Things are kinda gloomy at TCIDNN (The Company I Dare Not Name). There are another round of layoffs coming and everyone feels like the Sword of Damocles is hanging over our heads. Rumors are rampant. Last week's rumor was the layoffs would be announced last Wednesday. This week's rumor is that they will be announced tomorrow. It's like being at the Last Supper. Lord, am I the one? But, since I am eligible for retirement, I would just get 'retired'. So, in effect, I am bulletproof. Anyway, if I got 'retired' I could spend more time blogging and maybe, just maybe, I could get my blogs up to the level where other bloggers would actually read what I wrote. On the downside, some of my best material comes from TCIDNN, and that is the subject of today's blog.
In the blog I wrote on May 13, The LFQP I talked about how companies, when in a downturn, usually do two things:
We've already had the layoffs (with more to come) and now we have a FQP.
I think the reason we have FQP's is that we have entirely too many managers. That is also the reason we have matrix management and dotted line management organizations. In our company we sometimes refer to managers as lion food. It seems two lions escaped from a zoo. They met up two months later. The first lion was skinny and mangy. The second lion was fat and well groomed. The first lion said 'How come you look so good? I ate one person and they've been hunting me ever since.' The second lion said, 'I've been hanging out at the headquarters of TCIDNN. I've eaten one manager a week and no one has noticed.'
So, we have too many managers and I guess they run around in circles screaming and shouting that they must do something, anything! So what does that mean? Another FQP.
This iteration of another FQP is a self study course that I will call CTF (Crawl to Failure). Everyone in my organization has to finish CTF by the end of June. My particular group was only told about this three weeks ago. CTF is supposed to address skills needed to better perform our jobs. I've taken the first two units and already have enough buzzwords to fill out a buzzword bingo card. Empowerment? It's there. Vision? It's there. In fact we have a Vision Portal. I'm not kidding. Competencies? Yup. Core skills? That too. I feel smarter already. Oh, and since our group has to do everything better than every other group, we have to send a Status Report documenting where we are in CTF to one of our project managers every Tuesday. Isn't that special?
I have been with TCIDNN for twenty nine years and the one thing I've learned on FQP's and special certifications and other bureaucratic bullshit is to always wait until the last minute. There are two reasons for this:
So I've been taking my time doing CTF.
CTF also eats up hard drive space as I have had to download some large databases. That means I have to find the servers where these databases reside. That involves searching the wonderful world of TCIDNN servers to find the specific one I require for that particular database.
I have found a few tricks to doing CTF. When you click on a particular module, it expands to sections that you click on to read. When you close each section, it marks it as complete. When you finish a module, you send off a completion certificate. You don't really have to do anything at all!!! I gotta love the person who designed CTF.
My officemate did tell me that in module four there was a test. Here's another trick: When taking tests for certifications or other types of courses designed to build enhanced competency skills, always choose the answers with the most buzzwords. Trust me, this works. A few years back I had to take a certification exam for another FQP and I didn't even look at any of the course material. Answer a: one buzzword. Answer b: one buzzword Answer c: three buzzwords Answer d: all of the above. Correct answer is c. Another hint: All of the above and None of the above are usually wrong answers. I passed the test. No problem.
And of course we have a SHTS code to use for this. For info on SHTS see SHTS and SPTS, my May 1 blog. And this is productive education. There is also a code for nonproductive education which begs the question: If it's nonproductive, why do we do it?
So I am anxiously awaiting tomorrow to see if I will get laid off or, if nothing happens, what the next rumor will be I'll be in my office CTFing, SHTing, and SPTing.
In the meantime, my officemate and I have spread lamb's blood on the lintel over the entrance to our office in hopes that the dreaded Angel of Layoffs will pass over us.
Wish us luck.
Posted by denny at May 22, 2002 09:15 PM