| Title: | The Digital way of working |
| Moderator: | QUARK::LIONEL ON |
| Created: | Fri Feb 14 1986 |
| Last Modified: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 5321 |
| Total number of notes: | 139771 |
I don't know if I've ever read a note or reply giving the moderator's
"official" policy on parody in DIGITAL notes, so I'll take a chance
and post this here. I think it really does a good job of pointing
up some aspects of DECculture. Perhaps we can spawn some interesting
discussions based on points raised herein.
The forwarding trail has been removed to protect the guilty.
The authorship is unknown (by me, at least).
Atlant
ALICE in DIGITALand
"Where am I?" asked Alice, as she peered at the large 7-lettered sign
with the standard blue letters.
"You're in Digitaland," replied the security guard, "May I see your
badge?"
"I don't have a badge."
"Did you lose it?"
"No." answered Alice in a puzzled tone. "How could I lose something I
never had?"
"If it's not lost then you must show it to me."
"I can't. I don't have one."
"Then you'll have to have a temporary."
"A temporary what?" asked Alice, more confused then ever.
"A temporary Badge. What's your badge number?" requested the guard.
"I don't have one"
"Of course not, Ken Olsen has 1. Give me your badge number, and your
cost center"
"I'm so confused. I can't do this. I've already said 3 times why. Do I
have to tell you 4?"
"Ahhh. 3XY, badge number 4. You must be very important to have such
a low badge number. I should have immediately recognized how low by your
state of extreme confusion. Here's your temporary. Go right on in."
Alice pasted the sticky paper to her dress and headed down the hall. Not
10 feet ahead she saw a rather distressed looking rabbit coming toward
her. He was dressed in a pair of torn, faded jeans, and a dirty tee
shirt.
"What's wrong?" Alice asked.
"I'm late! I'm late!" exclaimed the rabbit as he peered at the pert chart
dangling from his pocket protector.
"Late for what?" asked Alice.
"My date. I'm going to miss my date. I've got a deadline to meet and
I'm not going to make it."
"Well, if it's already dead, it probably won't mind. In fact it isn't
likely to be going too far in such a state. I'm sure that however long
you take will be just fine."
"You obviously don't understand. Everything takes longer than it really
does. It doesn't matter what you are doing, only that you meet your
date, and that's always impossible."
"Well if its impossible, why would anyone expect you to meet it?" Almost
at once regretting that she had asked. Was this was going to be as
confusing as badges?
"Its really very simple. In order to move forward, you need a goal. Any
goal will do. It just has to be impossible to do. To motivate the
troops, you have to make goals very challenging. Its really only there
to get a stake in the ground, you know. After that we march in step
until we reach our objective. The date really doesn't mean anything.
You simple have to understand that we are going to do the right thing."
"But the if the goal is impossible, and really doesn't mean anything why
are you trying to go there. Wouldn't it be simpler to first figure out
what you are really going to do, then figure out how to get there?"
"You obviously don't understand the process. And as I said before I'm
late so there is obviously only one thing to do."
"Hurry up and rush off?" Alice asked, hoping it would sound more like a
suggestion than a question.
"No. No. No. A meeting. Let find the Mad Manager and a number of
involved, interested, or warm bodies."
"That will obviously take a lot of time. I don't think you have any to
waste.
"No it won't. All we have to do is find a conference room. There are
lots of them right over here."
"But," started Alice, "those rooms are all full of people. Don't we
need an empty conference room?"
"Silly thought. If we want to find the Mad Manager and some meeting
attendees, why would we look in an empty conference room? Anyway, its
impossible to ever find an empty conference room."
The rabbit took Alice by the hand, and promptly lead her into the
largest, fullest conference room. Alice immediately noticed that the
wastebasket was quite full of foam cups, and overhead projector bulbs.
These people had obviously been here for a long time.
At the head of the table sat a man with a rather funny suit wearing a
large hat.
"Why" whispered Alice to the rabbit, "is that man wearing that funny hat?
Who is he?"
"I'm the Mad Manager," answered the man at the end of the table,
obviously overhearing the question, " And I'll be happy to tell you why
I'm wearing this Hat, but that topic is not on the agenda."
"Why don't we change the agenda?" asked a person in the corner.
"Is that a topic for another meeting?" replied the manager.
"Is what a topic for another meeting?" voiced a third. "The reason for
the hat, or why we don't change the agenda?"
"Why don't we take this off line?" queried another.
"Does everyone agree that these are all topics we should address?" asked
the mad manager.
"Possibly so. " injected the person in the corner. "Could it be that we
have a hidden agenda?"
"Oh no!" the Mad Manager began, the dismay obvious on his face, "someone
has hidden the agenda again! Let me put on my process hat and we'll see
if we can work this issue."
With that, he removed his rather amusing top hat, and place a big green
fedora on his head.
"Now, with my process hat on, I'd like to address the issue of the hidden
agenda. Since we can't have a productive meeting without an agenda, it
is up to all of us to find it."
"But, " a voice from the corner piped in, "who is going to drive this
issue?"
"Do we have an action item here?" asked another attendee.
"Does anyone here want to work this?" asked the mad manager.
"Who originally brought this up?" asked another.
"I believe that the woman who came in with the rabbit proposed this.
Shouldn't she own it?"
"Well" the Manager stated, pointing to Alice. "I'd say that this is your
issue."
"What issue. I don't have any issues. " retorted Alice, nervously
fingering her temporary badge. "I only posed a simple question."
"I'm not sure we can accept that," the manager declared. "We need a
date."
"But, " Alice began, remembering what the rabbit told her about dates,
"a date is impossible."
From the back of the room another voice asked, "How about a date for a
date?"
"The least we can ask it that you give us a date when you will be able to
give us the date for the date." stated the person in the corner.
"I'm not sure I can do that," Alice opened, "since I don't know what I'm
supposed to give you a date for. I'm having a problem trying to figure
out what you want me to do."
"We don't have any problems here, only opportunities!" Piped a chorus of
voices.
"It's really quite obvious," the mad manager declared as he reached
behind him for a striped blue and gray beret, "let me put on my Digital
hat for a moment," he continued doffing the fedora and flipping on his
latest selection, "You must do the right thing."
"Yes. yes. " chimed the chorus of attendees, "Do the right thing.
"Now, who is keeping the minutes?" the manager asked as he pitched the
beret and placed the fedora back on his head. "We need to record this
action item so we can come back to it later."
"We obviously can't deal with this issue until we can determine whose
meeting this is?"
"Should we schedule some time to cover that topic?" asked one of the
attendees.
"Whose going to drive this?" asked another.
Just at the Mad Manager was pulling out a rather worn pith helmet, a
voice in the back suggested "Let's take a break and work some of this 1x1
off line"
Being closest to the door Alice was the first to leave. She quickly
dashed down the hall, and ran up the first flight of stairs she
encountered, relieved to be free of the madness.
When she opened the door the scene that confronted her made her wonder if
returning to the meeting wasn't a bad idea. Seated around a large oval
table were what appeared to be playing cards, each dressed in a gray or
navy blue three piece suit. Around each neck was a rather oddly shaped
handle (or were they nooses?) made of silk, or polyester.
"Off with her head!" screamed the queen of hearts who was sitting at the
head of the table. Alice noticed that her tie was silk, and each card
seated near her was dressed in a suit and noose combination similar to
the queen's.
"Why would you want to remove my head?" Alice asked. By now she was
feeling beyond confused.
"It's not a modern, iconic, user friendly, menu driven, color, PC
compatible user interface," replied the queen, in a tone that would need
to come up two notches to be vaguely considered condescending.
"It happens to suit me just fine," retorted Alice.
"What are you an engineer or something?" asked the 7 of spades.
"No, I'm Alice. Who are you?"
"Marketing." they replied in perfect fifty-two part harmony.
"And what is that?" asked Alice.
There was a brief interlude of silence as each of the cards fidgeted with
their ties, checked their watches and scribbled notes on the pads of
paper contained in a handsome genuine imitation leather folder embossed
with the company logo. Then one by one, as dominoes would do, they
turned to the person on the left until they all stared at the queen of
hearts.
The queen cleared her throat, adjusted her tie a second time and stared
directly at Alice. "We provide the strategic thinking necessary to grow
the business."
"Oh," said Alice, "you figure out what products to build!"
"Heavens, no!" exclaimed the Queen, "That's too tactical. We feel its our
job to develop the vision for the long term."
"You develop things," began Alice, "so you build the products?"
In unison each member of the table made a face reminiscent of the look a
small child gets upon tasting spoiled dead roaches for the first time.
"Uggggh, that's even more tactical," jeered the chorus.
"No! No!" shouted the Queen. "You still do not understand. We take the
pulse of the key market leaders demand curve."
"I see now." said Alice, "You sell the products."
By now the chorus of cards chanting "Tac-ti-cal! Tac-ti-cal!" was
becoming too much.
The queen was furious and repeated her original greeting. "Off with her
head! Off With her head"
"WAIT!" demanded Alice. "I believe I understand. You are all responsible
for driving the solution opportunities for the key client supply
perceptions through strategic vision management!"
Alice wondered if she should add something about the claws catching, and
frumious bandersnatches and thought that she'd best leave it at that
before she became ill.
"Yes," screamed the cards, "That's exactly right!"
"And how, might I ask, do you accomplish these lofty and important goals?"
"By calling a BOD," the queen responded.
"And what, pray tell, might that be?" inquired Alice as she looked for
the quickest escape route, hoping that this jabber would keep her head
attached long enough to get out.
"A Board of Directors", began the queen, just as Alice noticed the door
to the left of the table. "Its a type of high level meeting."
"A meeting????!!!!" exclaimed Alice. "Not another meeting!" With that
she bolted for the door, no longer fearing for her head. Her only hope
was that she make it through before the agenda hit the overhead. In a
dead run, she passed through the door just as the projector lamp flicked
on. The sound of the fan was the last sound to fade as the door closed.
Breathlessly she looked up to see a large open area. Directly in front of
her was an enclosed area lined on one side with triple chrome table. A
stack of plastic trays was at the foyer.
As she wandered through an assortment of sandwiches, prepared foods,
soft drinks and salad began their daily spiel. "Eat Me! Drink Me! Eat
Me!"
"Oh no," answered Alice, "I may know nothing about dates, and problems and
meetings and agendas, and marketing and badges, but I do know food. I'm
not gonna touch any of you. After the morning I've had I deserve a nice
cheese steak (no lettuce)!"
With that, Alice opened the nearest exit door and left. A resounding
high pitched whine sang its midday good-byes as Alice returned to the real
world.
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 545.1 | On the whole, I found it amusing (the first time) | DR::BLINN | Bill & Opus in '88 (Penguin Lust!) | Tue May 24 1988 15:24 | 7 |
I know that my first response, on reading the copy I received
by MAIL, was that whoever wrote it didn't seem to know how
to use DECspell (or had managed to put some STRANGE things
in their personal directory), and also had some interesting
punctuation habits..
Tom
| |||||
| 545.2 | BINKLY::WINSTON | Jeff Winston (Hudson, MA) | Tue May 24 1988 18:42 | 12 | |
> I know that my first response, on reading the copy I received > by MAIL, was that whoever wrote it didn't seem to know how > to use DECspell (or had managed to put some STRANGE things > in their personal directory), and also had some interesting > punctuation habits.. Although you may be right on the spelling, I'm told the item very closely follows Carroll's style, which is a bit different from modern english as used today (the spellings to look at bit like middle english) | |||||
| 545.3 | mike in NotesLand | AXEL::FOLEY | Rebel without a Clue | Tue May 24 1988 21:58 | 9 |
Should we call a meeting to go over the spelling? Ok, who's
gonna take the action item to run it thru DECspell (middle
English dictionary of course)??
Ok, who got marketing involved?
mike
| |||||
| 545.4 | Spelling errors? Off with his head! | NCPROG::PEREZ | The project penguin is dead! | Tue May 24 1988 23:31 | 0 |
| 545.5 | Alice Returns to Digital Land | ROWLET::AINSLEY | Less than 150 kts. is TOO slow! | Mon Jul 25 1994 12:11 | 260 |
The following reply has been contributed by a member of our community
who wishes to remain anonymous. If you wish to contact the author by
mail, please send your message to ROWLET::AINSLEY, specifying the
conference name and note number. Your message will be forwarded with
your name attached unless you request otherwise.
Bob - Co-moderator DIGITAL
=========================================================================
Alice Returns to Digital Land
It had been almost six years since Alice had run screaming from
Digitaland, that magical fantasy world of the mad manager, and the
queen of marketing. The rumors of change had been blowing in the wind
for quite some time, and even the carpenter (who's job was to build
things) had been cast out during one of these alleged cut-backs. Alice
decided it was time to return.
The lobby was not what she expected. It was well furnished, and nicely
kept. In one corner was a coffee pot and a tray of pastries. A small
engraved card on the table said simply "Help yourself."
"Strange," thought Alice, "this does not look at all like the lobby of
a company in dire financial straits." She poured some cream into a
cup of coffee (real cream she noticed, not powdered whatever) and
speared a cheese danish. As she approached the uniformed guard, she
washed the first bit of danish down with a sip of the rich french
roast.
"Excuse me," she said to the guard, "I wonder if it would be ......"
Alice suddenly became disoriented. It seemed that the lobby itself was
beginning to grow. The danish in her hand was now bigger than her
head, and the coffee cup was much too large to hold onto.
It was then and there that Alice realized she had just been downsized.
"Well," thought Alice, "seems that I have no choice but to venture
onward."
Her stature being what it was, it was no problem to simply walk past
the guard and into Digitaland.
The first thing Alice noticed was that the frenetic energy that had
been so pervasive in her last visit was gone. The people who passed
her in the hallway seemed to reflexively look away, there eyes fixed
firmly on their shoes. As she glanced down the corrider, Alice saw a
familiar face approaching.
"They're late, they're late," complained the rabbit. While still
sporting his pocket protector, Alice noticed that his jeans and
tee-shirt had been replaced with dress slacks and a button down shirt.
"Who's late?" asked Alice.
"Everyone else," barked the rabbit, "its perfectly clear that I'm not
getting what I need to do my job."
"And what job might that be?"
"Getting on with things, of course. We have to get the plan back on
track. Reducing overhead and increasing productivity by increasing
management effectivness. Only then will solid architectural principles
result in the world class deliverables that will return us to
profitability."
Alice thought that her first impression of a changed Digitaland may
have been a bit premature.
"Increased management effectiveness? How does one accomplish that?"
asked Alice almost at once regretting she had not stared at her shoes
and walked right past this creature.
"Simple," retorted the rabbit, "by drastically reducing the day to day
interruptions of directly reporting production staff, thereby freeing
management to concentrate on the strategic planning of new benchmarks
that will justify the declaration of success."
"Huh?"
"We lay off all the workers." said the rabbit in a condescending tone
one typically reserves for house plants who cannot solve algebraic
equations.
"Oh. I see." lied Alice, who decided to quickly change the subject.
"My my, what weather we've been having. It seems years since you and I
last spoke. How is that product effort going, must be in college by
now, or married with a large revenue stream and three kids."
"Product? Product? Let me think, it's been so so long. Oh yes that
product. You're in luck, just across the hall as we speak a task force
is reviewing the strategic direction of product efforts, lets drop in
and see what we're succeeding at now."
Before she could escape, the rabbit ushered her into an all too
familiar conference room. The attendees looked quite familiar, if a
bit longer in the tooth, and the coffee cups and projector bulbs
appeared to have been stacking up for almost 6 years. Alice amused
herself with the impossible thought that this was the very same meeting
she had attended on her last visit. "Naaah," she thought, "even in
Digitaland that was beyond belief."
But before that thought had completely traversed her cerebal cortex,
the next overhead illuminated the room to reveal agenda item 5A5A5A5A
(hex) and the imposing figure of a suited man wearing a pointed
prussian officers helmet.
"The Mad Manager!" exclaimed Alice.
"Correct. And if I'm not mistaken, you're the young lady that
interrupted this meeting without adhering to the proper process. Have
you finally gotten onto the agenda?"
"Oh, no sir, I was invited here to see whatever had become of one of
Mr. Rabbit's product efforts. When he and I had last spoke it appeared
that a major effort was coming to fruition and solely for my own
edification, I wandered in here to see the results of all that work.
Tell me, how did it fare?"
"Fair? Fair? Only excellence here I'm afraid. But let me put on my
product management hat, it must be here somewhere, been so long you
know, and we'll see if we cannot provide a bit of customer
satisfaction."
"Please don't go to any trouble. I understand the problem you might
have here, me not being on the agenda and all that."
"No problem, we're quite responsive now you see. Where once we adhered
blindly to process and rigorous lemming like single mindedness, we now
strive to be best in class at customer responsiveness. Just last week
the janitor came in and asked if we'd like the wastebaskets emptied. We
dropped all the foolish debate on end of quarter cash flow analysis to
deal with his business problem. He was ecstatic with the 150 page
report we produced and the re-engineering of the entire waste recycling
delivery chain we tossed in for free"
Slipping on a three pointed hat discarded from some Gilbert and
Sullivan wardrobe room, the Mad Manager began. "Ah yes, that product
was very strategic. Considering that we invested tens of millions in
it and continue to do so means it must be very strategic indeed."
"So," began Alice, "that must mean that its one of your biggest
sellers."
"No. No. No. I already said it was very STRATEGIC." admonished the mad
manager. "We never did actually sell much of it. I see by this next
slide that we actually gave most of them away for free, and even then
they were not overly popular. And now that we've choosen to change our
direction in this area completely, the continued support of those give
aways will likely make this a very strategic product for years to come.
Not to mention the major investment in a migration strategy"
"Let me get this straight," Alice asked in a puzzled tone, "you spent a
huge sum of money on a product that you couldn't even give away? No
wonder it was necessary to make big changes in Digitaland. Bet those
responsible are now flipping burgers in Nome." But just as she
finished that last bit, Alice glanced over at the Rabbit, looking every
bit the employed individual, and began to blush.
"Why on earth would we do that. Experienced managers willing to commit
majors funds to strategic efforts are this company's future. If we
ever loose them we'd lose our very essence"
"Not to mention considerably less money." Alice thought to herself.
"In fact," continued the Mad Manager, "many of the major players in
this VERY strategic effort are playing leading roles in most of the
company's other strategic efforts."
"And having comparable success with them too!" chimed in the rabbit.
With that Alice slipped out of the meeting vowing to short sell some
stock as soon as she returned to the real world.
Two lefts, one right and a staircase later, Alice went through what
purported to be an exit, but was in reality a large lecture hall. A
dozen people in suits and ties were seated at desks while another six
or so were over in the far corner watching a Rodney Dangerfield movie.
A sign on the podium said "Sales Training."
"Repeat after me," commanded the instructor, "Of course that component
can be installed in any open system configuration. Your microwave is
an open system, your toaster is an open system, we love open systems.
Wanna buy a toothbrush?"
The class parroted the instructor, who continued. "What do you mean it
won't work on your system, that's what they told us, we haven't got any
support out here. Cutbacks have eliminated all of our technical
support, we never get anything from back east, I've got a wife and kids
and a BMW."
Then altogether the people at the desks, the instructor and those few
in the corner of the room grabbed their ties and shouted,
"I don't get no respect!"
"Very good, class dismissed."
With that Alice jumped for the door and ran down the stairs. Tripping
over the last step she fell through a door and into another conference
room. No longer shocked by anything, Alice was almost relieved to see
the Queen of marketing staring down at her.
The queen was surrounded by the same identically dressed cards. Alice
noticed that there were fewer then on her last visit, but not
drastically fewer. One might say that they we simply not playing with
a full deck.
"I remember you," said Alice, "you're the strategic thinkers who take
the pulse of the customers long range strategic business needs." Alice
hoped that this was the proper greeting, since her failure to obfuscate
like this during her last visit almost cost her her head.
"Off with her head!" demanded the queen.
"But why?" asked Alice in a pleading voice, "What did I do wrong this
time?"
"You are not an open system!" declared the queen. "You do not contain
a proprietary cpu chip and execute a non system/5 based os or a
derivitive low volume windowing system."
"Wait!" cried Alice, I'm not a computer, I'm a person.
"Are you a vendor? A consultant? A 3rd party?" asked the queen
hopefully.
"No. I'm none of those. I'm just plain Alice. Your average person
off the street"
"Arrrrgggghhhh !!!!!!!" screamed the queen and the marketing cards.
"You could have been a customer! It's people like you who failed to
buy our marketing message."
"Buy a marketing message?" asked Alice.
"Yes! Yes! You know, the one that went:"
<<Buy this marketing message and receive a free alpha workstation!>>
"But you didn't buy it!!" screamed the queen, "and now our travel
budgets have been cut, and the entertainment funds are lower, and we're
down to one secretary apiece. Numerous clerks and product support
people were layed off for their duplicity in this matter, but never the
less it was your fault. Beheading is clearly too good for you."
In unison all the cards began to chant. "Right size her! Right size
her! Right size her!" Then with a wave of the queen's wand ......
Alice found herself back in the lobby, her same old self. As she bent
over to pick up her coffee cup a German sports car pulled up to the
curb and a dapper man dressed right off the pages of Gentleman's
Quarterly stepped into the lobby.
As Alice left, she handed him a cup of coffee and said "The coffee is
delicious, and I'd suggest one of those cheese danish to go with it. I
can't think of anyone who deserves it more."
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| 545.6 | MOLAR::DELBALSO | I (spade) my (dogface) | Mon Jul 25 1994 16:51 | 4 | |
Better than the original! Hats off to the author! :^) -Jack | |||||
| 545.7 | good work | ASABET::SILVERBERG | Mark Silverberg MLO1-3/H20 | Tue Jul 26 1994 08:36 | 5 |
I too enjoyed this more than many others lately...just what I needed
before the Q4/FY94 final results are released today 8^)
Mark
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