloved cat to end it's suffering, I think you know how I stand on this issue. In fact, I would gladly have authorized the forcible taking of John Ashcroft's kidneys if it would have kept my cat healthy.)

The grandkids haven't noticed yet that one of the cats is not among us. (It is not unusual for the cats to hide from the little boys for days on end). But one of these days one of them is going to ask. And, I suppose we will have to tell them the upsetting news: The Red Sox are losers!

Micromanagement 101

I get a lot of mail here at the old Hellhole asking me that age-old question: "Do you work at my company?"

The answer is blowin in the wind, my friends. The answer is blowin in the wind.

Many of you are experiencing the agony of employment under a "leadership" team composed of insecure, smart people. Being smart can be a huge liability to someone whose ambition is greater than their management skills. Strangely enough, smart people are not necessarily perceptive when it comes to human motivation. They believe that everyone is either ambitious like themselves OR they are dumb.

The best managers are not geniuses. They start out as ordinary folks who realize that you can get a lot of stuff done if you can articulate a goal and then get out of the way to let your team members do their jobs. They ask for a status report every two weeks. Their main form of questioning is "How can I help you?" instead of "How long is that gonna take?"

Good managers are organized; and they are able to show other how to be organized. (For the record, this was my biggest personal flaw as a manager. I am congenitally disorganized and like it that way.)

Good managers have a sense of urgency plus a personal style that gets others to share the desire to get things done on time. (Another failing of mine. I was born without a sense of urgency, and deadline is a word that I find annoying rather than challenging)

Good managers recognize that not everyone is motivated by the same things. Most of us are still emotionally retarded and desperately seek some evidence that someone somewhere appreciates what we are doing. However, a lot of us are perfectly happy with the anonymity of a large bureaucracy and can reamain happy malingering indefinitely while waiting for our pensions to kick-in.

I recall a quote from WWII General George S. Patton, which distills all relevent management theory in a single sentence. Patton said "Every man needs a pat on the back every now and then; some men need it high, other men need it low." He was a genius.

Unfortunately, those smart, insecure people that have risen to "leadership" positions in your company are just victims of the Peter Principle. This means that they probably got promoted from a job where they really were competent into a job where they suck. They are trapped.

In their hearts, they may suspect that they suck in the new job , but cannot accept the possibility that everyone else might share that opinion - especially those higher up in the food chain. So, they work harder. Hard work always made them successful in the past, before they got into management.

So, they become hapless workaholics. Micromanagers delude themselves into the belief that they must be the best brave to earn the title of Chief. They need to know more than everyone else. Everything that happens must be their idea. They come to assume that everyone on their team is sitting around, waiting to be told what to do next.

For those of us who are mature, competent workers, micromanagers suck all the joy and sense of accomplishment out of working. We become seduced into following the easy path of going along, letting the boss have his way without resistance. We end-up as mere followers-of-orders, eroding our own self-esteem, doing exactly what we are told, assuming no ownership, no sense of responsibility and no loyalty to the job at hand.

Eventually, most Micromanagers will burn themselves out, or - if they are lucky - smarten up before they crash and burn. However that damage they do to their organizations and subordinates echoes for a long time.