Evening, Covert Affairs, Work Life

While I was on my little zen-cation there I took a leave from writing here online. I took a week off work and spent most of the time just being.  It was very nice and it contained several lessons that I am attempting to incorporate into my daily life.  The primary lesson there was the importance of just sitting things down every now and then.

I am back in the full swing of the absolute insanity that is work, driven ultimately by a director that is, charitably, in way over her head and less charitably, incompetent. The project has slipped back to a more reasonable schedule, but on the high level they are still going totally insane. I could rant and rave for a while about it, but in the end I just have to lean back and laugh.  I keep thinking a grown up somewhere has to be watching.

It is a quiet evening tonight, I am at home watching the most recent episode of "Covert Affairs" with the lovely and talent Piper Perabo. It has been a very entertaining series of episodes.  A little later in the night I am going to curl up and read for a while.  Hoping to get a nice chat in with T.R. tonight, but that is going to depend on schedules.

I thought I would write a bit more about what is going on at work, minus the ranting and raving.  Let me see if I can summarize the problem in a nutshell.  I am an information system analyst - I design and implement information processing systems, I am not a programmer, I provide the direction to the programmers.  I've got close to 25 years of experience - I am very good, and I am currently at the staff level. In system design and implementation process matters.

There is a classic story told by Deming, used to emphasize the importance of process.  In the story, you have a bowl of beans, some brown, some blue and a cup.  Your job is to use the cup and scoop out a cupful of beans. You scoop out the first cup and you have 80% blue beans. You are told that is very good, but you need to do better.  You scoop out the second cup and you have 85% blue beans.  You are told that is great, but you need to do better still or you'll be fired.  You scoop out the next cup and you get 70% of blue beans - and you're fired on the spot. The moral of the story is this - you can only be as good as the process that is being used.  It doesn't matter what you want, will, or intend.  You're only as good as the process.

We have well developed and mature processes at work. It's our job to hold customers to the process. But, in this case, the person who cannot hold to the process (who doesn't seem to even understand it) is our director.  She has zero process discipline and consequently this project has been all over the map. It is constantly one day, one moment away from disaster. It is burning people up and it is burning them out.

I am in a unique position - most of the worst behavior of this director I am not a direct witness too.  About two years ago now the director and I had it out in a high tension teleconference that lasted in five hours, during which I was told I had to "drink the kool-aid", which meant toe the line and not engage in any form of dissent, even constructive.  I refused. I told her flat out that I never drink the kool-aid.  That was the end of that and other then large group meetings she has spoken to me directly twice.  Which is fine with me.  That leaves me in an awkward point though - some of the things I have heard about her conduct I would never tolerate, but for me, they are only hearsay.  It's frustrating.

So, we continue forward in fits and starts, one moment from disaster.  If nothing else, it sure is a learning experience.  I am not sure how to go forward, but I am sure I will figure something out.