Are we there yet?

I think when we were all kids we must have uttered those words which were immediately followed by a flying object directed to our face by one of our parents. No, not (for a girl still in school) "I'm pregnant" or (for a boy) "I got a girl pregnant" or (for both) "I'm queer"; no, the words I'm pondering are "Are we there yet?".

Unfortunately, these insufferable kids grew up and became IT Directors or Managers. The phrase uttered every five minutes have slightly changed to "Have you finished that program yet" or "This is really urgent" or "This is top top top priority". All uttered while invading your private space every five minutes, even following you in the toilets, on your way home and a splurge of sms messages at 11pm every night. Also do not place any ornaments on your desk as its an excuse to make small chit chat before the phrase "Oh, by the way, have you finished that...." is uttered; and have no doubt, it will come. Unfortunately it is against the law to grab a baseball bat and whack these space invaders over the head and you are forced to go through the lengthy process of a restraining order.

The same annoying kids also think they can do the impossible. For example, if you say I did 100 keepy-uppies with a football, they will come back with "Well I did 1000 just using my shoulders", without even blinking and passing a lie detector test. These traits are then used in IT meetings with business partners. For example, the CEO will ask, I want that IT system up and running in a year. The IT Director will say I can get it up and running in three months. It will be up and running in three months but with 10,000 bugs, a stream of never ending support contractors and an IT Manager who opts to take all the blame to safeguard his job and is now constantly dreaming of eating the IT Directors heart with a bottle of Chianti.

So all you need to be a good IT Director is little to none technical ability, an annoying habit of preying on your staff every five minutes 24 hours a day, stating every project is high priority (and sometimes having five high priority number one must do taks in the same hour), agree to every business demand with deadlines immediately cut and the ability to pass lie detector tests when you're taken to court.

Redundancy in an IT dept and UOP

Excuse me while I take some mind altering substances and indulge in an off-IT topic. I've been made redundant in Switzerland where the employer can state not liking the colour of your socks (this at least would have been more acceptable than the zero reasons I received) as a valid excuse.
I've been warned that the Swiss Unemployment Agency work you harder than a small Indian boy in a Primark factory by scaring the bejesus out of everyone and forcing them to look for work 24 hours a day. I now have UOP or more commonly known as 'Unemployment Office Phobia' in Switzerland. It's almost like being captured by the Germans and being tortured. Let me
give you an example.
During monthy meetings I have to present evidence of employment applications. Here is a loose re-enactment of my first meeting.
I'll use the fictitious name Philip Peters Stevens.

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Unemployment Officer (UO) - "So Miiiister Stevens, you claim to have applied for a job at Nestle. Hmmmm, I phoned up my good friend Herr Hitler at Nestle and he says your application does not exist (hand violently hits table). Explain yourself"

Philip (slightly sweating) - "Here's my application printout, correspondence from Nestle and a sample of my blood just in case I'm hospitalised during this meeting"

UO (Slowly coming forward to me, gradually talking louder and spitting into my face whilst talking) - "This is not good enough Miiiister Stevens or is it Miiiister Peters. Are you two people? Are you a English spy?

Philip (Wiping saliva from face) - "Yes, I've been sent by MI5 to determine how you keep your unemployment rate so low.
Not rocket science really"

UO - "English humour hey. Well lets see if we can extract the truth using, hmmmm, conVENtional methods" (Out comes a set of pliers.....some still with teeth inside them)

Philip - "Ok,Ok, I lied. I didn't phone them, but I sent them an email"

UO - "You also claim to have registered with 100 job agencies in one day. How is this possible Miiiister Stevens"

Philip - "Werr I kan tel yu if yu tak the plaars out of ma moth. Thanks. I have a very fast internet connection and in between downloading films to help with Employment Interviews like this, such as "Escape to Victory" and "Schlinders List", I managed to apply to all 100 Internet agencies"

UO - "Miiiiste Stevens. You have lied and will be deducted 99% of your first cheque. All future meetings will also be conducted via a lie
detector test and under hynopsis"

--------------

Going back to my redundancy, the IT Director deemed my role dispensible only to replace me with two experts in my field doing exactly the same job. From this, I can only conclude that the two male IT Directors were having an affair which I inadvertently stumbled upon and it would be easier to remove me from the company. Well, they say ligtning doesn't strike twice. That's bull, this is the third time it's happend to me. I will now only apply to firms where the IT Directors are female.

Slave to the Business

If you've ever had a little brother or sister then unknown to yourself, you've just been taught the fundamentals of life in an IT dept. Lets imagine these roles:-

VP Business - Father called Victor

IT Director - Mother called Patsy

IT Programmer - Son called Dick (aged 10)

Business Manager - Daughter called Winny (aged 5)

When the business ask for anything directly to an IT Employee, the normal reaction is to avoid direct eye contact and hope the little rascal eats the choclate laced rat poison in a jar labelled "for business employees only". If the low level Business Manager is still alive after a few days, then they will attempt to make contact again and if the repsonse, or lack of, is the same then people you only see telling lies on Bloomberg & CNBC, namely VP's and CIO's, soon get copied onto emails directed to you, reluctantly prompting you into some action. Suddenly this petty task is deemed more important by the IT Director than the Exchange Server going into serious meltdown or your Invoice system accidentally sending all invoices to the IT Directors Kitchen renovator as he once tried to claim the work through his expenses under Home IT infrastructure Requirements.

Nuisance Business calls are like your little 5 year old sister, Winny (Business Manager), asking to play with your Playstation. You ignore her repeated attempts and place a 5-lever mortice lock on every door, drawer and window in your room. At this point Winny gets frustrated that she can't get what she wants and proceeds with the puppy dog look on her gullible father, Victor (VP Business).

Victor is normally worried about his bonus so will simply call in his wife, Patsy, for a two minute lecture. Patsy (IT Director) then beats the hell out of Dick (IT Programmer) and threatens to take away his Playstation unless he does what Winny wants. Dick now knows not to mess with Winny as he will simply get a hiding from Mother and have all his toys taken away.

Winny also knows she has Victor under her thumb and simply has to run to him if she wants something from Dick.
Patsy has no choice in any matter and takes small measures to appease Victor by giving Dick some work to improve his manners i.e. An Improvement Plan.
These plans can last years or until Dick decides enough is enough and runs away from home to seek shelter with new parents who have no kids, and more importantly, cannot have any kids.

Winny knows as long as Father is always around, Dick is under her control. Patsy knows that Victor has the final say and if Victor says bend over, then Patsy raises her skirt and duly obliges like a true IT Director to the VP of Business.

So you see, working in IT is like looking after your spoilt sister as you have to act and behave at all times when the Business have your number on all their speed dial buttons at work and home.

Father always sits at the head of the table, but its Dick who's saying all the prayers.

Project Management or lack of

I've been involved in many projects with project managers, some good, some bad. However I'm now always involved with large scale projects with no project managers; some bad, some that make you vomit most evenings and rethink your existence in this world.

It all started with an innocent coffee break in the canteen, when I was approached by a BA and asked to attend a 5 minute meeting, to "sit, listen and provide technical advise" with Manager lookalikes, a very threatening flip-chart and a BA disguised as a project manager.

Like a patsy for the Mafia, I could smell the stench of another well-executed sting operation. Mistake 1 - I carried a notepad and pen which automatically qualified me to write the minutes. I struggled to keep up as four different languages being spoken, and yes, bulls**t was one of them. Mistake 2 - I spoke with an idea which automatically qualified me to summarise the actions, provide a solution, give estimates of development, costing,etc. Mistake 3 - I was last to leave the room so I had to clean the mess left behind.

I was left wondering if this was a setup like "You've Been Framed", so I started searching for hidden cameras and hoped I would wake up from this cold sweat very soon. Everyone left the room stating that 'nothing is impossible'. I left the room thinking that nothing is impossible for the people who don't have to do jack s**t and these f**king cameras must be somewhere. I also noticed that from the project 'team' of 10 people, I was the only one who had any action points.

Anyway, I worked tirelessly creating a project plan for myself, giving myself hard deadlines, arranging hourly meetings with myself for an update, reported myself to HR for swearing at myself, made myself cry and then called myself a cry baby and forced myself to work with a dummy in my mouth to teach me a lesson. I delivered all the requirements expected only to be told by the project sponsors, via a conference call from their beach hotel in Miami, that "I know that you believe that you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realise that what you heard is not what I meant". This stunk of the companys motto which hung proudly above the entrance of the IT department, "There's never enough time to do it right first time but there's always enough time to go back and do it again".

I now understand the phrase the Project Life Cycle as the Project makes you cry like a baby at the start, half way through you have a mid-life crisis and when the Project goes live you're looking like a 90 year old barely able to sleep and wetting your pants most days.

FROM HELPDESK TO SENIOR DIRECTOR…..in less than a week

Now the conventional way to gain a fast promotion in IT is to present an outstanding piece of work which could even be entered for a Noble Prize award (unless the functional design involves changing a program to ensure WMD’s decimate the world faster).

Loyalty and good honest hard work are not deemed worthy of promotion as there will probably be no one competent enough to replace your job so it’s deemed a risk. This implies useless non-productive workers are rewarded with promotion as their position can be fulfilled by someone in a lower level who will do a better job working half the hours, multi-tasking with a welding rod sticking out of their backside and only using their left foot to type. Hence the reason why Directors constantly look confused but know how to walk 100mph to look busy and important.

Software Developers in a team of two or more will never gain promotion purely because all equally deserve promotion but if one is promoted the rest will probably resign in protest by setting themselves on fire. Look, they’re new to this protesting scene and they prefer armchair protesting so they’ll simply kidnap an important invoice object orientated program and issue a ransom note via blackberry from the staff coffee room.

If you’re a developer, this would be the normal route to promotion:-
Junior Developer - Developer - Senior Developer - Team Leader - Manager - Director - Senior Director

Unfortunately I’ve seen the following occur at a company:-
Support Technician - Resignation - Unemployed - Senior Director of Support Services

And a lot of this

Programmer – Programmer with a blackberry – Programmer with a blackberry and on 24 hour support – Programmer with a blackberry, on 24 hour support and a car park space - Retired

The unconventional and more popular way to gain a fast promotion is to threaten a Director with evidence that can ruin his personal life.

If neither conventional or unconventional routes are up to your conscience levels, then join a company where titles are meaningless and promotion provides the HR department with an excuse to exercise their creative title writing skills.
Or simply join a company where any display of working an hour beyond the call of duty will result in a promotion; where the ability to perform a vlookup in Excel will result in an after work party; where restricting yourself to one toilet visit per working day will be “duly noted”.

And if you work on Helpdesk and all three happen in a week…then you’ve gone from Helpdesk to Director in less than a week. Con ‘f**king’ gratulations.

ELECTION YEAR

Should we also elect our IT Directors in a similar manner to the General Election? Or should they be elected based on friendships or family relationships rather than talent, which is the normal tradition. Aren’t all IT Directors a secret coalition as you’re given the job because you’re obedient to your master and not allowed to think for yourself i.e. a puppet government. Let’s review the positives and positives……yes, that was not a typo, of a democratic electoral vote.

Employees should have a minimum of three potential candidates to elect who cannot be related. Each candidate should submit his ‘promises’ and manifesto to employees and allowed a budget of 100 pounds (excluding donations) for campaigning. The longer the campaign, the better for employees as drinks to bribe voters will have to come from the candidates own pocket (it has been proven fictitious expense fraud increases in the run up to IT Directorial Elections mainly by the candidates).

Employees should vote in closed doors and supervised by a neutral i.e. someone who does not work with a computer and has no link with the IT Department, in fact someone who doesn’t even know there is an IT Department at the workplace and who thinks IT stands for Immigrants Toilet.

An IT Director leadership contest should only last two years before a re-election. This is sufficient time to deliver on his promises even if they cram the entire manifesto in the last week before re-election. IT Director pay should be performance related and expenses should be made public to employees.

Here’s a typical manifesto or a Dummies Guide to Election Victory for an IT Director

1) Promise to install a decent coffee machine as the 5 pound Tesco one has seen better days after two weeks use, let alone two years. Placing a cleaning filter in every six months or hiring a contractor (IT Directors lazy good for nothing brother who splits profits with IT Director) to ‘service’ it every 4 weeks is not washing……….away the grime.

2) I will promise to smile and greet passer-bys with a hello in the morning, plus fresh croissants everytime my expense sheet is signed off by myself.

3) I promise not to hire dumb contractors just to spend the allocated budget before year end. This is like giving a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle (which you worked on for a year) with 20 pieces remaining to a 6 month old baby. He’ll come along, rip the thing apart, try and place things where they shouldn’t go, take a break, let his guardian feed and burp him , return, urinate on it and then crawl away to seek new destruction elsewhere.

4) I promise to allow the World Cup to be broadcast live at the workplace. Simple, effective and a crowd pleaser. You may have to extend to the Rugby World Cup, afternoon Eastenders episodes and Supermarket Dash to gain majority share.

5) I promise to make all Director expense claims, especially the Marketing Department who are good for nothings cash drainers, available for all employees to view.

6) I promise to leave the country with my wife, kids and mistresses and never return if 99% of the votes are against me.

Salary Review

Salary reviews are very interesting times in the office as everyone is on edge and sometimes left wondering why the person next to them is smiling and showing off their new gold tooth, along with their gold plated foot stool and personalised Ferrari air conditioning for their cubicle whilst you’re still buying half mud soaked sandwiches from the three wheeled cyclist who never fails to arrive even during the monsoon season.

People that are disappointed with their rise assume they are at Hyde Park’s Speakers Corner and immediately say statements like “One percent isn’t even above bloody inflation, that won’t buy me a pair of Chinese manufactured underwear from a second-hand flea market”. Employees who received a pay increase simply say nothing and hide behind the employee code of conduct and refuse to enter into a pay discussion. All is eventually revealed when their meaningless title is upgraded to another meaningless title and circulated through an email which will also check the health of employees as some will die of shock. The tactful employee will celebrate the payrise at home(s) with their family and still wander in looking depressed the following morning…….normally because of a hangover or three.

Employees should change their attitude and complain at least once every week about how they are struggling on the current salary and highlight job accomplishments. Emphasis how you are struggling to finance your girlfriends breast implants and provide before/after pictures as proof. Maybe inform the boss of a success once a fortnight e.g. inform the boss that you’ve spent two weeks to create a drill down facility to make navigation of 65000 records of data more manageable for sales staff i.e. placed an auto filter on an excel spreadsheet. You should also take at least a week off during the year for stress related illnesses which should indicate that you’re performing far too many tasks and not simply twice as slow as a blind illiterate donkey to resolve a simple query thereby forced to work longer hours because of your own stupidity.

Then of course you have the honest employee who will be proud of the above average increase and who never fail to inform fellow employees that they are more valued than anyone else. They are also known as shit stirrers and every IT department needs them to keep the excitement alive.

Shit stirrers, we salute you!