The View from My Cube

How Bad is it…

that girl — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:50:56 +0000

if your DBA gets pulled out of security training discussing the santicty of customer data to make some changes to customer data in production because the client has caused themselves some trouble and it’s easier to fix their data for them than explain to them they are dumbasses?

Thanks for Sharing…

that girl — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 23:06:04 +0000

Today, on day 2 of the blog, I won’t be writing about myself or my workplace quandries, but giving you an example of my workplace dynamic.

Today the office certified bachelor. let’s call him Jim, brought in his dog, saying: other people talk about and bring in their kids, I thought I’d bring in my dog to meet everybody. The dog, while cute, is massive – it’s as tall as he is when it stands on it’s hind legs. He shows us how the dog sits, how the dog shakes hands and best of all, how the dog hugs (it puts it’s paws on Jim’s shouders and hugs). It wasn’t an unpleasant interlude..

That is until a view hours later, when my female co-worker, Andrea, swings by my desk to ask: umm… when the dog was here, did you notice?

Me: notice what?

Andrea: during the hug….

Me: what?

Andrea: whistles and makes a hand gesture indicating, shall we say the arrival of male excitement

Me: {mouth agape}

Andrea: I can’t have been the only one who noticed?

Me: wait. Are we talking about Jim… or the dog? (ack!)

Andrea: the dog.. but it got me thinking. If the dog was exited by the hug, what do you think Jim does with the dog? There must be a reason he has such a big dog.

Me: OH… thanks for that image! gahhhh!

Andrea: I’ve been sitting at my desk all afternoon tortured by the thought.

Me: you could have kept that to yourself. Thanks for sharing..

Yes, folks… this is my office.

Why this Blog?

that girl — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:13:31 +0000

If you take a gander through the ‘About’ page, you’ll see that I was recently promoted into the wonderful world of ‘management’. I had high hopes of making a difference, changing what was ineffective, improving the processes of my group. Instead I found a nightmarish mess of in fighting, back stabbing and power grabbing – all of which I’d been shielded from in my previous role. I was outstanding at my previous role, and now I feel promoted from the ranks to a world I know little about and am not impressed with.

I’m up for the challenge, but will definetely be some growing pains along the way. The very first eye opener was a co-worker of mine, also recently promoted to management in his department, a guy I had a really great working relationship with when we were both in the minor leagues, orchestrated a political hit against my group – throwing us under the bus on project using highly distorted facts (yeah, that is euphemism for outright lies) – in a report that went to management. I was horrified. People came to me and said: it’s not really him, it’s his boss. I don’t care! I’m angry and more importantly, I’m hurt.. what happened to my buddy? He’s turned into a managment monkey. As I spoke about this to people around the office, I began to notice them looking at me as if I were the moron here, as if I were just naive.

However, I continued to be angry for quite awhile and thought and thought about why this was so, as no one else seemed concerned, including my boss. Finally, I came to the conclusion that maybe I need to wake up to the reality of how people with power really behave in the office jungle and that I need a place to vent about it because discussing this issues around the office seems uncouth and inappropriate as a manager. Finally, I need to learn how to work with people who pull these stunts, like my old buddy, someone who clearly doesn’t know how to handle it either, because he avoided me for 3 weeks and then one day showed up in my cube to chit chat, acting as if the whole thing never happened, but that is a story for another day…