February 17, 2003
From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:Him Got Two Jobs
A commenter in the prior post asks "Is Mindles still afloat?"
"Afloat" is rather an apt description, I thought, gazing at the snow building over the window sill.
Over at work I am now performing two jobs. This is how a humane company avoids layoffs - we take up the slack when someone leaves or retires and keep the headcount slim.
My new second job involves lots of committees. I am in meetings all day, nibbling at stale sandwiches from the side table, scribbling on printed powerpoint slides and appreciating the irony of having authored these items about committees.
Meetings like this can be a lot like arguing. As my more prolific co-blogger can attest, blogging can be a lot like arguing as well. I'm too tired to argue at the end of the day and so, clearly, is Jane.
I shall endeavor to fill the gap. I've been turning a few posts over in my mind this week and may use this snowbound respite to finish them. But there are other priorities. I pinched a few mewling antiwar protesters Saturday as they hurled bricks through the window of a nearby Starbucks. I must go down to the basement at once with my trusty two-by-four and administer a few more bracing wallops.*
Honestly folks, lighten up.
*Kidding..kidding...relax!. If you don't get the reference, you have to read back a few posts.
...er...well you would have to read back a few posts. Jane has deleted the offending item. She has received some hate mail for suggesting that those protesters engaging in vandalism might learn what violence actually can achieve from some irate shop-keeper armed with said two-by-four and an active sense of property rights. Some of our more sensitive readers felt she hoped for this hypothetical beating too openly and have seen fit to berate and de-link her (horrors!) while the omnipresent bathtub scum of the internet are taking their kinky sexual Id out for a stroll in a series of abusive emails.
Personally, I've been experiencing feelings of violence towards the operator of the municipal plow that put a seven foot pile of snow on the corner sidewalk intersection I must clear (or get fined, as I live a block from a school).
Mindles:
As the poster-in-question, I'm glad to see you're not only afloat, but 'in voice', as we say in The Opera.
Looking forward to you pearls of wisdom, sir...
You may want to change that footnote, since we can't read back a few posts. Jane removed the post that mentioned 2x4s in the first place.
Posted by: Brent M Krupp on February 17, 2003 01:30 PMThat story sounds familiar. My dad's own place of employment underwent two rounds of layoffs after three quarters that didn't meet expectations. After the second, they had so over-taxed their continuing employee base that they quietly re-hired some of the ones they had just go.
Now they're looking at another bad quarter and more cuts are possibly in the works. Here's betting the workload won't decrease along with it...
Posted by: anony-mouse on February 17, 2003 05:32 PMTimes are tough all over. But we live in an amazing era of ease, compared to what "tough times" looked like half a century ago, don't we?
Posted by: Dean Esmay on February 18, 2003 10:21 AMYes Dean, that's the truth. It is also true that people feel happier when they have lots to do (to a point..).
Posted by: "Mindles H. Dreck" on February 18, 2003 11:04 AMAbout six years ago my ex company declined a large project because the consensus was that it was too risky. Today, I am back as a consultant trying to make that project work.
The company had, over time, eliminated all of the people who had the expertise to know why we shouldn't take the project, me included. It was a self inflicted lobotomy. Sales, who were desperate to book something/anything then sold this old project because there was no one left to stop them.
I would conjecture that every company has some irreducible core of experience/expertise and to rightsize away any part of that core group dooms the company.
Posted by: Fred Boness on February 18, 2003 02:29 PMComments are Closed.