Today, I would like to talk about signs that your company might be in a little trouble. The company I work for, TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name), has been budget cutting its way into prosperity for quite some time.
The first signs are subtle. Many technology companies, especially the ones with hardware on site, usually have first aid kits. When the first aid kits are empty, it is usually the first sign that cuts are coming. I was in Dallas on business about four years ago and called one of my friends who used to work for TCIDNN and who now works for Microsoft. He gave me a tour of his workplace and one of the first things he showed me was the well stocked first aid kits. He was really proud of the these as TCIDNN's first aid kits have been empty for years. Also, Microsoft has free soft drinks. One of these days, even Microsoft will fall on hard times, and the first signs of impending layoffs will be empty first aid kits and no more free soft drinks.
The next thing that happens is the gradual disappearance of secretaries and other administrative people. Usually, the jobs get outsourced. Often, as was the case at TCIDNN, the people quit working for TCIDNN and went to work for the outsourcing contractor. They did the same job and had the same desks. They just worked for a different company. But gradually they also just disappear. Hey! Where did Caroline go? Who? When you start getting more e-mails from your manager rather than a secretary, you know another secretary bit the dust. Bye Caroline. It was nice knowing you. Gonna miss you. Damn. Now I gotta figger out how to order my own business cards.
When you come in to work in the morning and your wastebasket is still full you just might want to start worrying. My sister told me at her company, they wanted the employees to start emptying their own wastebaskets. What's next? Here's a broom. Sweep the floor. Fortunately TCIDNN doesn't own any of its buildings so the landlord is reponsible for janitorial services. Our landlord is doing OK, so when I come in in the morning my desk is clean (at least the surface not covered with books and other crap) and my trash can is empty.
Another sign is massive reorganizations. For example, going from straight line management to matrix management, or going from matrix management to straight line management. I call this ploy musical managers. For those of you who don't know what matrix management is I'll explain. Matrix management, first of all, is a full employment program for managers. In matrix management, you have two types of managers: line of business managers and people managers. The line of business manager is responsible for managing whatever he is supposed to manage and tells the workers what to do. The people managers, who have no idea of what the people do, are responsible for evaluating the people. Matrix management supposedly allows the line of business manager to sharpen his focus on business rather than handling the mundane tasks of actually doing people related tasks like evaluation, career counseling, pay, and advancement. This was another one of the brilliant ideas thought up by MBA professors who have never worked in the private sector. They probably got a big laugh out of this one. I know. Matrix management. They fell for battling business units. I bet we can get them to fall for matrix management too. Pass me the bong. My sister worked for a matrix manager for over a year and never once met him.
Usually, the musical manager program is instituted right after or right before a big round of layoffs. When it happens before, people get lost (laid off) in the reorganization, but managers keep their jobs. When it happens after layoffs occur, a management group is not totally eliminated, so they cannot really decide which manager is gonna be laid off. So, they reorganize, and the manager who hasn't appropriately sucked up to his boss, gets lost in the shuffle. Often times all the managers make the cut. Even so, proportionally, more workers leave than managers. Just remember the managers' motto, as expressed by Governor Le Petomane in Blazing Saddles 'We gotta protect our phoney-baloney jobs, gentlemen'.
Another sign is office consolidation or people shuffle. In this case, they start having people double up in offices or making cubicles smaller. We're going through that now at TCIDNN. I share a small office with one other person. He spends half his time on the road, so I have the office to myself a lot. Our building has been somewhat vacant since the last round of skill rebalancing (That's what we call layoffs at TCIDNN), so we've been overdue for a mass influx of people. It's starting next week. I get to move into an office with my team lead. The nice thing about the office I'm moving into is it has a window which my current office does not. The bad thing is moving. I'm a systems programmer, and although my system work is very anal retentive, I'm a slob. Scott Adams described me perfectly in his book The Joy of Work when he wrote about a techno prima donna. We're slobs. We have books everywhere. We're packrats. Also, people hate to share offices and cubicles with us because we are slobs and gradually encroach upon their space. It works. My two previous office mates left in disgust. The only reason my current office mate tolerates me is technically he is a mobile employee and is not even supposed to have an office, so living with me is better than living in the mobility center. I've been in my current office for over six years so I have accumulated a lot of books and other junk. I'm supposed to move next week, so I'm going through my stuff now to see what gets thrown away. At least this should be my last move at TCIDNN. I'm filling up trashcans with lots of shit. Hope they get emptied.
If I were a TCIDNN employee and found out that I was moving into this building I would be very afraid. Be very, very afraid. I have worked in this building for over seventeen years, and in the last four years this building has become a way station to skill rebalancing. All of a sudden, all the cubicles fill up. Then, mysteriously, they start emptying up as the skill rebalancing process takes its toll. Soon the building becomes a mausoleum.
Do you have a company supplied cafeteria? Here is a real harbinger of bad times to come. When I first moved into this building we had a wonderful cafeteria. It was company subsidized. The food was good and the prices were reasonable. We also ate off of real plates and used real silverware. People came from other TCIDNN sites to eat here because of the quality of our cafeteria. Ahhhh, those were the good old days. First, TCIDNN quit subsidizing so the prices went up. OK. We'll pay more. The food is still good. The service is still good. Then they changed vendors. I got in trouble about this time. I wisecracked to one of the secretaries (we still had 'em then) about how the Admin Manager had solved the long lines at the cafeteria. She changed vendors. The cafeteria sucked. No one from other buildings came any more. She overheard me and told my manager. This was about fourteen years ago. I was a smartass back then. Haven't changed. Anyway, after changing vendors the prices went up more. Food quality went down. Then the dishes and silverware were replaced by styrofoam containers and plastic knives, forks, and spoons. Ain't gonna hijack this cafeteria anywhere.
When he's in town, my officemate and I go down to the cafeteria in the morning to get coffee and relax before starting work. About two weeks ago, we got our coffee and noticed that there were no napkins, only paper towels like the ones used in the restrooms. Things must really be getting bad. They're stealing paper towels from the johns. My officemate said to me, 'It's only gonna be a matter of time before they move all the stuff (knives, forks, spoons, plates, napkins and the like) to the other side of the cash register and charge us for them too.' As it is, they charge for cups. Ten cents. I said, 'No cafeteria would be that cheap.' No? I was wrong. One of my readers sent me the following:
Penny wise and pound foolish. Briefly the cafeteria decided to control costs by discouraging napkin wastage. They put all the napkin dispensers inside the food area so one had to get napkins and THEN pass the cashiers and they started charging a penny a napkin for any napkin more than the first 2. This STOOOPID program ended when people started showing up at the cashiers with huge stacks of napkins. The cashiers would say please count them and we, I mean, the patrons would say you want 'em counted, you count 'em, and the cashiers informed management this program was over.
Just when you think it can't get any stoopider.
Anyway, I was wrong. They were just out of napkins at our cafeteria. The dispensers reappeared the next day.
So be advised. If your first aid kits are empty, cubicles get smaller, people disappear, you have to empty your own wastebaskets and the cafeteria steals paper towels from the johns, get your resume ready.
It's only a matter of time.
Posted by denny at July 23, 2002 12:26 PM