There was a small news item in the paper last week announcing that construction work on the new World Trade Center in New York City had begun. Strangely enough, this coincided with the opening of the movie "United 93." I am not ready to see this flick, yet, and I object to someone making capital on this event.
Does anyone need this movie as a reminder of the horrific events of September 11th 2001? Maybe the leaders of the country will be jolted into finally doing something about securing our borders and ports.
As for the WTC, why would anyone want to work in the rebuilt towers? Isn't that just asking for trouble?
One of the criteria of any future job for me is "nothing in an office higher than the fourth floor."
4/29/2006
4/20/2006
A Bad day Fishing
They say that a bad day fishing is better than a good day at work. I'm not so sure about that. Recently, I went deep sea fishing with some pals. I know what you are thinking: Isn't it rushing the season? But, the weather forecast was Sunny 55 degrees 15 knot wind.
As it turned out, this might have been the correct forecast for Miami. But off the coast of Boston's North Shore the conditions were slightly less balmy. It was more like 38 degrees, cloudy and 25 knot wind.
We left the dock at 7am. Hoping for warm, calm seas. But the seas outside the harbor were as rough as I have ever experienced. Rough indeed - as attested to by the numbers of experienced fishermen leaning over the side tossing their breakfast donuts into the roiling waves. "We have chum!" yelled one guy as his buddy lurched to the rail and launched his breakfast into the 4 foot swells. A lot of people - who had paid $70 to come on this trip - were sitting or lying on benches in the cabin, sincerely regretting that decision. I felt compassion for them - sick as a dog on the way out. There is no turning back, so they had a miserable day to look forward to.
After plowing through the gray water for an hour or so, we - those of us who were not heaving our guts - finally got our gear - thick deep sea rods with 60 pound line and 3lb sinkers to hold the bait down on the swirling ocean floor. There is no casting involved. Thirty or forty guys arrange themselves around the rail and wait for the captian to yell "Ok, drop your lines."
The bait is sea clams. The crew hands out small buckets of the raw clam pieces that have been cut up. On this particular morning the bait was still frozen. Some guys had the foresight to wear fishing gloves. I was unprepared and had to bait my hook with bare hands. Funny how you can stick the hook into your freezing thumb and not realize it until you notice your own blood dripping on the deck. You start to lose consciousness as your life force squirts into the scuppers. Your childhood passes by in your mind's eye. Death by rusty hook and clam guts is imminent. Then someone gives you a band-aid and you pull yourself together and keep fishing.
Something nibbles on your line. You reel-in 200 feet of nylon to discover a very small cod fish, who looks annoyed. Some of the guys laugh and want to take you picture with the minnow before you throw him back to whence he (or she) came. You ignore the jeers and mockery. You bait-up (carefully this time) and drop your line, again.
The day proceeds in this manner. Others nearby catch fish. Keepers. But you seem to have chosen a "dead spot" on the boat. Nothing nibbles again. And the sea remains cold and rough. From time to time no one is catching anything. The Captain orders everyone to reel-in, and he cranks up the engines and plows to a new spot. During these breaks we find time to quaff a few brewskies and eat lunch. Eating and drinking is important to keep from getting seasick with all the rolling around in the giant seas. We all admitted to feeling queasy, but the antidote is food and beer. Still, it is less than a cullinary delight to be munching your sandwich while one of the other pale and unhappy fisherman is spewing into a nearby garbage can.
Finally, around 3pm, the Captain declared that it was time to go in. Music to my ears. I had not caught anything, and in fact had given up the further pursuit of fish, and instead bobbed for beers in the cooler. I was much more successful in the beer department, and by the time we were again in sight of land, a comforting buzz had descended upon me. I think I napped during the return trip.
On the way home in the car, fishless, starting to worry about tetnus in my throbbing thumb, I summed up the day: I think I would rather have been sitting in a warm cube, documenting database attributes, not rocking the boat, on a project headed-up by a micromanaging nitpicker, getting paid.
As it turned out, this might have been the correct forecast for Miami. But off the coast of Boston's North Shore the conditions were slightly less balmy. It was more like 38 degrees, cloudy and 25 knot wind.
We left the dock at 7am. Hoping for warm, calm seas. But the seas outside the harbor were as rough as I have ever experienced. Rough indeed - as attested to by the numbers of experienced fishermen leaning over the side tossing their breakfast donuts into the roiling waves. "We have chum!" yelled one guy as his buddy lurched to the rail and launched his breakfast into the 4 foot swells. A lot of people - who had paid $70 to come on this trip - were sitting or lying on benches in the cabin, sincerely regretting that decision. I felt compassion for them - sick as a dog on the way out. There is no turning back, so they had a miserable day to look forward to.
After plowing through the gray water for an hour or so, we - those of us who were not heaving our guts - finally got our gear - thick deep sea rods with 60 pound line and 3lb sinkers to hold the bait down on the swirling ocean floor. There is no casting involved. Thirty or forty guys arrange themselves around the rail and wait for the captian to yell "Ok, drop your lines."
The bait is sea clams. The crew hands out small buckets of the raw clam pieces that have been cut up. On this particular morning the bait was still frozen. Some guys had the foresight to wear fishing gloves. I was unprepared and had to bait my hook with bare hands. Funny how you can stick the hook into your freezing thumb and not realize it until you notice your own blood dripping on the deck. You start to lose consciousness as your life force squirts into the scuppers. Your childhood passes by in your mind's eye. Death by rusty hook and clam guts is imminent. Then someone gives you a band-aid and you pull yourself together and keep fishing.
Something nibbles on your line. You reel-in 200 feet of nylon to discover a very small cod fish, who looks annoyed. Some of the guys laugh and want to take you picture with the minnow before you throw him back to whence he (or she) came. You ignore the jeers and mockery. You bait-up (carefully this time) and drop your line, again.
The day proceeds in this manner. Others nearby catch fish. Keepers. But you seem to have chosen a "dead spot" on the boat. Nothing nibbles again. And the sea remains cold and rough. From time to time no one is catching anything. The Captain orders everyone to reel-in, and he cranks up the engines and plows to a new spot. During these breaks we find time to quaff a few brewskies and eat lunch. Eating and drinking is important to keep from getting seasick with all the rolling around in the giant seas. We all admitted to feeling queasy, but the antidote is food and beer. Still, it is less than a cullinary delight to be munching your sandwich while one of the other pale and unhappy fisherman is spewing into a nearby garbage can.
Finally, around 3pm, the Captain declared that it was time to go in. Music to my ears. I had not caught anything, and in fact had given up the further pursuit of fish, and instead bobbed for beers in the cooler. I was much more successful in the beer department, and by the time we were again in sight of land, a comforting buzz had descended upon me. I think I napped during the return trip.
On the way home in the car, fishless, starting to worry about tetnus in my throbbing thumb, I summed up the day: I think I would rather have been sitting in a warm cube, documenting database attributes, not rocking the boat, on a project headed-up by a micromanaging nitpicker, getting paid.
4/13/2006
The Road Not Taken
I was cleaning out the basement the other day, trying to cross items off my indoor "honey-do" list before the Spring weather outside calls me to the garden – or someone makes me a job offer that I cannot refuse. I came across a folder of work-related stuff that I had saved from the 80's and 90's.
In one folder were some performance reviews from the 80's when I had my first management job working at a now defunct minicomputer company. I was struck by the fact that the reviews of my management style were mediocre. My "superiors" were unanimous in labeling me a nice guy, good writer and pretty good analyst. No one really liked me as a manager. I was "too soft" on subordinates. I was a procrastinator, and not a good role model. I was either too collaborative or not collaborative enough. Some managers thought I was stubborn and had a low sense of urgency.
In all honesty I have to agree with these opinions, even though I thought most my superiors at that place were shitheads. This is not to say that they were stupid or lazy. No, they were mostly very smart, ambitious, competitive and – unfortunately for me (and the company) - wrongheaded. They sucked at management, too. They had gotten ahead by shooting guys like me in the foot and sucking-up. The company had started out in the mid 70’s as an engineering-driven company producing a great product. By the mid 80’s the company had evolved into a classic “command and control” organization, dominated by financial types – much like Enron.
The financial management network was strong, insular and always certain of their leadership. I thought they were mostly shitheads, because they systematically (if not intentionally) de-motivated people who were creative, interesting and even productive - in the name of leadership. They were micromanaging nitpickers, not the visionaries that they saw in the mirror. By the way, they drove the company off a cliff in 1988. They all moved on to bigger and better positions, sort of like the way a virus spreads to new host environments.
But, back to me. During the 90’s, I decided that being an individual contributor was the best path for me. As an IC I no longer had to deal with being a middle manager – trying to insulate the subordinates from the madness of upper management.
I confess that non-management career track was the easy way out of my performance predicament. My performance reviews for that period reflected the wise decision not to be in a supervisory capacity. The glowing reports of my exceptional interpersonal skills and ability to advocate the business requirements of my department almost make me blush to this day.
So, there you have it. I guess Management is not for everyone. I was never really comfortable telling others what to do or how to do it. (Although I warrant that many of my peers would assert that I was pretty free with unsolicited advice.)
I admit it: I was born without a sense of urgency. This is a fatal flaw for someone who is in charge. Someone – the boss – needs to tell people what to do. The boss needs to decide when the thing needs to be done. And he or she must be willing to scream and yell or chop people’s fingers off if necessary.
I was unequipped for such a role. Even if I had read the Machiavelli book earlier in my career, I fear would have been too compassionate and tentative. Subordinates, sensing this weakness, would have taken credit for their own work, remained creative and productive, and would generally have made my life a living hell. My bosses would have chided me for the unwillingness to get blood on my hands, and to thump the hive randomly, just for the fun of watching the worker bees buzzing around.
So, I tossed the folder full of reviews into the trash. Ancient history now. And without the historical documents to prove me wrong, I can return to the comfort of faded memories of the 80’s and my fictitious life as a successful corporate manager.
In one folder were some performance reviews from the 80's when I had my first management job working at a now defunct minicomputer company. I was struck by the fact that the reviews of my management style were mediocre. My "superiors" were unanimous in labeling me a nice guy, good writer and pretty good analyst. No one really liked me as a manager. I was "too soft" on subordinates. I was a procrastinator, and not a good role model. I was either too collaborative or not collaborative enough. Some managers thought I was stubborn and had a low sense of urgency.
In all honesty I have to agree with these opinions, even though I thought most my superiors at that place were shitheads. This is not to say that they were stupid or lazy. No, they were mostly very smart, ambitious, competitive and – unfortunately for me (and the company) - wrongheaded. They sucked at management, too. They had gotten ahead by shooting guys like me in the foot and sucking-up. The company had started out in the mid 70’s as an engineering-driven company producing a great product. By the mid 80’s the company had evolved into a classic “command and control” organization, dominated by financial types – much like Enron.
The financial management network was strong, insular and always certain of their leadership. I thought they were mostly shitheads, because they systematically (if not intentionally) de-motivated people who were creative, interesting and even productive - in the name of leadership. They were micromanaging nitpickers, not the visionaries that they saw in the mirror. By the way, they drove the company off a cliff in 1988. They all moved on to bigger and better positions, sort of like the way a virus spreads to new host environments.
But, back to me. During the 90’s, I decided that being an individual contributor was the best path for me. As an IC I no longer had to deal with being a middle manager – trying to insulate the subordinates from the madness of upper management.
I confess that non-management career track was the easy way out of my performance predicament. My performance reviews for that period reflected the wise decision not to be in a supervisory capacity. The glowing reports of my exceptional interpersonal skills and ability to advocate the business requirements of my department almost make me blush to this day.
So, there you have it. I guess Management is not for everyone. I was never really comfortable telling others what to do or how to do it. (Although I warrant that many of my peers would assert that I was pretty free with unsolicited advice.)
I admit it: I was born without a sense of urgency. This is a fatal flaw for someone who is in charge. Someone – the boss – needs to tell people what to do. The boss needs to decide when the thing needs to be done. And he or she must be willing to scream and yell or chop people’s fingers off if necessary.
I was unequipped for such a role. Even if I had read the Machiavelli book earlier in my career, I fear would have been too compassionate and tentative. Subordinates, sensing this weakness, would have taken credit for their own work, remained creative and productive, and would generally have made my life a living hell. My bosses would have chided me for the unwillingness to get blood on my hands, and to thump the hive randomly, just for the fun of watching the worker bees buzzing around.
So, I tossed the folder full of reviews into the trash. Ancient history now. And without the historical documents to prove me wrong, I can return to the comfort of faded memories of the 80’s and my fictitious life as a successful corporate manager.
4/05/2006
Postscript
A few blogs back, I was opining on the merits of being mean and powerful (i.e., rich).
I implied that there were basically two groups of people in the workforce: Nice Guys and Mean Bastards. I should correct the record:
There is a gamut of other people with whom one comes in contact whose dominant characteristic is neither mean nor nice. This includes the inept, stupid, lazy, unimaginative, people with no sense of humor, sheep, people who take a job because it has a good pension plan, and chickens.
All the people who match these descriptions can be expected to behave badly when the chips are down. You cannot count on any of them, because they will sacrifice your friendship if they believe that the relationship jeopardizes their own job security. Not all of them are nasty brutish and short, but it seems to help.
The tragedy of this story is, of course, that most of us spend the majority of our waking existence working at some sort of job. Day in and day out we go to the office or plant. We spend our energies trying to get something done as a group, despite the divisive tactics employed by weak or wrongheaded management.
Loyalty, once considered a premium attribute, has fallen into disrepute. Hellhole management does not want your loyalty these days, just your obeisance. Management's loyalty to the workforce does not exist. That edge of the loyalty sword disappeared during the massive layoffs and outsourcings of the past decade, plus the restructuring of pension guarantees. In the extreme cases - such as Enron and Worldcomm - we see the dark side of capitalism, where a few greedy and powerful princes can ruin the fortunes and disrupt the lives of millions of people.
This is not to say that we - the rank and file worker types - are perfect. No, we have plenty of foibles, frauds, secrets and schemes up our collective bargaining sleeves. We steal office supplies, take long lunch breaks, fudge our expense reports, surf the net while we are on the clock, and some of us even take naps during bathroom breaks.
I suppose these are merely the whinings of an idealist, who thinks he would have become richer and more powerful if the key factors for success in business included being a mensch instead of a schmuck.
I implied that there were basically two groups of people in the workforce: Nice Guys and Mean Bastards. I should correct the record:
There is a gamut of other people with whom one comes in contact whose dominant characteristic is neither mean nor nice. This includes the inept, stupid, lazy, unimaginative, people with no sense of humor, sheep, people who take a job because it has a good pension plan, and chickens.
All the people who match these descriptions can be expected to behave badly when the chips are down. You cannot count on any of them, because they will sacrifice your friendship if they believe that the relationship jeopardizes their own job security. Not all of them are nasty brutish and short, but it seems to help.
The tragedy of this story is, of course, that most of us spend the majority of our waking existence working at some sort of job. Day in and day out we go to the office or plant. We spend our energies trying to get something done as a group, despite the divisive tactics employed by weak or wrongheaded management.
Loyalty, once considered a premium attribute, has fallen into disrepute. Hellhole management does not want your loyalty these days, just your obeisance. Management's loyalty to the workforce does not exist. That edge of the loyalty sword disappeared during the massive layoffs and outsourcings of the past decade, plus the restructuring of pension guarantees. In the extreme cases - such as Enron and Worldcomm - we see the dark side of capitalism, where a few greedy and powerful princes can ruin the fortunes and disrupt the lives of millions of people.
This is not to say that we - the rank and file worker types - are perfect. No, we have plenty of foibles, frauds, secrets and schemes up our collective bargaining sleeves. We steal office supplies, take long lunch breaks, fudge our expense reports, surf the net while we are on the clock, and some of us even take naps during bathroom breaks.
I suppose these are merely the whinings of an idealist, who thinks he would have become richer and more powerful if the key factors for success in business included being a mensch instead of a schmuck.
4/01/2006
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