I hate power plays at work. I once worked a corporate gig where the new boss didn't introduce herself for two weeks and then had a meeting where she wanted to Lay Down the Law. During this meeting I basically said, "hey, my name is humanodon and we've been doing just fine without a boss for six months and are actually more profitable than any of our other eight locations, so who the fuck are you?" Anyway, that resulted in more strong-arm tactics and within a month those of us that were bringing in said profits, had quit. Now before I quit, head office decided to have the new boss lady observe me over several days and in the end they found nothing wrong (and in fact found that I was not only accomplishing their goals, but exceeding them) but accused me of prepping the observation sessions, thus skewing the results. I then created a program at another company that ate into my original company's profits significantly and many of my clients followed me to my new place of business. Make all the power plays you want to, but in the end services are all about people.
I supported $22m worth of business as the only person in the company capable of doing the engineering design necessary to support the company's goals at the company's budgets. It cost me 90+ hours a week. They held a board-level meeting about what to do about "the kleinbl00 problem." The result was an "efficiency expert" following me around for a week, writing down notes about everything I did. She kept asking me how I knew to do what I did. I pretty much had to say "folklore and experience" or variations on that theme. Day 3 she started to cry at rare moments. Day 4 she went deadpan. Day 5 she stared off into space. A week later I discovered two of my 22" CAD monitors had been stolen "to put on a project" by another engineer. Well, not an engineer. A CADmonkey with a years' experience that got dragooned into fucking up other peoples' projects because we simply didn't have the manpower. I didn't notice for a day because I was so busy training the receptionist how to be a project manager. Lovely girl, tried hard. But she needed to understand distributed audio systems and video over IP and hadn't taken algebra. I spent half an hour trying to teach her Ohm's Law but gave up shortly thereafter. A week after that they laid me off and gave my job to the CADmonkey's husband, who had never done more than hook speakers up. He was certainly cheaper. The "efficiency expert" had known, and had known that any solution the company tried would lead to catastrophic failure. A month after that the company lost $22m in business. I was on a beach in Thailand solemnly swearing to the Universe that I would never, ever work in a cubicle ever again. That was eight years and a substantial chunk of a million dollars ago.
That had me laughing! Oh, I would have loved that.The result was an "efficiency expert" following me around for a week, writing down notes about everything I did. She kept asking me how I knew to do what I did. I pretty much had to say "folklore and experience" or variations on that theme. Day 3 she started to cry at rare moments. Day 4 she went deadpan. Day 5 she stared off into space.
Humanodon, I love you.I then created a program at another company that ate into my original company's profits significantly and many of my clients followed me to my new place of business. Make all the power plays you want to, but in the end services are all about people.