Speaking of the dead

By Alston on June 16, 2005 6:12 PM | | Comments (1)

I just sent the following email, slightly altered for blogging, to Pedro:

I read an IM conversation between Rick and Dick (CEO) that I should not have read. I saw some snippets:

Dick: "...sometimes hard choices need to be made..."
Dick: "It's a company. He was expected to do a job."
Rick: "...I was thinking...maybe the new guys..."
Dick: "You're kidding me! They just started!"

In short, I am pretty convinced that either me or James are going to get the boot by Monday. Unless Rick decides that Bobby will be the sacrificial lamb, which I doubt Dick would allow. I have a 36K deal hopefully closing tomorrow. But even if that comes in and saves me, I can't see me being able to stay there. It's like being a rat in a cage.

I told James of this, and he feels the same way. He knows that he needs to get out. I dunno. This all just sucks. And I just got that flat-screen monitor.

I honestly feel like walking into work tomorrow and flat-out asking if I am next. I have some serious thinking to do. It's never been more clear that I am going to waste in this job. I really need to figure out what to do, and I am pretty sure that involves working for myself.

UPDATE: By the way, Dick is not a dick because he wants to fire me. Well, okay, he is, but that's not really why I think he's a dick. It's because he's an egotistical, unethical, mean and petty freakshow. More on him after I (likely) get canned.

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1 Comments

Paolo said:

Here's a little story. Interpret it as you will:

A large corporation with many departments would have all of the managers meet once a month to update the CEO of how things were running.

The CEO was often busy "networking" on the golf course and made it quite clear that he didn't have all day for this particular meeting as he had appointments to make. So, all the managers knew that if they had issues to speak of, they had to make them quick.

Of all the managers, one of them had the worst department. Her team was in chaos, none of them were meeting their deadlines, and money was being lost everywhere. Despite that, she was the most calm person in the room -- as always.

As the CEO asked each manager how things were going in their department, each one would bring up a slew of complaints and issues. The CEO would nod in earnest and move on to the next manager. When he got to the manager with the bad team, he asked how things were. She replied that there was nothing to report and that everything was fine.

Do you know what the CEO did? Did he cock and eyebrow and challenge her on how things could be so great when the company was losing money? Did he question what her secret was to have things be "fine" when every other department was complaining? Nope. In the end, he promoted her and eventually she was joining him on the golf course and networking with the bigger fish.

Was the CEO a smart guy? Obviously not. Was she an efficient manager? Definitely not. But she knew one thing. The CEO didn't want to hear about problems. Only good CEO's do and they're easy to spot. When you know the CEO isn't a productive, attentive, pro-active person, don't bother wasting their time with complaints or issues because that marks you for death. The sad truth is, that people like this simply want to hear that everything is OK. And people who report things are OK to people like this get promoted.

Good luck!

June 16, 2005 9:20 PM

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