Meet and Have Fun. That’s An Order. Wednesday, 22 July 2009
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“Fun” is this month’s buzzword. Apparently we’re all supposed to be having it regularly. At least once a fortnight, anyhow. For most of us married types that’s way more than we’re used to.
The Company Approved Definition of “fun” is:
A regularly-scheduled agenda-free meeting where team members get together in a relaxed and informal way to discuss the issues of the day. Team members take it in turns to bring in a selection of doughnuts, cakes, pastries etc.
Apparently this provides us with a number of “opportunities”, such as “the opportunity to eat something nice”, “the opportunity to learn something interesting about one of your team members”, “the opportunity to vomit on the speaker phone and sabotage those horrible delay- and echo-ridden internet-based phone conferences”.
Okay, I made the last one up. But somebody else made up the others. And s/he got paid for it.
But what are we looking at, in reality? Meetings with no purpose. Company-enforced (but not paid for) obesity. More sitting about talking instead of doing. Seems a bit silly to me. But what do I know?
Strange things are afoot, that’s for sure. Managers are dropping the word “fun” into their presentations with alarming regularity. It seems our management is adopting Leninism – wasn’t it Lenin who said “a lie told often enough becomes truth”?
Reggie Tuesday, 21 July 2009
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In common with the rest of the known universe we’re currently victims of various “freezes”. You know the deal – employers using this media-inspired credit crunch economic crisis recession meltdown (or whatever they’re calling it this week) to get all cheapskatey on us poor employees. We’ve had a travel freeze. We’ve had a pay freeze. We’ve had a headcount freeze. Who knows – maybe come winter they’ll turn off the heating and we’ll all freeze properly.
Opinions are divided as to whether or not these freezes are the result of a genuine need on the part of the company to cut costs. Some higher-ups would argue that even with a billion-plus in the bank and a steady and predictable revenue stream there’s no guarantee that unusual sunspot activity, terrorism, or swine flu won’t seriously disrupt the company’s ability to “deliver shareholder value”, so now is the right time for cost-cutting measures. Fair enough – everyone’s entitled to a point of view, even if it does happen to be of the insides of their arse.
Imagine my surprise, then, to come in to work yesterday and find we have a new team member. His name is Reggie The Reward Rhino.
No, but seriously.
He’s a cuddly little fun*-filled fella about the size of the average underpowered out-of-warranty desktop PC box (the big boxy beige jobs, not the newer Xbox-shaped black ones that overheat and fry your hard disk). The kind of kit we try to develop our software on.
Reggie’s role is to sit on top of one of the above-mentioned PCs for a week. He carries a card that tells the world how wonderful the PC’s user is – how s/he “went the extra mile” and “demonstrated company values” – that sort of pukeworthy nonsense. At the end of the week the recipient passes him on to another do-gooder, thus ensuring the spreading of Good Vibes around the office.
So far Reggie’s ended up with one bin on his head, two plastic bags (Sainsbury’s and Tesco’s), a greasy Subway wrapper, and a neatly-crafted archery target stuck to his forehead. If he doesn’t escape from the Development trenches soon I suspect he won’t see Christmas. His best chances of survival are to make it to HR, but I can’t see anyone wanting to put in a good word for them at the moment.
* we’re currently experiencing a major Fun Epidemic in the company. More on this in later posts. Prepare to be amazed. And not a little appalled.
Progress Monday, 20 July 2009
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So, this time forty years ago I was a gobsmacked little kid: I was up late. Watching telly!
For someone who was normally packed off to bed ASAP so that the bids could have a bit of peace at the end of their day, this was nothing short of incredible. My dad actually wanted me to stay up and watch the telly with him.
‘In years to come you’re going to want to say you watched this. Trust me.’ he might have said. Me, I was too busy asking for another bit of toast and Marmite. And another glass of lemon squash, please, mam.
These blokes called Neil Armstrong and Buzz (“that a daft name, isn’t it dad? why’s he called Buzz?” “he’s American, son, they tend to have funny names.”) Aldrin were going to land on the moon. Apparently this was a big deal, even though back then I used to do it pretty much every week. There was this one time when I made it there and back in about twenty minutes in a cardboard box that up until I remodelled it had been a simple container for an English Electric cooker.
So, they landed on the moon. My dad smiled a lot. My mam shrugged her shoulders and called my dad “a big kid”. I ate a lot of toast and Marmite. Then a fuzzy white blob came down a fuzzy white ladder and bounced about on the fuzzy white screen. People on the telly said it was a Historic Occasion. It certainly was. It was another five years before I got to stay up that late again.
