Change Mismanagement
It seemed change was coming when memos about memos were sent out.
Our new boss parachuted in from GodKnowsWhere, New Brunswick: a cachet combo of quaint and remote. Quaint: she could be meek, meek enough fit into our environment of timid drones. Remote: her reputation came wholly from the reference check phone calls. Supposedly we got into a bidding war to get her on board. I never learned who the other company was, but they were willing to pay a lot.
She started with a reorg. We had to leave our comfort-zone. Our product marketing lacked a call-to-action. Our business paradigm was under review.
New boss = new ritual: the new-procedure-to-adopt shuffle masked as a production meeting. Centuries back, Protestants split into offshoots (Baptists, Anglicans, etc.). Meetings gave rise to the Latists. If you were late for work, you missed the meeting. The Latists gave rise to a reformation. First, the meetings went on sans Latists. Then, the meetings were moved. But those late shuffles collided with the real work for a while. Of course, we were so busy finding a new way to work; we never had time to do paying work.
Meetings were replaced with memos. First, memos arrived as were emails. We deleted those. The emails came with "read receipt." We deleted those and claimed there was no read receipt. Our new boss made the sysadmin drop everything and fix the email system. He was one of the early Latists (it came natural to a techie). Instead of "fixing" the problem, he caught up with co-workers and surfed the web.
Unresolved email server problems gave rise to the print memo. Each memo was circulated for the staff to read, initialize and pass on. Memo management swallowed up one secretary who tweaked every neo-memo until it was fit for release.
With each memo, we practiced the art of coffee ring crop circles. We would leave a coffee ring in the corners, around the subject line, around the initials, you name it. With so many memos we were frivolous with our pattern design. She caught on when one memo came back with rings in the pattern of the Olympic symbol. After that, the memo secretary chaperoned memos so that no one could sully them.
Our new boss weaseled herself into the hiring process. I too was on the interview committee. I circulated copies of the resumes to everyone on the hiring committee as part of my job.
When I got to the boss, I gave her the resumes. She stopped on one. Her neck tendons tensed like she was unfurling sails. She asked, "Are you sure this one is, uh, a good prospective candidate?"
"I thought he looked fine."
"No. No, we can do better. Schedule someone else."
"It's too late. He's already been told. "
"Fine. We'll go through the motions I guess."
The next day, we interviewed the prospective candidates. Before lunch, we got to the guest of honor: the one that got a rise out of the boss. Our guest of honor was introduced to the committee. He shook my hand. He looked up and right to see my boss. He froze and his hand went limp.
"You're working here?"
Her sails unfurled. "Yes."
"Well, I don't need to do this interview."
"What?" Maybe someone else should have asked that, but I was astonished. This guy hadn't worked in eighteen months. He was around the corner from bankruptcy.
"I'm not taking this job. Not if she's here. Either she'll get me fired; or she'll run this company into the ground. There's no point wasting all our time."
He left. She looked at me and said, "I knew he was the wrong type," and told us to go for lunch then prep for the afternoon candidates. None of us could ask her about the reaction. None of us could ask the president. She had him wrapped around her little finger.
I went back to my desk and microscoped over that resume. Three years prior, he worked in the Maritimes. I Googled around the web. Bingo! He and the boss worked at an ill fated manufacturing company. She was their marketing manager and he was an engineer. When they closed their doors, he vented in a newsgroup post detailing how she kept everyone so busy refining the infrastructure that they missed too many product releases.
This wasn't the only tale. A year later, she was working as a product manager. That company imploded too and a disaffected web designer dished the dirt.
I liked my job and I didn't want us to go under. Next morning, the memo secretary schlepped a batch of memos to my desk. She tuned out while I read and initialized each one. She trucked away the slightly larger stack of memos to the next desk.
Soon the office gained a sub-murmur of discontent. Our new boss returned to her office and checked to see if all of the staff had read and initialized all of the memos. She checked every page for coffee rings, ad hoc graffiti, et cetera. She got to the bottom of pile and went white. She stood outside of her office and glared at every cubicle. Someone had found out about her checkered past and slipped a printout into the sheaf of memos. Everyone in the office read it and initialized it just they were supposed to do with all memos.
The next day, the memos stopped. The reorg stopped. Our new boss told the president that she was going to pursue new opportunities. He was sorry to see her go, but we gave her a great send off. At the bottom of her going-away gift box, I left a copy of the newsgroup post in an envelope to remind her that no good deed goes unnoticed.
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