And so it is nearly upon me. The day where I hand my office pass in to my boss, clear down my desk and head out of the building for the final time.
At times like this it’s hard not to think about the things I’ll miss about my current corporate life. Harder still to avoid pondering those things I won’t miss.
“Why don’t you write a blog entry talking about some of those things now, Pat?”
GREAT IDEA! Let’s go:
Key Things I’ll Miss
This is pretty obvious: the people and the pay. Ok, so this section appears ludicrously small in comparison to the one below, but that’s because it’s much more fun to write rants :-)
Key Things I’ll Not Miss
IT Systems
From computers I’d struggle to get Doom running on even with a special boot disk, though “rich” web-based systems that require $3 million worth of hardware and software to poorly emulate the old robust thick client systems / the perfectly functional old web pages that could keep themselves within 2MB a page, to centrally-enforced software rollouts that turn your PC into a tin box with flashing lights on it (“What do you mean you guys install software on your development PCs?”).
Corporate IT Systems, from what I gather, suffer from the following two issues:
- The slow and complex nature of changing, testing and approving new systems across a huge organisation
- A new solution often being a result of golf matches with suppliers rather than what’s measurably best. (This is of course a joke and in no way is Pat trying to suggest that A new solution often being a result of golf matches with suppliers rather than what’s measurably best – Squage). Er, that’s literally just what I wrot-(SHUT UP – Squage). Ahem. Yes, there is no second bullet point.
Bureaucracy
Want to copy a file over here? Sure! You just need to:
- Raise this EU Change Request form
- Raise this separate USA Change Request form (5 days’ notice at least)
- Get the appropriate approvals from all appropriate parties (and some inappropriate ones)
- Load the file into the “here’s the only place you’re allowed to have stuff copied from” area
- Raise the paperwork to have it copied to the staging area (make sure you perform the appropriate file labelling and promotion first)
- Raise the paperwork to have it moved to production (up to 5 days’ notice)
- Make sure you’ve got the appropriate Service Centre Supervisor confirmation as we’re not in the 1 month that doesn’t involve some kind of “Freeze Period”
- Make sure your previously approved system architecture document won’t be affected so you might want to involve the IT Policy Specialist to review your change.
I LOVE BUREAUCRACY.
Business Speak
I agree that in order to sing holistically from the same hymn sheet, we often need a heads together in order to ensure the important items are on our radars from the get go.
Perhaps using metaphors can incentivise a quick win when trying to action an idea shower into deliverables in the office going forward.
But heads up folks, I want to touch base with you on this: it only takes a bit of blue sky thinking in this space to realise using these low hanging fruit can damage your ability to articulate clearly.
I just don’t have the bandwidth to cope with it all cascading down to me, I can’t even be bothered to drill down into what wrong-sides me about it most.
If I could just get my ducks in a r(OK, STOP THIS NOW – Squage)
Ok, sorry. I must mention this though: my favourite BS phrase still has to be this, which was uttered only once to my knowledge by a former manager:
“We need to take the chastity belt off this project”
To this day, I still shudder to think of the manager strapping the project down and giving it a good seeing to. Think that dream in Office Space. “Yeeeeeeahhh… I’m gonna need you to go ahead and be delivered by Q4… don’t move… yeah that’s it… keep that deadline right… there…”
I’ll leave that image with you. Hope it pushed the envelope.
BYE!
Pat
