Saturday, January 27, 2007
POW MIA
This godforsaken institution called work has interfered with pretty much every aspect of my life hence, the lack of blogging. All the work myself and my team have doing for the last year came to a head with a presentation to top management of what we are planning to do to stem attrition and improve employee morale and productivity.
If my boss had it his way, he probably would have achieved this by chaining the agents to their desk, personally conducting public executions and having our ops managers slowly burn the tardy at the steak.
Alas, he is constrained by Western law, and my team was put in place to figure out ways we can do this through positive incentives. After a year of painstaking statistical analysis of compensation, turnover, health benefits, and phychological profiling, we came up with a suite of solutions.
And after a month of working seven days a week and regularly until 1am, we pulled it all together for a meeting last weekend. The ends, however noble, didn’t justify the means: people crying in my office, firings, yelling. Morale is at an all-time low, myself included. Sometime in the future I will elaborate on the details of this hell but now. . . like a POW coming home from Vietnam, I am shell-shocked and exhausted
So what is to happen to me now that all this stuff is done? For the third time, I’ve been “re-organized” and find myself heading a small internal consulting team in operations research and strategy. What do I know about streamlining collections and customer service work? Nothing. But in the eyes of management all you need are analytical skills. Hence I find myself Vice President of Business Development.
This week they are giving me some time to come up for air; I took advantage of it and some time off this week to lick the wounds, pick up the pieces, and get my apartment and life back in order.
“When the public goes out, when they go to the theater, they go to see and feel something better then they usually have in life. So when the public goes out and improves and feels better and thinks ‘now there’s really some worth for. ’ That is our first and main duty. How we go about that, I don’t care. So long as we succeed in that.”
These words are from Maria Callas. And so after this month of hell I took refuge at the Metropolitan Opera to see Pagliacci and yesterday I bought satellite radio to tune into the Metropolitan Opera station. It’s wonderful. I’m listening to Verdi’s Il Trovatore, a live broadcast from the Met’s archives 50 years ago (with none of this digitally re-mastering bull shit record labels do).
Exhale. . . . There’s something worth for in life.
If my boss had it his way, he probably would have achieved this by chaining the agents to their desk, personally conducting public executions and having our ops managers slowly burn the tardy at the steak.
Alas, he is constrained by Western law, and my team was put in place to figure out ways we can do this through positive incentives. After a year of painstaking statistical analysis of compensation, turnover, health benefits, and phychological profiling, we came up with a suite of solutions.
And after a month of working seven days a week and regularly until 1am, we pulled it all together for a meeting last weekend. The ends, however noble, didn’t justify the means: people crying in my office, firings, yelling. Morale is at an all-time low, myself included. Sometime in the future I will elaborate on the details of this hell but now. . . like a POW coming home from Vietnam, I am shell-shocked and exhausted
So what is to happen to me now that all this stuff is done? For the third time, I’ve been “re-organized” and find myself heading a small internal consulting team in operations research and strategy. What do I know about streamlining collections and customer service work? Nothing. But in the eyes of management all you need are analytical skills. Hence I find myself Vice President of Business Development.
This week they are giving me some time to come up for air; I took advantage of it and some time off this week to lick the wounds, pick up the pieces, and get my apartment and life back in order.
“When the public goes out, when they go to the theater, they go to see and feel something better then they usually have in life. So when the public goes out and improves and feels better and thinks ‘now there’s really some worth for. ’ That is our first and main duty. How we go about that, I don’t care. So long as we succeed in that.”
These words are from Maria Callas. And so after this month of hell I took refuge at the Metropolitan Opera to see Pagliacci and yesterday I bought satellite radio to tune into the Metropolitan Opera station. It’s wonderful. I’m listening to Verdi’s Il Trovatore, a live broadcast from the Met’s archives 50 years ago (with none of this digitally re-mastering bull shit record labels do).
Exhale. . . . There’s something worth for in life.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Monday, January 01, 2007
Another year has come and gone. So what’s to show for 2006 and what’s to look forward to in 2007? I guess starting with what’s already happened is easiest.
With respect to work, I’ve settled in to the point where I’ve got staff, daily access to the CEO, and have a chance to work with a professor at Columbia. Except for the latter, none of this is particularly good news. Managing people is more of a pain than I’d ever dreamed, the CEO of our company is a tyrant, and I now work more than ever (weekends and holidays included.
Culturally, I’ve obviously got no complaints. Access to the Met has made this a bearable world, and to balance things out I go to the Monster and hang out with Rob. “Stay close to the earth, because when you fall it doesn’t hurt as much,” I’m told, and that I’ve certainly done.
Romantically, I’ve not just stayed close to the earth, but am crawling around in it like a mud bug. There’s no where to go but up: I had a summer fling that turned psychotic, started on-line dating (which in the gay world is just a place to have random sex), and the only people interested in me are awful. Now there’s really no news, which given my track record is actually good news.
Family is family. I see a lot more of then and other friends now that I’ve got a decent sized place . . . People are coming out of the woodworks to crash at my place (esp the family) so I’m glad to report that I’m visited. Shit, I can’t believe it’s been over a year since I’ve moved back.
And as for next year, what is there to say. Biggest issue is romance, but I’m not going to resolve to do a damn thing about that. I wouldn’t mind improving my work situation and work-life balance, but who doesn’t. Everything else is pretty good, I have to say.
2006. Over and out.
With respect to work, I’ve settled in to the point where I’ve got staff, daily access to the CEO, and have a chance to work with a professor at Columbia. Except for the latter, none of this is particularly good news. Managing people is more of a pain than I’d ever dreamed, the CEO of our company is a tyrant, and I now work more than ever (weekends and holidays included.
Culturally, I’ve obviously got no complaints. Access to the Met has made this a bearable world, and to balance things out I go to the Monster and hang out with Rob. “Stay close to the earth, because when you fall it doesn’t hurt as much,” I’m told, and that I’ve certainly done.
Romantically, I’ve not just stayed close to the earth, but am crawling around in it like a mud bug. There’s no where to go but up: I had a summer fling that turned psychotic, started on-line dating (which in the gay world is just a place to have random sex), and the only people interested in me are awful. Now there’s really no news, which given my track record is actually good news.
Family is family. I see a lot more of then and other friends now that I’ve got a decent sized place . . . People are coming out of the woodworks to crash at my place (esp the family) so I’m glad to report that I’m visited. Shit, I can’t believe it’s been over a year since I’ve moved back.
And as for next year, what is there to say. Biggest issue is romance, but I’m not going to resolve to do a damn thing about that. I wouldn’t mind improving my work situation and work-life balance, but who doesn’t. Everything else is pretty good, I have to say.
2006. Over and out.
