This is all about when a job goes wrong, when corporate America is left to run things with no responsibility whatsoever. Please feel free to comment and commiserate. I'm sure I'll be in need of a co-author to the book this just _has_ to become.

27 September 2005

Deferred Payment

Dilbert RatingDilbert RatingDilbert Rating

Our boss went to a meeting last week where he "learned" a number of things that we have been telling him for months. This isn't the first time Mike and I have been at a job where this happens.
The boss pays you money to come work for him, you suggest a million things that should be done to make the site better, backing them with articles, expert opinions, notes passed in math class, whatever, and he ignores you and snorts like you are the lamest individual to ever walk the planet. Then he goes to a conference or trade show, hears a roumer, and now he has the answer to the worlds problems that nobody could have ever bought because it was only available through his sensitive information-gathering and superior deductive reasoning abilities. So he comes back with the grail and looks at you like you deserve to get no raise this year since you couldn't come up with this (even though you did six months ago).

Fortunately, our egos aren't so huge that not getting credit is the problem. The problem is, when they shot you down six months ago, you started working on other projects and immediately got yourself into a situation where you would have to hire an intern if you wanted to go to the bathroom during work hours. So now this sanctimonious jagoff walks in with ten of your ideas in his mind as his and wants them all produced in the time it would take for you to do the planning for one. And of course, failure to do so is going to mean that you get no raise next year, and busting your butt to make it happen isn't going to get you recognized either because then you were just doing your job. You do it, you keep your miserable job but lose the respect of your friends, family and coworkers. You fail, you lose your job and get another one for some similar jerk, but at a bit less money, plus no benefits for 3 months and no 401k for a year, not that it matters because companies don't contribute anymore, not that it matters because they'll just find a way to steal it from you when you need it most so you can die loveless, homeless and pennyless in a ditch by the side of the road - ALL BECAUSE YOUR BOSS IS A DEAF, EGOMANIACAL MORON WHO ONLY HAS A JOB BECAUSE DADDY GAVE IT TO HIM!

So anyway,we got an idea for a web site that works like this:
  1. lower-level employee has an idea
  2. said employee goes to the site, gives his idea, the reasoning behind it, and the name of a top competitor
  3. web site hires an old republican-looking actor to make a video expressing said idea as gold
  4. web site e-mails video to lower-level employee's boss, making it look like it was accidentally routed to him when it was supposed to be going to the competitor
  5. boss thinks it's gold, feels all shrewd for "intercepting" this communication to his competition, and immediately green-lights the project
I'm not sure how the site would make it's money yet, but I bet we would be flooded with requests five minutes after going live.

...

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

a fabulous idea...

VP John Farson, eh? Fascinating...

hang in there.

9/27/2005 04:53:00 PM

 

Post a Comment

<< Home