Olympics Part Three
First, I was kidding about going back to Widgets. I just wanted to see who was reading this. Thanks for your emails!
Second, I'm under a lot of pressure to post part three of the Olympics saga/tragedy/epic. Okay, a few people keep asking when I'm going to do it. The more I thought about it, the more I felt like I didn't know enough to comment since I was long gone from the place and only followed the action through the opinions of a couple dozen people. But hey, this is the blogosphere and anyone with a keyboard can say whatever they want, so here goes....
I left off with this statement.
"Unfortunately, at this point The Network Who Shall Not Be Named (NWSNBN) obviously decided that it might be fun to make a little company in Minnesota squirm or maybe writhe would be a better word. Okay, it probably wasn't a malicious conspiracy by The Network, but it was a perfect storm of several new half-thought-out projects. The Network said all these projects must launch in December--the same time as the Olympics site!"
Widgets and maybe the people at the NWSNBN were in a tight spot. Widgets was in the middle of a major debt restructuring and it wasn't a good time to annoy a very big (and potentially even bigger) service customer. The NWSNBN had it's own internal politics (or so the rumors said) that were driving their people to drive Widgets people into the ground. Everyone was, perhaps a bit desperate.
So, it's fall 2005. The web site for the Five Ring Circus is barely started, major undefined projects with short timelines are committed to, and it was hard to hire people who could come in and help in the short time frames since there is so much proprietary software to learn about before you can code anything. The company correctly began to give raises to some (but not all) of the vastly underpaid people. Bonus money was promised if "everything goes okay." I heard that management people even wandered around saying nice things.
In other words, whoever was in the building had to do all the work and quickly. If we had made a plan in 2004 when we finished the last Five Ring Circus, we would have started hiring much earlier and we would have had documentation of how far behind we were.
The constant at Widgets is the willingness of the majority of workers to do whatever has to be done, whether it is the launch of a website, incorporating a new technology, or just slogging out a massive amount of sales work. We got the work done even when there wasn't enough time or people or we were told to do something and then, halfway through, were told to stop and do it a different way. I think I've mentioned that there was little or no recognition or reward for this incredible work ethic.
The new projects for the NWSNBN turned out to be worse than anyone expected. The site concerning weather was poorly conceived and designed and another vendor on the project just plain failed to do what they promised. The new design for other sites was...poorly conceived and designed and the people in the basement had a big mess dumped on them and were told to get it done fast. Widgets people worked very hard to try to cover for the failures of others, but the results suffered from the fact that all the web knowledge of the Widgets basement types was ignored because the customer is always mostly right.
The Five Ring Circus site moved ahead slowly, a massive, intricately designed package of rotating and updating information that needed dozens of tricky methods written to make it work. That the project moved at all was due to an incredible number of hours of work being put in by the programmers and tech staff and people doing sales. I think some people worked every day for weeks and a lot of those days were ten to twelve hours long. Project management to try to track the thousands of pieces of work was only added near the end.
Did the Five Ring Circus site launch on time? Did the results display on the page within seconds of each athlete finishing? Did the sales placements satisfy the customers?
Yes, of course. Sure there are small problems and some of the requested googaws weren't exactly finished but overall the site was a huge success with impressive page views since it was actually advertised this time. Bonuses were apparently paid out and there is going to be an event in another month to thank everyone. (Hmmm, why not do a small event immediately after and then...no, never mind.)
During the Olympics, did I wish I was sliding in there every morning at 6 to eat Egg Bake and then put in my twelve hour day? I did miss watching the cable broadcasts of the live sports (I don't have cable at home) but I really only wanted to watch Curling anyway. Otherwise I was happy to not be there.
I salute the Widgets workers for their Five Ring Circus success! You should be proud of your accomplishments. You deserve better - go find a job at a company that is organized, consistently appreciative, and that will train you for your next job.
I have to stop now, I'm exhausted.
Second, I'm under a lot of pressure to post part three of the Olympics saga/tragedy/epic. Okay, a few people keep asking when I'm going to do it. The more I thought about it, the more I felt like I didn't know enough to comment since I was long gone from the place and only followed the action through the opinions of a couple dozen people. But hey, this is the blogosphere and anyone with a keyboard can say whatever they want, so here goes....
I left off with this statement.
"Unfortunately, at this point The Network Who Shall Not Be Named (NWSNBN) obviously decided that it might be fun to make a little company in Minnesota squirm or maybe writhe would be a better word. Okay, it probably wasn't a malicious conspiracy by The Network, but it was a perfect storm of several new half-thought-out projects. The Network said all these projects must launch in December--the same time as the Olympics site!"
Widgets and maybe the people at the NWSNBN were in a tight spot. Widgets was in the middle of a major debt restructuring and it wasn't a good time to annoy a very big (and potentially even bigger) service customer. The NWSNBN had it's own internal politics (or so the rumors said) that were driving their people to drive Widgets people into the ground. Everyone was, perhaps a bit desperate.
So, it's fall 2005. The web site for the Five Ring Circus is barely started, major undefined projects with short timelines are committed to, and it was hard to hire people who could come in and help in the short time frames since there is so much proprietary software to learn about before you can code anything. The company correctly began to give raises to some (but not all) of the vastly underpaid people. Bonus money was promised if "everything goes okay." I heard that management people even wandered around saying nice things.
In other words, whoever was in the building had to do all the work and quickly. If we had made a plan in 2004 when we finished the last Five Ring Circus, we would have started hiring much earlier and we would have had documentation of how far behind we were.
The constant at Widgets is the willingness of the majority of workers to do whatever has to be done, whether it is the launch of a website, incorporating a new technology, or just slogging out a massive amount of sales work. We got the work done even when there wasn't enough time or people or we were told to do something and then, halfway through, were told to stop and do it a different way. I think I've mentioned that there was little or no recognition or reward for this incredible work ethic.
The new projects for the NWSNBN turned out to be worse than anyone expected. The site concerning weather was poorly conceived and designed and another vendor on the project just plain failed to do what they promised. The new design for other sites was...poorly conceived and designed and the people in the basement had a big mess dumped on them and were told to get it done fast. Widgets people worked very hard to try to cover for the failures of others, but the results suffered from the fact that all the web knowledge of the Widgets basement types was ignored because the customer is always mostly right.
The Five Ring Circus site moved ahead slowly, a massive, intricately designed package of rotating and updating information that needed dozens of tricky methods written to make it work. That the project moved at all was due to an incredible number of hours of work being put in by the programmers and tech staff and people doing sales. I think some people worked every day for weeks and a lot of those days were ten to twelve hours long. Project management to try to track the thousands of pieces of work was only added near the end.
Did the Five Ring Circus site launch on time? Did the results display on the page within seconds of each athlete finishing? Did the sales placements satisfy the customers?
Yes, of course. Sure there are small problems and some of the requested googaws weren't exactly finished but overall the site was a huge success with impressive page views since it was actually advertised this time. Bonuses were apparently paid out and there is going to be an event in another month to thank everyone. (Hmmm, why not do a small event immediately after and then...no, never mind.)
During the Olympics, did I wish I was sliding in there every morning at 6 to eat Egg Bake and then put in my twelve hour day? I did miss watching the cable broadcasts of the live sports (I don't have cable at home) but I really only wanted to watch Curling anyway. Otherwise I was happy to not be there.
I salute the Widgets workers for their Five Ring Circus success! You should be proud of your accomplishments. You deserve better - go find a job at a company that is organized, consistently appreciative, and that will train you for your next job.
I have to stop now, I'm exhausted.
posted by changingagain at 7:16 PM
2 Comments:
You do know the egg bake wasn't there to feed you, don't you? It was dinner for the third shift, not breakfast for the first, which is why it shouldn't have been egg bake but that's a different story.
Bitterness can be exhausting.
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