Sunday, May 15, 2011

How I'm Spending My Spring Vacation

Why me, Lord, what have I ever done?

Kris Kristofferson's song is vibrating in my head this month.

I'm looking for work again.

One company decided spending a couple of million to save almost 100 million wasn't worthwhile.  I'm still having trouble with that one.

The company is going through a really painful transition that puts knowledge workers into projects when the worker's expertise is needed.

I whispered to colleagues that this is exactly what consulting firms have been doing for decades- no reaction- must be all the graphs, town hall meetings and giving everyone at least two bosses.

This paradigm introduces the concept of the 'bench.' This is the 'place' unassigned workers train, chip away at  make-work projects or get laid off. Why should the company employ 67 resnagglers if it only needs 12 reflaggrationers?

That last part wasn't mentioned. I may be dumb, but I'm not stupid.

Even Leaders said the company needs Knowledge Management and consistent governance to do this. At the very least, when Employee A is brought into the project s/he needs to be oriented. So Employee B needs to bring Employee A up to speed (here's where the project business case is located, the project plan is over here, this directory holds all the stuff your predecessor did, etc.).

That means two employees (probably more people since Employee B needs to eat and use the lavatory at times) are tied up for at least half a day just to get the newbie started. If the documents for each project were a. consistent, b. templated  (mebbe even a web form?) and c. easy to find, Employee B would deal with much higher level issues, saving the company a grunch (technical term) of cash.

Nearest I can figure, someone renamed a database a 'knowledgebase,' so the leadership thinks the company already has KM.

Good luck with that.

The next job was a great place to work, wonderful manager- but it was initially a five week contract. I did what you'd expect in the third and fourth weeks and found another gig. when I told my recruiter how great it was working with him and his staff (seriously), he told me the company had just that day requested an extension for me. Jeez. I'd just accepted the new one.

Damn.

Of course, it turns out I should have kept the second contract.

I lasted one week at the third one.

My doctor sent me to the hospital for 'tests' since I was having breathing problems- couldn't make it from the parking garage to my cubicle with out 4 or 5 stops to catch my breath- people asking if I needed help and friends telling me I looked like....um...cah-cah.

Turns out we needed to adjust my atrial fibrillation med a little and needed a shot for arthritis in my left knee (!). I feel fine now and can walk all the way around Sam's Club and Aldi's. I was in one day more than my doc originally schedueled (damn cardiologists). My contract was canceled.

No real complaint from me. The project had to get started.

It's just that I attract this goofy stuff.

So, I'm looking again. My fingers are crossed nothing goofy's going to happen. I'm 24 pound lighter (and continuing- looooong way to go) and I'm mostly not smoking anymore. Very positive stuff.

So if you know of any openings, lemme know, eh?

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