Or
A Crash Course in Upper Managment
I don't want years of crushing responsibility. My goal is to get to a mid to low level position I enjoy, then retire from there. Apparently in this wonderful corporate culture, what I really mean is "I don't want my career to advance and I want to be stuck in the same spot until I quit," despite there being a huge breadth of positions that would afford me an opportunity to increase my experience, and also wouldn't require a drive to be in upper management in order for me to be good at them. Apparently, as another part of this culture, we are to be penalized if we can't force a laughably broken software tool to work better than the one it's replacing.
We were told, in so many words, that if we can't use this tool more, and make it work better than the previous tool despite empirical data directly contradicting that it even can, we may start losing our bonuses and other benefits as punishment. It was also explicitly stated that the only people who are at risk of losing said bonus are the ones who use the new software, not the ones responsible for designing and implementing it. This is of course despite the fact that the implementation and design team (especially the upper management pushing this through) could most likely cover a year's salary for the end users with JUST their bonuses.
I have no doubt the reason for this is that somebody high up sank a large chunk of money into the project of creating this new tool, and either falsified or (more likely) conducted flawed analysis of the initial data that determined the tool is going to improve things, and now can't afford to admit the giant boondoggle that company money was sunk into is a failure. (I say inaccurately interpreted results is more likely because you should never attribute to malice something more easily explained by incompetence.) Clearly the only thing stopping this new software tool from fixing all the company's problems is those ungrateful employees who are the ones stuck using it multiple times a day and keep complaining that it's broken! We need to threaten and punish them for not making it work like its supposed to instead of actually worrying about fixing it or going back to the previously working system, because obvious flaws in functionality and coding are clearly the result of end users not trying hard enough!
Now I see where they are trying to go with the new tool. I even agree with the reasoning behind the way said tool works. However, here's a tip from a former software programmer: if you are introducing a new piece of software that will take over functionality of an older one entirely with no options to access any of the previously available and absolutely crucial functions except through the new interface, and you don't provide someone with a way to override or circumvent it when it goes live, you screwed up, because it's going to and there needs to be a way to fix it when it does.
You might respond by pointing out that Apple did the same thing recently, to which I reply,
"Yes, and that was a colossal screw up. More over, Apple didn't immediately force everyone on to it, and once the problem occurred, released a fix for it in less than 30 days. Two in fact. This problem was a top priority for them. The huge waste of cash YOU put out has existed for more than 120 without anything more than a cosmetic patch despite numerous and well know issues."
We were told, in so many words, that if we can't use this tool more, and make it work better than the previous tool despite empirical data directly contradicting that it even can, we may start losing our bonuses and other benefits as punishment. It was also explicitly stated that the only people who are at risk of losing said bonus are the ones who use the new software, not the ones responsible for designing and implementing it. This is of course despite the fact that the implementation and design team (especially the upper management pushing this through) could most likely cover a year's salary for the end users with JUST their bonuses.
I have no doubt the reason for this is that somebody high up sank a large chunk of money into the project of creating this new tool, and either falsified or (more likely) conducted flawed analysis of the initial data that determined the tool is going to improve things, and now can't afford to admit the giant boondoggle that company money was sunk into is a failure. (I say inaccurately interpreted results is more likely because you should never attribute to malice something more easily explained by incompetence.) Clearly the only thing stopping this new software tool from fixing all the company's problems is those ungrateful employees who are the ones stuck using it multiple times a day and keep complaining that it's broken! We need to threaten and punish them for not making it work like its supposed to instead of actually worrying about fixing it or going back to the previously working system, because obvious flaws in functionality and coding are clearly the result of end users not trying hard enough!
Now I see where they are trying to go with the new tool. I even agree with the reasoning behind the way said tool works. However, here's a tip from a former software programmer: if you are introducing a new piece of software that will take over functionality of an older one entirely with no options to access any of the previously available and absolutely crucial functions except through the new interface, and you don't provide someone with a way to override or circumvent it when it goes live, you screwed up, because it's going to and there needs to be a way to fix it when it does.
You might respond by pointing out that Apple did the same thing recently, to which I reply,
"Yes, and that was a colossal screw up. More over, Apple didn't immediately force everyone on to it, and once the problem occurred, released a fix for it in less than 30 days. Two in fact. This problem was a top priority for them. The huge waste of cash YOU put out has existed for more than 120 without anything more than a cosmetic patch despite numerous and well know issues."
Is it too much to ask to work somewhere I'm not constantly being punished for, and having to clean up, someone else's messes?
No comments:
Post a Comment