Team Building Exercises

I have many things that I could write about tonight. I want to tell the story of the Mad Man from Down South, but I'm not sure where to begin. Perhaps I will save that story for later and tell you about the inspirational company meeting we had today.

First, I want to tell you about the core values of the Biotech Mecca. These values were discussed in a company wide waste of time - er... I mean meeting. In addition, each of us were given a laminated wallet card, and posters were hung up around the Mecca.

Core Values
Strong mutual trust in each other
Open communications
Be very goal/results oriented
Value and respect people
Work hard and have fun

To summarize: Be excellent to each other. And, party on... DUDE!

Of course, Swiper missed the critical sixth core value: Just ship it.

Notice also, that honesty and integrity are not among the core values. Perhaps this is because we are expected to be sheep. It is certainly not because Swiper would never dream of being dishonest himself.

This morning we had a "mandatory company wide meeting". Swiper started to drone on about how this was his fifth company that he has built up, and at all of his other companies, there had been a sense of excitement. The employees at his previous companies were good little workers and worked lots of extra hours. They were really excited about their work, and there was a pervasive sense of ownership. The "inspirational talk" didn't threaten us with certain doom should we fail, nor did it promise us riches beyond our wildest dreams should we succeed. Like our flagship product, it did nothing particularly useful. He told us that we should be excited to be among the first employees of what was most certainly going to be a company with several hundred people. To what end? After such a weak pep talk, could things have gotten worse? You bet! Let's open up the floor to questions. Imagine the worst type of political town hall meeting, where you know that all of the questions are staged.

The Slimy Indian Barbapapa told us how we were on the cusp of being bought out (and presumably all being made rich). I have some swampland in Florida too.

Jaba told us that we had such great collaborators that all we had to do was give them a product. Which we can't get to work...

The scared COO told us how well placed we are in the marketplace... that people were seeking us out to use our technology. Which we can't get to work...

Too bad nearly every employee in the company fits one of three categories
- Pissed off beyond redemption
- Lazy, lying, trouble making backstabbers
- Simply clueless.

It's no wonder there is no sense of excitement and ownership. Group A spends their time avoiding group B for fear of being stabbed in the back, and group C because they are unpredictable, hence probably even more dangerous.

If one were to poll the engineering team at the Mecca, one would find that well over half of the group would answer the question "Why do you work here?" with "I haven't found a better (ANY other) job yet.

Swiper could have used the opportunity to single out people who had just worked very hard to deliver on a recent project for which the schedule was very tight. He could not do that, however, as I was leading that project, and my enemies are too powerful.

How was I thanked for delivering an alpha prototype of something that I was told meant the life or death of the company? I got promoted the position of glorified assembly technician. Am I surprised? No. My boss didn't want my management duties to take away from my concentration on turning three screws and passing the set.

All in all, it was an inspiration day at the Mecca.

Tomorrow should be even better. Myself, the Sarcastic Brit, the fearful COO, and Human Resources are getting together to discuss the degeneration of Buffalo Bill's attitude. He left a paper on the Sarcastic Brit's desk entitled "How I am getting screwed by the Biotech Mecca". Enough said? Buffalo Bill is perhaps the only person at the Mecca that openly makes my attitude look good.

I'll keep you posted.