The snake eats it's own tail

More news from Tyler Gifts...

Franz and John are both VPs and have been competing against each other for a long time. Franz strikes the most blows because John is too busy working to acknowledge him most times. John also has the ear of the president, Bill, so he doesn't have to really worry about this "climber."

I mentioned in a recent post how Franz had sent Rananah for training on the Tyler database before she was really ready, before she had been there long enough to know enough about the company to even really understand what it was she was learning. You see, originally the idea was for her to go with Fred the IT guy since he was the one that really would benefit from the training and she would get a general idea of what was going on. That was, until Franz saw his opportunity to become the Wormtongue to Bill's Theoden.

Franz suggested to Bill that Rananah should go to the training alone and that she could come back and train Fred with all the knowledge she gained. It would save money to send only one person, it would keep one more employee in the corral for those three work days, and Franz would score favor in Bill's eyes. He did all this behind John's back, and scheduled the trip a week before Fred could go to seal the deal. Of course, Rananah went and by no fault of her own, understood almost nothing of what she was there to learn. So she came back a little more knowledgeable but in no condition to teach Fred anything.

Fred, John and Bill have a weekly meeting, and in that meeting the subject of training Fred came up. John turned to him and asked, "has Rananah started training you about how the database works with the Amazon feed?"

Fred replied flatly, "You know she can't do it."

And John fired back, "But Franz said she was going to train you..."

Point: John.

Later that week, Franz instructed Carly to begin deleting old products from the database, despite the fact that everyone had been told by the database expert that this should never be done. Fred found out about it and went to let John know the deal. They ran into each other in the hall as John was walking with Bill to lunch. Fred explained the situation, and John gave a deep sigh and said -- to Fred, but plenty loud for Bill to hear, "Don't you love it when non-technical people empower themselves to make decisions abut things they don't understand?"

Point: John.

Mind you, I have little love left for John. All reports I am getting say that he is molding himself into what Bill would have him be -- something he managed to resist most of the time I was there. But the fact is, Franz can't be trusted any further than Rupaul can pitch a Volkswagen, and I'll be quite satisfied to see that climber lose his grip on the rungs and take the long fall. The image of him having to interview at another company damn near puts me into a laughter-coma every time.