Gone in 60 Seconds

No, not the movie about car thievery, though speaking from experience it was realistic from the standpoint of yes, there is usually a list of wanted models that you work from. No, I'm talking about the network. The one where all our little computers talk back and forth to one another and the outside world. It takes so little to make it not work. The diagram below shows just how little it takes to make it not work.

Adult Recess Equipment

Quick, what's the first thing you thought of when you read the title of this post?

April Fool's?

This just might be one of the funniest pranks I've seen on the web:

Automatic e-mail by G00gle

It Makes My Head Hurt

I've had occasion to be party to some interesting conversations over the past couple of weeks. I don't suppose I'll ever be privy to the big picture on the work front---thank the Lord my personal life is perfectly clear. The conversations have made me put on my manager's hat. Now I haven't put on my manager's hat since I managed service stations for Gulf Oil back in the 70's.

Quite frankly, that job is the one that made it clear to me that I never wanted to wear the manager's hat again and as long as I worked in organizations that were small and I was a department of one, it was never an issue. It's become an issue a couple of times over the past few years as I work for a company that's gone from the Mom 'n' Pop flavor to the major regional employer flavor.

With encouragement, I have reached out into the supervisory area a couple of times in my tenure at this unnamed company. One such reach was sabotaged by another (albeit inadvertently), but I think I have to admit that there's a little self-sabotage too. After my last experience I cringe at becoming responsible for the work product of people I currently call friend. Nothing kills a friendship faster than a promotion, be it on the part of the governed or the governing. Maybe I don't have the coaching skills necessary to be a leader rather than a boss.

So it is with misgivings that I put my self in the new-new sheriff in town's shoes. I'm led to believe that the initial plan to clean up our town involved scraping all current staff and hiring from scratch. I'm also led to believe that that plan was thwarted by the noble sacrifice of someone that was let go. "Blame the problems in the department on me, not them. Give them a chance." Perhaps the slaughter of one lamb avoided the decimation of the entire herd. Only time will tell.

But as I put on the shoes of someone else and tread their path, if only in my imagination, I can't help but wonder if it wouldn't be easier to do the clean sweep thing and start afresh. The new sheriff has a bunch of deputies that have been so badly beaten down by the empty promises and bad decisions of past management that it will take something very special to get their morale and work product to the level where it should be.

Somebody get this effing hat off my head...

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

OK, I sort of fell for the hype. I stayed up waaaaayyyyy too late last night to see if the 'puters would go bonkers at the stroke of midnight. They didn't. I did.

Although my ISP apparently had some sort of issue. I had to power cycle my modem and router before I could post this.

You have to wonder

...what the back story is when the new-new sheriff in town manages to accomplish in mere months what the old-new sheriff in town couldn't accomplish in over a year. I smell politics. I smell strange bedfellows. Work is becoming an excellent training ground for my future in politics.

Friday the 13th

Amazing. Two months in a row that have a Friday the 13th. Last month the gang in sales region 13 did a 13 item buffet. It was very cool and I made repeat visits over the course of the day.

I have no idea what celebrations tomorrow might bring but I plan to make sure I hit every area of the building so I don't miss out.

Just because

Just because you come in and start changing vendors on us doesn't mean you are improving things.

Just because you come in and start holding department meetings doesn't mean you are improving things.

Just because you are here doesn't mean you are improving things.

The jury is still out. Just because...

Poisoning Me With Incompetence

There's a lot of finger pointing going on right now over the food poisoning scandal. The people are pointing at the government; the government is pointing at the food manufacturers; the government and the food industry are pointing at non-government inspections. That's a lot of fingers pointing in a lot of different directions.

Let's talk about where the fingers aren't pointing.

The fingers aren't pointing at the people, people like you and me. Nobody's pointing at the people who went to work at this plant every day. The people who navigated through filthy, unsanitary, illegal conditions and collected a paycheck at the end of the day. Where is the personal responsibility for a job well done? Where are the whistle-blowers?

The fingers aren't pointing at us, the consumer, who bought these products. Where is the personal responsibility for the food you lay out for your family every day? When was the last time you slaughtered something personally to feed to your family? When was the last time you grew your own produce? Baked a loaf of bread? Milked your own damn cow?

When was the last time you walked into a food manufacturing facility and said, "I feed your product to my child, I'd like to see how it's made."

Step up to the plate, folks. We are all, each and every one of us, responsible for the way things are. Don't like it? Change it. Take some responsibility. There's plenty to go around.