Things people say at work that they almost never mean

Not only are the following things people say at work that they almost never mean, they are also almost always said by people who are incapable of following through... starting with

I). I give it to you straight.
The only people who seem to be willing to openly take critical (as in oppositional) positions  to plans and ideas are those who are high enough the corporate hierarchy that they can afford to say what they think around pretty much anybody. Amongst those of us languishing in the middle levels of the corporate ladder, an embarrassingly high percentage would not express their true position on matters that have even the slightest of a hint of controversy.
And you know what? I'm OK with that.
What I'm not OK with is the bastards who walk about and CLAIM to be straight talkers. "You know I am a straight talker", they say, "I don't deal in bullshit."
That's probably the biggest load of bullshit you're going to hear that day.

These insidious fuckers are only capable of talking controversial positions (coz if you're position isn't controversial or in opposition to the majority view, straight talking requires no particular courage) under two conditions.

1. The topic has to be so far beyond their realm of control that nobody would give a gnats ass WHAT the opinion is. 
2. Any person under whose span of influence  he said topic falls needs to be not only physically absent, but also have NO first degree connection to anybody in the audience, 

THEN these bitches will let loose about how the latest acquisition was stupid, the newest product could have been coded better by masturbating baboons and so on.
Next time you find somebody who claims to be a straight shooter keep your eyes out for his or her opinions on matters under their or their peers control. And see how they behave around their bosses. More often than not, you will see chest thumping dick heads metamorphose into sycophantic assholes with the I.Q of a ruminant.
I know there is a time and a place  to broadcast your views on things. If you have a well thought out position, you should have the courage to ask the right question or encourage introspection, in the right surroundings and with respect. And people who actually do this never claim to be - or seem to want credit for - talking straight.So if somebody says to you "I'm a straight talker", Get up and walk away.

II). I do what I believe is right
Bullshit again. First of all, people don't do what they know is right. They do what they think the boss will reward them for. Or at least avoid a serious ass whupping, catholic school style.
But that;s not what annoys me. The reason it annoys me is, that there is usually no need to make such a grandiose statement. Thankfully fort the human race, very few people in corporations are actually called on to pick right from wrong. Most just follow process, get audited and suffer till they die.
If you were actually put in a position where you had the option to do the wrong thing and get away with it, I'm sorry to say you would probably try to get away with it. Because doing the wrong thing is just so delicious.
Think about it. What big choices do YOU have to make, BY YOURSELF, for the corporation. Anything that is seriously right versus wrong is probably way outside your pay grade. (Unless the readership of this blog has all magically turned into C-Suite in the 6 or so months I was gone)

III). We.
I don't know why people suddenly develop problems grasping the simple concept of first-person, plural personal pronoun as a subject, but half the time people say "we", they are deflecting accountability.
"We should do this" usually means "I want somebody else to do this".
They do NOT want to be responsible for ANY of the actions that are required to be completed.
Why in these cases they say WE baffles me. I usually immediately ask them what part of the action they want me to do and what they want to do themselves. That catches them off guard.
Sometimes I use this we and they myself because the alternative sounds too rough or directive, but I never use it when I'm amongst peers or in meetings. It serves to reduce clarity and slow down progress and increases my resemblance to weasels. And it was this usage that got this entire post started. We're set to have an audit soon, and our internal auditor, who regular readers will remember my impressions of, said something along the lines of "We need to really improve our *insert stupid audit scale here* score. And I asked him what part he wanted me to do and what part he wanted to do himself. He rattled off multiple things he wanted me to do, but not a single thing for him. I asked him why he said "We" when he clearly didn't want to do anything. I let him squirm for a while and then left. I had much to do to prep for the audit.

Latest Aggravations

The thing that squeezed the most amout of bile outta me over the last two months has been the Piss-off and Bhosdika. You all know who I'm talking about. Somebody should ban them for life and send them to junior high for bringing disrepute to the population segment they're from - prepubescent insecure girls with their panties bunched up.

Another thing got me squirting the yellowish green - and that was the Kar na saka politics. Isn't it sick how one community demands a specific number of positions, then gets it, and then another community demands another and get it, and so called national leaders stand by and wring their hands in despair while simultaneously planning how they will spin it to the masses? It's not?

And I think Satyameva Jayate should have that "a" at the end of Satyamev. It just doesn't sound right pronounced without that short "uh" sound.

But none of that got me to find a non-work computer and get back to positing my views to nobody in particular. You know what did?
Information scarcity in organizations. There is some information that organizations do not let anybody but the most senior people see. Some of this is so innocuous that you would wonder why the secrecy.

Wanna know how many people are working on a new product?
Can't.
Wanna know how much was spent to develop a particular system?
Can't.
Wanna know how much you saved by moving to the latest computer models?
Can't.

If you can't make information like this accesible to - at least - managers around your company, how do you expect them to be able to do their job number 2 (That is, put the right level of resources on the right projects).
And job 2 is as important as job 1 - (Figuring out what the right projects are). The increase in cardinality does not signify any reduction in importance here. 

The amount of money you spend on R&D and product enhancements is the lifeblood of any but the most banal companies. (In those, how much you spend on SG&A is more important). And everybody knows how much they spend on R&D and Products on a whole, but very few have the ability to look at that data on a per project, per product level.
Pissed me off.
PIssed me off so much, I can't even write well. Can't expresses my pissed off-ness. (see?)

PowerPointless

As I walked out from a pitch so soporific that I thought I had died and gone to hell prematurely with a dissatisfying lack of flames, I realized that though much has already been said about the impact of powerpoint, I was just going to HAVE to add to the blather.

I feel for PowerPoint. I really do. It was not meant to be a tool for destruction, but in the hands of the inept and mind-numbingly unimaginative, it turns into a device for brain cell death. They don't call them bullets for nothing, I guess.

“Just because the spawn of Gates and Lucifer CAN rotate your text boxes on the way in doesn't mean you should ya fucking moron!!”, I wanted to yell. And I probably would have, if I hadn't been put to sleep with such astounding swiftness.

The guy spent 30 minutes telling a room full of managers and employees absolutely nothing. And for having no content, there was a startlingly humungous amount of text on his slides. And that’s where the rub is. All these people spewing mildly humorous venom at PowerPoint and Bill Gates need to realize that’s it’s not the PowerPoint to blame. It’s the idiot with the clicker in front of the screen.

If that moron who preparing to take your eye out with the laser pointer had something of import to say, you could have given him a thin stick and a pile of horse manure, and he would have made his point.

If that no good hack had any talent at communication, you could have given him a crayon and a coloring book and he would have shown you the world in Eastman Colour.

PowerPoint is just a magnifying glass that can make a passionate speaker look better, and a going-through-the-motions manager look worse than either of them really are.
So don't blame PowerPoint. Just walk out.

Here. We. Go. (Again)

It's been a long time since I last posted anything... 3 months and then some actually

As you know I was working on a project that didnt seem pointless, with a team that had an IQ, in a city that didn't close it's bars at an arbitrarily appointed hour. I didn't have any reason to blog.

Job done, I am back in Bangalore now, and was immediately seized by a burining desire to bitch about the fantastic parking lots masquerading as the highways of Bangalore. I barely managed to keep that down and that by quaffing large quantities of Mallya's finest (which, by the bay, is not ultra) at a dangerous speed egged on by an annoying maitre d' wanting to shut sop and go home at an early time. The traffic and the fuck-off-at-11-pm rule aren't going to change any time soon, so I'm sure that will keep my bile levels steadily on the rise. 
And now my responsibilities now are significantly higher, and I will be making a bunch of changes. This should also pit me against the banalities of corporate procedures and the stupidities of individuals in powerful offices. That should give me adequate levels of indigestion as well.

So I think some blogging will follow.
BUT.....
I have to watch what I blog about and when, so I do not know if I'm going to be able to vent with the fervour of yore. It will behove me to stop calling colleagues bitches, whores, dumbfucks, and the like, even if they verily might be the same, and I fear that I do not have the talent to spew vitriol and make it entertaining without using scathing insults and expletives as a crutch.

I will try. Lets see how it goes.
This post is just so a note goes out to the people following this blog saying I'm back.
Thanks for following and I will be happy to get your emails denouncing my lack of regularity, my insistence on not using spell/grammar checks and other sundry faults.

It's good to be back. Again.

Bombay se aaya mera post

As some of you already know, I'm in Bombay setting up some offices for a new product division of my company.
This is exciting stuff.
The primary fun factor is that the products we will be working on here are going to be developed in India and are in an area that my company does not participate in right now.
The next yay factor is we have some tremendously smart people over here and everybody is really pumped about this move. Its terribly enriching to have motivated intelligent people focused on how to solve some problems that will have an exciting impact on the future of many people inside the company and outside.
And last but not the least, this city is pretty awesome. It smells like ass in some places, but it's pretty awesome nonetheless.
That probably explains why I have not been ranting for so long. I was actually happy-busy instead of being stupid-busy.
I should've known this was all too good to be true.

Have you seen what happens when a giant well-fed heifer wants to take a steaming dump? The bull continues to walk nonchalantly down the path it is going, merely twitches it's tail and a warm pile of shit exits the dark hole at its rear and sploshes on to the floor. The bull keeps on going as if nothing as happened, and if you're an ant caught under this green glob of goo your world has changed for ever. And if you're an ant actually trying to help the bull in some way (I know the analogy is breaking down here, but bear with me...), then your soul has probably taken a severe beating as well.

Well yesterday I was the ant, my company was the bull, the corporate real estate team was the tail, and corporate finance was the dark hole.

The mistake we are making is taking a fledging operation and applying the full might of corporate standards to it. We can (should) not burden a startup organization with rigid rules. Growing a startup requires freedom. It almost requires a bit of anarchy (although that may be too strong of a word). I really can not think of a major startup that was successful in spite of being watched over by corporate hawks to ensure that they bought the right color chairs, had the right sized cubicles and used company standard desktops and corporate approved courier services. I can think of startups that succeeded despite having very little money, but not under the watchful scrutiny of spreadsheet mongers and fucking trolls who only know how to read something written in a corporate policy document and enforce it without any consideration of context.

This may be different for hardware products, but in software, one more thing I have learnt by working for a major company is that if you have a new product idea, select the right people, put one clear leader at the top, give them 20% less than the money they asked for, ask for 20% more market share than you think is reasonable for your business, and let them learn how to fly.
And as they're getting ready to leap off the precipice without killing themselves, dont put a lead cylinder of corporate standards and unnecessary nonsense like executive reviews on their backs.

Hello Ladies!

I spent the last four months in Brazil. Awesome beaches, beautiful women, good food.. just all around great experience
Even at the office everybody was nice and accommodating; forever pointing out good bars and taking me places.
But I'm back now. And while there's not enough hatred in me yet to spew over this wasteland of blather also known as the internet, I'm sure I'll be pissed off at something soon enough.

I went in to the India office office yesterday after this long gap, and I had a great time catching up with people till I saw this guy walk toward me. He's one of the senior managers who has the amazing knack of simultaneously doing nothing and appearing busy. Lots of people think he's doing a great job carrying an entire department on his shoulders while there's some of us in the know who realize he's just a guy with a furrowed brow and a file.
People like him bring the company down. And worse, they make my stomach acids churn.

I had to take immediate evasive maneuvers to avoid him walking up to me, ask me some question, and then even before I begin to answer, walk away claimng to be going to do something of tremendous importance and diarrheal urgency. Thankfully, I succeeded that time. But this isn't going to last...

Truisms that aint - Part II

Since so many of y'all loved the original Truisms post, here's a couple more.

Exec: The customer is always right
Me: No he's not. Nobody is always anything. My customer just told me that he wants to buy a purple shirt with silver embroidered stars, to wear to a church wedding. Notwithstanding the fact that he's Gujju, he's wrong!!! You're just spouting this mantra because you are a testicle-less wonder of a man who doesn't have the spinal rigidity required to tell a customer he's wrong. Either that or you're selling a product like crack cocaine that is inherently dangerous to your customers. And you know this. And you tell yourself that the customer asked for it, and he's always right, so it must be OK to sell it to them. 'Coz that LIE is the dampener that prevents the already feeble voice of your conscience from echoing around the vacuum that is your soul, you mother fucker.

Exec: You can't make decisions without data. Lets get the data.
Me: Ok. I've got some data here on the GDP of Fuckerabad. That help? You make decisions without data every day when you have the opinion of a senior executive to swing on, you peanut brained monkey. Now when you're caught in a tough situation you want more data? You want more TIME you weak brained twit, so you can wait till somebody makes the decision for you or the damned storm just passes. So just admit it instead of spewing meaningless drivel to make yourself look rational.

Exec: It is corporate policy
Me: While this just sounds like a declaration of a fact, what you are actually implying is that you are loath to change anything that has "corporate" next to it. What is corporate? Who is this corporate? Just a bunch of humans who puked out a policy that troubles the employees. This is either because those humans are unfit and incompetent, or because those employees were Munaf Patel (which is probably the same thing, but anyway), both of which are great reasons to change the fucking policy!!

Exec: Lets be more aggressive
Me: (Running toward him with hand raised!) YAAAAA!!!! MADERCHOOOOOT!!!! (SLAP!!!!!)

Truisms That Aint

Last time I posted something about evil dudes in the organizations that use truisms to win or otherwise end arguments. They just spout these statements that for some reason nobody argues with, then they walk away with a smug look on their face that I would very much like to wipe out with a piece of genuine Kashmir Willow.

I always feel like responding to these bitches with spit spraying from my mouth as I berate their use of these truisms, but I am unfortunately often forced to calm the fuck down because of office decorum. So what better place to act out my fantasy responses to those evil bitches in my very own blog. Here goes

Truism: There is no right or wrong answer
Me: Wrong motherfucker. There is. There is ALWAYS a right or wrong answer. It may not be clear to YOU that one of the available options is better than the others, but it IS. Maybe you'll know now or later, but that doesn't mean you just walk off and put the decision making on somebody else you piece of shit.

Truism: There is no such thing as a stupid question.
Me: Yea you're right, dipshit. Questions are not sentient beings. So you can take offense to characterising questions themselves as stupid. But not the people who ask them, right? YOU are stupid. There. Happy?

Truism: We can't get anywhere if we dont work together. Listen, there is no I in Team
Me: No there isn't, but there's U in FUCKER. What does that even mean? The guy in engineering is a no good work shirking dick, and you're just too pussy to do anything about it, so you just ask people to get along? And did you notice there's U in pussy?

Truism: You have to be a leader. You have to BE the change you want to see.
Me: What? Fuck!! So if I want to change that IT database, then I have to BE a database that works? What the fuck? OK here's me being an ugly idiot jumping into a well. Does that now mean you will too?

Truism: An employee's career is his own responsibility
Me: Really? But he doesn't have the authority does he? Otherwise he could have just promoted himself! You scheming bitch. You want him to have the responsibility without having the authority? What kind of delegation is that, motherfucker?

Truism: Quality is number 1
Me: Make up your mind, you idiot, it's billowing in the wind like the blade of grass that passes for your spine. WHICH is number 1? Quality? I thought it was safety? Or is it the customer? You're just making this shit up as you go along aren't you?
Response: There is no right or wrong answer.
Me: Aaaargh

Employee: People are leaving my team because the pay is too low
Evil Supremo: People leave managers. Not the company
Me: Yup. People do leave managers. See ya.

The four types of people

There are four types of guys in every company. If I was a consultant, I would put it as a two by two chart with two axes, like the one shown below.


Malevolence is just another word for evil, but it sounds so much better, doesn't it? And if you're thinking that there are people that have NO evil in them, fuck, bring those people to me.
Remember, I'm talking about corporations here. If you're thinking about bringin up people like Mothers and Mahatmas, while I would enjoy that discussion, note that those people would never be in corporations.

Now,

High intelligence low Malevolence people are just great to have around. Lets call them The Good Dudes coz frankly that's what they are. They have it together. They are focused on their personal benefits and careers, but have good lines that they wouldnt cross, and they demonstrate that they generally want to do the right thing and keep the company going in the right direction.

Low intelligence low Malevolence people - lets call them The Commons just because of how startlingly common they are - are ok to have around, if they take direction. Most of the people in a company are doers. You need people who are competent at what they do, and if they have enough intelligence to turn their share of the screws on the line everyday, fucking super. Otherwise Sayonara,

Low Intelligence, High Malevolence people - I call them Satan's Stupids - are the fucking biggest pains around. I say get rid of every single one of them as soon as you can identify them. These guys are not only dumb, but their self serving and evil behavior makes them incompetent, and all they're trying to do every single day is to shirk work, pander to the boss, and give the hardworking less malevolent types high blood pressure.

High Intelligence, High Malevolence people - lets call them The Iagos, first because mother-fucking-self-serving-devil-spawn is kinda long and second because no character represents the evil of this box more than Iago (Iago who? Aw come on!!! Othello? From this moment on I will speak no word? No? fuck he was a hard core villian dudes... fine - Saif Ali Khan's character in Omkara was modelled after Iago). Anyways... Iagos are the most dangerous people in your organization. Because they're hard to find out and are generally good actors. They come off to most people as one of the good dudes and are often able to keep themselves in sheep's clothing for long enough that they either quit and go to another company at a higher position, or get promoted and get so much exposure that one of real Good Dudes sees through his evil cloak.


NOw, you know which one you are. You don't have to tell me. You know.
I'm going to give you a few hints about how to identify others around you.

The Good Dudes: These guys, like I said, generally have it together. They know who their customers are are, and if you are one of their customers, you probably love them. They usually seem happy just because if they aren't they will either change the situation or leave. Very rarely, they're unhappy and bitching about their company. Mostly that prefaces their departure for greener pastures elsewhere.

The Commons: They're all around you. If you're one of their customers, you're probably not delighted, but marginally satisfied. They need clear and specific direction for relatively simple tasks, and tend to take a long time to learn how to do things. They're also mostly willing to help people around them, but if there is ambiguity involved, they may run to their trusted friends - or you - for direction.

Satans Stupids: These guys think they're hotter than they actually are. They're almost never willing to help out people around them, and are generally incapable of keeping most of their customers happy. They publicly make stupid statements, and generally have a very low awareness of the actual work going on around them.

And finally The Iagos: This is the toughest of them all. They keep most of their customers happy by mooching of the capabilities of others, or coming up with fantastic reasons for their failures, or by blaming somebody else foe a job poorly done. They hide behind truisms like "There is no right or wrong answer" or "Quality is number one" when they dont really have anything of purport to say. They schmooze and generally have a great rapport with many people in positions higher than their own, but their employees and peers are generally unhappy with them. They hire, raise and convert people to Satan's Stupids over time, and then use THEM to do their evil bidding.


Look around your organization or team. If you have The Good Dudes, you should take care of them. The Commons who can take direction, take care of them too. They will be your loyal soldiers. Satan's stupids are easy to identify and you should fire them immediately. And finally The Iagos, do not deal with them directly - they're capable of taking you down. Stay away from them, and make sure if possible that they do not get into a position of authority over you.

This is broken

The title of this post used to be a blog run by Seth Godin - a fascinating chap with an even more fasinating head. The blog has since been assimilated into another one of Mr Godin's blogs and has ceased to be much fun. The entire idea was to spot things that make you scream "THIS IS BROKEN", and bring it up to the rest of the world to see. Godin put them in seven categories based on why he thought they may have gotten that way.

It was all good fun, and when I had first heard about it, the idea of screaming out 'THIS IS BROKEN" whenever I see somthing that is just done so wrong connected with me quite a bit. (Out of my mouth the scream would be more like "This is fucking broken!! Which moron is responsible for this piece of shit? Bring him to me so I may roast him in his own spittle and condemn him to a life of pain and penury", since as you readers know, I am given to profanity, verbosity uncontrolled anger, and parenthetical digressions like this one. But coming back to the post at hand....)

You'll see Godin's talk and his aforementioned head below, and I promise I'm not stealing his thunder, but the reason I find this talk (and his now swallowed up blog) endearing and lasting in my memory is that he's not only pointing out things that are broken, but also pointing out reasons why they may be, and four of them are also reasons why so many people in so many corporations around the world are unhappy with their colleagues and are enduring bouts of hyperventilation every day at work.

Not my job: Where if it is not directly your responsibility, you just stand by and watch
Selfish Jerks: Where you do something that will benefit you in some twisted way (as in less paperwork), but will be more work for me
The world changed: Where you keep doing something because it was done that way when Tipu Sultan still ruled over Mysore
I'm not a fish: Where you dont think about the experience I will have using your shitty service or product.

See the talk. I hope you get what I'm talking about above.

Seth Godin at Gel 2006 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

Bonus Plans

Its that time of the year again, when the powers that be get together in their hollowed corridors, smoke cigars, sip on scotch and every once in a while let out a devilish laugh as they pen down the annual bonuses for those who are not their cronies.For all the talk of incentivizing performance through stock grants and variable compensation, I think most of the amounts given away are based on relationships with those doing the doling out of funds and not based on solid performance.

It is also that time of the quarter (can you tell I work for an American company?) where we have the obligatory managers night out. Some of my colleagues I enjoy hanging out with. The conversation is always engaging the opinions are always scathing and the topics are always controversial. Some others I don't mind. They're like the cockroaches you hear got into the food in a restaurant you would never go to. I would have hated them if I had to deal with them, but I don't and so that's that.
And then there are those whose intelligence levels are the only reason that evolution is still considered a theory. I mean we all have these guys don't we? Retards that surprise us with the levels they are in the organization - people who can't understand an argument, can't state a position but probably can either suck the chrome of a exhaust pipe or kiss more ass than toilet paper in a public shithouse.
Whatever their skill, it doesn't bother me except for those days that I have to go drown my friday nights in local beer at a cheap hovel surrounded by these idiots.

And this time I was wondering what my bonus number would be this year. So as I was engaging the pathetic morons monosyllabic repetitive responses, I was thinking about how we could make the bonus system better.
Here's my answers:

1. Make bonus numbers public inside the managers group. If you have to explain to your staff why you gave Mr A 10 big ones as a bonus and Mr B only 5, you will at the very least have to come up a with an engaging story. You wont be telling them it was because Mr A has a mouth like a vacuum cleaner. And you can't keep making up stories.
2. Reduce bonus levels after a certain level. Most organizations give higher bonuses to people higher up in the org. For example, I qualify for a max of 40% of my annual salary as my bonus, while my boss qualifies for a max of 60% of HIS annual salary. Isn't that shitty? I mean given the amount of money that senior people in the organization are making, they should already be as incentivized as can be. Do you really need to bribe them to perform? Fuck that. I say you should give them negative bonuses. Give them a salary number and take money away from them if they don't meet their targets.
3. At the first two levels of management, give out bonuses regardless of company performance. If the guy met his bonus targets he should get the money. Just because the technologists had a fucked up product don't punish the little floor supervisors that built the first 100 in record time.

Of course none of the companies will actually do these things. If you have better ideas let me know I'm always willing to listen. I'm sure it will be better than whatever it is those mindless dumbfucks were droning on about yesterday.

All Hands. No Brains.

Today I went to an all hands meeting.
There were two executives on strutting about. The first one was so boring that I had to prop my eye open with toothpicks hurriedly grabbed from the not yet served buffet. Towards the end of his speech I just decided to give up the fight and fall asleep much to the delight of my upper eyelids. But then the second turd came on and he was so loud that I couldn't go to sleep. The CIA ain't got nothing on these fuckers in the torture department I tell you.

But they had one thing in common. They both didn't really have any message.
The first one talked about quarterly results and just kinda read the slides out in a tone reminiscent of a metronome that buzzed like a fly instead of ticking like a clock. The second one talked about some corporate strategy type shit that everybody already knew about without adding new information or clarity. I think he thought that if he just raised his volume high enough the people wouldn't really get that he was a terrible public speaker.

Don't get me wrong. I know public speaking is hard, but so what? If you're going to call 200 people into a suburban windowless hall, and expect them to pay attention to what your saying with only the promise of a cold mini samosa and a soulless cup of tea, you better put some work into it bitch.

And there's only so many reasons to subject the unsuspecting masses to an all hands: Energize them, Spread some information, Give out some rewards.
But what people mostly do is the exact opposite.
They bore the brains our of the audience to the extent that half the people are dreaming about something more fun that sitting on a chair listening to drones armed with PowerPoint. (Like say strangling that fucking drone and smashing that slide projector), and the other half is snickering about the speaker and texting other audience members snide messages about the his body parts, speaking mannerisms, or the speaking mannerisms of his body parts (Like "He's talking out his ass. Stuttering Dickhead").
The content is most often already known to everybody in the audience and also to those not in the audience. Like the bastards who made up a smarmy reason to stay at work and not come to the all hands. Even those damned waiters standing listlessly by the trays of perfunctory snacks and uninspiring beverages probably already know what they talk about on stage.
And they always get the rewards wrong don't they? Either they get the wrong person - like the guy who takes diving catches after setting up the emergency himself through his impressive lack of due diligence in the first place. Or they get the wrong award. Employee of the quarter gets what? A plastic plaque?
Really, motherfuckers?
And you got my spelling wrong bitch.
The name David doesn't have a fucking Q in it.
How did the Q show up there?
What were you doing when you sent this to the printers, man? Thinking about the line of people waiting to fuck your mama?

Is it really that hard?
Don't you feel like you should put some thought into this event? Or do you just get your nuts off on putting your employees through pain?

Screw you guys.
Here's my strategy.
Next time there is an all hands, I'm going to step out to go to the restroom. And then hang around at the bar till the meeting lets out.
And when it does, I'll be leaning against the wall with a beer in my hand laughing at the Lilliputian sandwiches and the ass-juice coffee

Organizing to win

So how do you like my blog title.
Sound enough like a lame chapter in a management book?
Good. Coz that was the idea.

Organization structure has been a topic of research for so many years, that the fact that it is not more under control in the real world is something that should tell the ivory tower researchers that their ideas are not translating into the zone it matters.

I've always had that fuming discontent with management theorists. They're over there in some la la land looking into things that don't really matter, and building models out of boxes and arrows that explain the obvious.

I've had a seething resentment about management books too. So many of them are written as if they are addressing the senior management of the company, when really their readers troll corridors much lower than those of power. Like when they tell you how to handle your top talent (Straight from the Gut), and how you should develop the leaders of tomorrow (The leadership pipeline), how are you, the peon in management going to make those changes in your company?
You can't.
You don't even have the influence to get time with those people who have the influence to change something like organization structure or people management policies.

Bitches.


Why don't they write something to applies to us out here in the masses?
Why don't they talk about how to deal with management that makes stupid ass decisions, when quitting the company is not an option?

You know what? I'm going to write my own book.
Tips and tricks for people in the masses who want to grow in the organization from peon to high ranking well paid bullshit spewer.

So first, read my book, and then when you reach a decent elevation (you'll know you're there because the air will be thin, and there will be a guy stuck to your asshole), then you can read the other management books

Do the right thing part two

2. Alignment of managers goals with the shareholders goals
This is a special case arising from the first point above. See the argument for the first point is often that "well the managers should do it, they're paid to do so, and they're paid to make the share price go up etc etc". Well.... No. This is another "right thing to do" that is a bitch to execute.
The commonly accepted way to align goals of managers with shareholders is to give them a large stock grant. Do you think this aligns the interests of managers and shareholders? Nah. All this does is makes them want more stock.
Look, none of these bitches will get fired if the stock price takes a dive. They will just blame it on the economy or the misguided bombers or the hurricane in some hapless coastal town. So, while they stand to benefit if the stock price goes up (or stays level), they stand to really benefit if they get more stock.
The way I look at it, most top managers are already fairly well off, cash wise. And the cash component of their salaries is still nothing to sneer at. So if you give them two options (a). Work hard, deliver bigger market share or higher margins and (b). Convince your boss you're a star so you get more stock, which one do you think they will choose?
Most of these Management Bullshit Artists are good are presenting forcefully their cases - however strong or weak the facts of the matter may be. So like their more evidently bastardish weasel brothers the lawyers - they cleverly plead their way into the top bracket. See the section above on pay for performance?

3. You're just like them
Every individual is motivated by self preservation first and self actualization last. And in the middle are so many factors that mess around with his brain - emotions, perceptions, marketing, etc. You can tell me that you're not one of them, but don't tell yourself that.
All else being equal, maybe some people would do good for others. But if that action starts influencing YOUR payout.... that's when things get messy.

So whats the point of this seemingly interminable blog post?

1). People are all looking out for themselves. You are too.
2). If you want them to do things that are good for you, you have to fool them into thinking that those things are good for them too.

Do The Right Thing My Ass.

I have been speaking to a few of my friends lately who regularly lament the machinations of their top management. Apparently a lot of their actions are not "the right thing" for the employees. A lot of them (the senior management) seem to be doing things that don't seem to be in the benefit of the company as a whole.

I can understand their anguish and frustration. What I do not understand is their surprise.

See doing the right thing requires altruism. You have to want to do something that is good for others, without a regard for what benefit or cost it may bring you. Altruism is a scarce virtue among humans in general, and given the fact that the echelons of senior management are populated mainly by conniving weasels, we can safely assume that in that rarefied atmosphere it is, even more dismayingly, absent.

For all the talk of values and shareholders, the thing that drives managers is 'what's in it for me?' (And in this post when I say managers I mean the top two or three levels of the company)
Every one of them is out to further his own fief, and satiate his giant ego. There are three reasons why these people will not do the right thing. I tried to explain these three items to my deluded friend yesterday, and I will repeat the gist of them here.
One point per post coz otherwise it's too long...

And today's point is:

1. Doing the right thing is hard
A lot of what is touted as the "right thing to do" is simple to say but very difficult to execute. For example - take maddening phrase "Pay for performance". Sounds deceptively simple and seems hard to think of an argument against it. But what a bitch to execute! The devil, as usual, is in the details - residing in the weeds where these philosophies are implemented, not in the clouds where they are formulated. Consultants and their management books often talk about promoting your stars and weeding out your laggards. Great idea. But there are a few complications in implementation.
First is identifying the stars. Who is a star? Someone who did a good job this year? This past six months? Think about the Indian cricket team. Who is your star? Ask ten people to cut the Indian team into the common five performance categories. I bet you get at least 5 different answers or categorizations. Same thing in organizations. Although all the books and papers tell you that you should define the job, set objective goals and so on, all that is terribly difficult to do in a business. Situations change, goals change, and frankly if managers were to do a fair enough job, that would take about 50% of their time. And they just don't spend that much time on it. So they go by gut feel and recency effects - see one admission here.
Second problem - how to rate. Forcing a normal (Gaussian) distribution for the 5 categories is hogwash. The groups that the distribution are forced upon are neither random, nor independent, and sometimes not even large enough to justify the expected fit even in theory (see Central Limit Theorem). Even if the distribution expected is not Gaussian, How much thought do you think your organization put into your distribution? Can they explain to you why 10% of the organization should be in the bottom category while only 5 at the very top (or vice-versa?)
Third problem - How much to differentiate. Say you got 5 categories. You're giving your top category guys a 20% raise, and your bottom guys a 0. What about the guys in the middle? 10? 15? 18.6? It's not a trivial discussion. Sure you should love and nurture your top guys and weed out your bottom performers, but what should you do about the bulk in the middle? The last thing you want to do is shit on them because they provide the raw horsepower that your stars need to get their results. I think you should love them too. Maybe not as much as your top guys, but hey, share the love.
So the point is, it's all nice to say the managers should do the right thing. But given how hard it is, do you think they will do it? That brings me to the next point.

I'm Back, and Lets cut some costs

Almost everybody that reads this blog, and their uncle and their dog have told me that my last few posts were tepid sermons. And that they would rather have me return to my obscenity spouting bitter ranting ways than spew insipid advice.
Now even though all those people total to a meager number of 2 (the reader has a dog for his uncle), it is advice I will take. When I can.
If you read my last post - I was away for starting up my business. That's done. We're off the ground. So I'll be back posting semi regularly.

All right. Back to mindless ranting.

So the economy has been in the toilet for a while.
Companies are cutting jobs all over the place.
And as you waste your time at work carousing through this blog, your manager is probably closeted in a conference room with other weasels and ferrets trying to figure out how they can cut costs. They're going to go through the silly ideas of removing the coffee from the break room and the small sandwiches from the meetings before they get down to the real business of getting rid of the structural problems that cause higher costs.

So how should anybody reduce their costs?
The cost to run your business is made up of some very basic areas. I simplify, but it boils down to:
Material: Money for material that your product is made up of (plastic, steel, bullshit, whatever)
Labor: Money for people that shape your plastic, steel, bullshit, whatever into something customers will swallow
Sales & Marketing: Money for people that will shove the shaped plastic, steel, bullshit, whatever into the customers throats
Research: Money to figure our what shape of plastic, steel, bullshit, whatever is easiest for the customer to swallow next year
G&A: The money for those clueless ego masturbating monkeys otherwise known as managers

So here's how you really reduce cost, instead of dancing around the coffee machine hoping for a reduction in paper cups.
Material: Reduce your material cost as a percentage of your revenue. Renegotiating with suppliers should be done, but not counted in the saving.
Labor: Cut it to 10% lower than the levels that your next quarters forecast requires. Don't pussyfoot around this. Pay cuts and forced vacations is the same as pussyfooting. . If your company does this, then it's being a pussy. And if your manager tells you they're doing it to save jobs or to be nice to employees, they're not just being pussies, they're liars as well.
Research: Do you even know how your research and development funds are spent? Really? Look again. It's not about cutting the spend. It's about making sure you're spending it in the right places. It's probably not a bad move to ask a new guy to take it over - or at least start managing the R&D finance portion (if your company is organized that way)
S&M: This is the touchiest. You gotta figure out which spend works and which doesn't. No point throwing parties for customers and their wives. That's not going to buy you anything. But creative pricing, packaging, etc - go for it.
Management: Knock out every overpaid management flunky you got. Every last one of them. Your management staff should be cut to the same % that the labor was cut if not more. And every CEO if a company that can not beat the market in a bad economy is a bad CEO. I've had enough of these management bullshit artists that blame the economy when things are bad, and take the credit when the going is good. Can't beat the market over a two year period? Fire the fucker.

Now I know that none of the readers of this blog are in position to make the decisions I'm recommending. But if you've got balls go tell your manager what he needs to do.

Or stop reading this blog.

Recessionary Tactics

So business is terrible and cash is scarce.
Over the past few years companies were growing by leaps and bounds, hiring anybody that could fog up a mirror, and projecting growth out to infinity. Many managers and leaders took credit for heights achieved by their organizations, when the real driver was just a rising tide. Now when the companies are taking a beating, magically the cause is not their leadership but a tanking economy. But hey, that's what most managers will do. Take credit and assign blame.
So lets assume that you are one of the small group of managers who are not in the general category of manipulative weasels. What do you do in these tough times?
Fuck if I know.
But I can tell you what not to do.

1. Do not delay decision making: Take a hard stand and go for it. Need to cut headcount? Need to cut spending? Don't pussyfoot your way around the bush for weeks on end while your company bleeds cash, and your employees are distracted by rumors of impending doom. Do it already. In the same vein, if you need to spend some money on your infrastructure, go for it. Don't delay the decision because of the economy. Even though you report your earnings to those evil analysts on wall street every quarter, you should hopefully have realized by now that you are in business for more than 3 months. IF anything delaying spending is worse than delaying spending cuts. Especially in these times. Grow a set of balls, make a decision, and then execute.
2. Do not get bogged down: Even if you're making unpleasant decisions, stay firm and stay upbeat. Nobody likes a sullen manager, and this is not the end of the damn world. And don't walk around like this whole thing is your fault. You're not that important. Smile. You have a job to do, and if you're doing it well, you deserve to smile. (Unless you're one of those investment banker types that was dealing in mortgage backed securities or convertible debenture structured provident gastronomy thingies or whatever)
3. Do not forget the uptick: It will come. Don't bet on when it will come. The pundits forecasting the turning point are all more wrong than the idiot on acid who writes the daily horoscope column. You do not know when it will come, but it will. And when it does, it will blow your socks off. The economic cycles feel like a roller coaster ride in reverse. The downturn feels like the slow dragging ride up the hill. The uptick will feel like the hair raising rush of speed you get on the way down. Prepare for it. Keep your employees (the ones that remain - hopefully the better ones) motivated, trained and ready to kick ass.
4. Do not forget the downturn: This is the one you wont listen to. The uptick will come, and 3 months into it, you will relapse into excessive partying, unnecessary travel, inefficient hiring, bloated raises and irrational effervescence. You will forget how you managed your expenses in the bad times. You will forget how you made your operating assets work that little bit harder. This is hubris. Just try to remember that the bad times will be back, and retribution will be had.
5. Do not get sell your stock: Of course, I'm assuming that you own stock in your company. And I'm assuming that your company is healthy enough to last the downturn. But selling your stock now, if you haven't already sold it a year ago is the worst thing you can do. Hang on to it for a year or so.

Satyam. (And God! what a King sized dick!)

Satyam means truth.
Funny No?

4th largest IT services company has been put in a precarious position by it's own founder Mr Ramalinga Raju. Ramalinga can be broken down into Rama (a god) and Linga (loosely, dick). Raju is a moniker that means King in the Andhra region, or so I'm told. So Ramalinga Raju can be translated into "God! A king sized DICK!!"
Funny No?

If you're a Satyam employee, it's probably not so funny. My heart goes out to those poor souls
The company's entire balance sheet is a lie. It's operating profits are a lie, which probably means it's P&L is a lie too. Nobody knows how much cash is really on hand, and how many days the company can run on without grinding to a halt.
53000 employees and countless shareholders have been cheated over the last several years to the tune of at least 1.6 Billion USD according to Dick's own confession (click here for text of the letter to SEBI)

And what does the SEBI chairman do after he gets the letter. Says he is horrified (wow!), and that he is in touch with the government (yay!), and says he is in discussions to figure out what steps the ministry and SEBI can take under the law. While you're in discussions, Mr Bhave, precious time is being lost, in which Dick and his scrotal cohorts (meaning brothers and sisters) are probably cleaning up evidence, destroying emails, and setting fire to proof of collusion and evildoing.

But anyway. Screw that. Back to the employees. Poor Poor Souls.
If you're a Satyam employee, all I can tell you is, I believe your company will come out of this. Not unscathed, mind you, but I believe it will come out of it. Focus on what is in your circle of influence. Never mind the bungling idiots and thieves who got you into this situation in the first place. They will get their comeuppance.
Oh, and I had read various news articles of Satyam employees wanting to buy their own stock to show solidarity with Dick. I hope you're not one of those.

And to the rest (non-Satyam) of the not so regular readership of this blog, I have something to share with you as well.
Clearly I just got done taking off on Dick and his scrotal cohorts, and there will be many more learned but less scathing commentaries on the Truth and it's mismanagement all over the web.
But here's what I want you to think about while you're guffawing about the follies committed by the aforementioned:
It is common to quickly make fun of leaders once their feet have been found to be somewhat clay-like. It is also common to declare the bastards to be the cause of their own misfortune, and that of their followers.
But it is probably necessary, before we unleash the fury of our scorn on those fallen from grace, to see how much of their earlier heights were reached on the gentle warm gusts blown by none other than ourselves.
Many rats have been racing in the corporate track in pursuit of higher profits and even faster growth rates. And we have, over the last few years, cheered them on.
While we clapped and celebrated every one of these growth stories and rejoiced over "India rising", we didn't deem it necessary to look hard at the means of their results or honestly question their claims.
We placed them on the pedestals they occupy. They didn't get on them without our help.

So while it's all fine and dandy to whip them for letting us down, we must remind ourselves to be more careful about whom we thrust greatness upon in the future.

--------------
PS: some articles on Raju/Satyam from 2007 and 2008
E&Y entrepreneur of the year
Economic Times Interview with Raju - check out the flowing praise (Jun 2007)
Raju, his sons and Maytas (again ET, Jun 2007)
Golden Peacock Award for Corporate Governance (Sep 2008) - Not even 4 months ago! "This honor demonstrates the value Satyam places on corporate governance, and on the importance of serving the interests of our investor, clients, associates, and of society", said Jayaraman - head of Corp Governance for Satyam.

Managers, Experts and Masturbating Monkeys

As I go through my everyday work life, I often get figuratively kicked it the nuts. If you're a guy, you already know that even a metaphorical kick to the groinal area can be very very painful. And this happens every time I have to deal with people at the workplace, who do no work.
No work at all.
I'm not talking about people who take multiple breaks for coffee, walks, smoking, blogging (*smirk*) and downloading Sarah Palin posters. Even the most compulsive break takers do some work. I'm talking about people who do NO work.

Many experts fall into this category as well. You know? Experts? The guys who have not done anything useful for at least the last 7.3 years. They are still basking in the long faded glory of this one product he designed using techniques that are outdated, that introduced features that are today routinely found on (or in) toilet bowls, and fulfilled a market need that can now be successfully addressed by Chinese made cigarette lighters. Some of these experts have actually not even done that one product, however long ago. These guys have just read up everything available on a a very narrow area, and avoid helping budding engineers by answering questions with incomprehensible blather like "Given the thermal geodynamics of the varying nature, if you're really interested in using the winged schema in your product spec, you should look at the drive architecture of the compounded spoilage in our last generation product."
They never actually do anything except pretend to advice. They sit in on review meetings and ask irrelevant and inane questions so that they can get their name on another patent. And whenever I have to deal with one of these guys my scrotal contents cease to effortlessly swing about and commence to shrink violently into tiny pain points.

Obviously many senior managers, directors and presidents fall into this pain causing category. They are supposed to manage, direct or preside, but there's a bunch of these guys who do nothing but postpone decisions till only one option remains open. They play a sick version of "passing the parcel" whenever something actually lands on their table so that every request becomes intertwined with so many departments that nothing will get done. And if all else fails they will create a board or a committee or a task force and get their rocks off by reviewing actual work done by others Whenever I have to deal with one such management flunky, I feel like I just got kicked in the you-know-where with a steel toed boot. You could replace these kinds of managers with bald masturbating monkeys. Same effect as the erstwhile manager - a disgusting display of flailing arms and self pleasuring.


But the most magnitude of pain is caused not by Experts or Managers. That happens when I have to deal with Expert Managers.
People who used to be good at something as an engineer, line employee, or supervisor, and have now been unfortunately promoted to manager, but have refused to give up their expertise in one or many technical area. They not only want to retain their expertise, but they also want to continue to be seen as the big dick expert in whatever area they used to be the expert in. These guys continue review the tiniest detail, ask questions about the most irrelevant aspects, and sometimes even take over interesting assignments to execute themselves. They impede the progress of projects and development of their staff, and are the worst possible kind of expert and the most ineffective manager that you can find.

At least the monkey works for peanuts

Busting Monopolies

Have you ever seen somebody who loves their IT support?
How about somebody who can’t stop praising their HR?
Or somebody who would give their right leg for their facilities maintenance team?

I’m guessing the answer, on average, is a resounding “fuck”
You know why?
Because these centralized support functions are lasting political monopolies.

By lasting political monopoly, what I mean is that these organizations have been placed in a position of a monopoly without having earned it, and have no specified limit on the time for which they are allowed to function as a monopoly. Unlike, for example, a patent, which is a Limited Apolitical Monopoly where the owner earned the patent, and has a time limit imposed on the monopoly powers it gives him, the DMV, is a Lasting Political Monopoly, where from now until the end of time, only the DMV has the power to issue licenses to drive.

And these lasting political monopolies are terrible things. Generally they will result in
1. Higher Pain: Either in pricing, or in cases where pricing can not exceed a certain threshold (like in our centralized support functions), in the actual experience, the monopolies will create excruciating pain for most customers. Badly designed databases, insane forms, irrelevant categorization procedures and labyrinth-like procedures are all signs that your support group does not care about you.
2. Lack of Innovation: Monopolies don’t need to innovate. The market is their slave. They laugh at innovation. Even in creating horrible customer experiences, they will not innovate. They will do it the same terrible way every single time.
3. Inefficiency: Without pricing pressure and competition for their business, the monopolies become inefficient, sloth like, and apathetic. With time, these monopolies get infested with incompetent employees who can not so much as understand your problem, much less actually solve it. I think that in a few years, all support functions will be staffed by comatose people on life support systems. And whats more, nobody will notice the fucking difference.
4. God Complex: These paragons of inefficiency eventually realize that their customers have no power over them. As soon as that happens, these bastards will start bossing they customers around, telling them what they can do and not do (You can not use a taxi if the travel company is not authorized by me), telling them what they can have and not have (You can have a pen to take notes, but you can not have a black pen), and telling them when they can have it (The lead time for getting a hall organized for your team in 145 days), and finally, telling the customer what is wrong with them (Why don’t you invite ME to your review meetings. Maybe the perspective I have gained by my years of experience ignoring your requests for service will add value in a discussion about cloud computing)
And in companies in India that are remote sites or development centers for their parent companies, this situation is made worse by the fact that more often than not, the heads of these support functions are placed at an organizational level that is a few notches higher than the heads of their customer organizations. In addition to that, their American or European overlords more often that not do not care about little manifestations of the bigger problem. And even if they do want to talk about it, they are easily slowed down by the monopolies by throwing some region specific sand - like legal and regional compliance directives – in the overseer’s eyes

So is there a way out?
Is there something organizations can do to prevent their support functions from turning into torture chambers for the rest of us?

Maybe.
For starters the regional support functions should be clearly told that they are accountable to the regional business unit managers.
Second, for every regional support function, one business unit manager should be assigned as the outside reviewer to review progress and performance on at least a monthly basis. And this manager should change every year. This has two benefits. Not only does the support function get reviewed by a customer, the customer gets a feel for what the support functions need to be successful. (Coz lets face it, not all customers are right all the time either. There are incompetent bastards among all of us)
We’re trying this in our business. I’ll let you know if things change.

If any of you have any other brilliant ideas, lemme know!