Dear John Letters

Greetings loyal readers. It has been quite some time since I last posted, and I have heard that some of you have been wondering if I have finally departed from the tender loving environs of the Biotech Mecca.

Unfortunately, I still turn up every day for my generous helping of chaos, foolishness and abuse. The story for today however, is not about the Sarcastic Brit or myself... it's about Flyboy.

If you will recall, Flyboy was originally hired as a general "go to guy" for the engineering department. Alas, he had the misfortune of appearing beneath my name on the org chart. Needless to say, that put him in the sights to be picked off by MNB.

MNB doesn't see any value in having a general engineering tech that can deal with vendors, sort stuff out in the lab, work on documentation control, and do mundane, crappy tasks like dealing with packaging vendors. After all, that is why he has the Harbinger of doom, and the Sarcastic Brit.

Anyway, seeing that his position was somewhat precarious, Flyboy ingratiated himself to the Used Car Salesman. After all, he had already been drawn into being the purchasing agent for the engineering team, as well as the person responsible for pretty much all logistics. It only made sense that he should report to the head of finance. (I had to try very hard not to laugh when I wrote that last sentence. What kind of idiots would put a used car salesman in charge of the checkbook?)

But back to Flyboy. It seems that Flyboy inserted himself into the middle of a minor war between the Dragon Lady and the used car salesman. It's a pity... as I feel that he was more or less a victim of the infamous management style that is so pervasive at the Mecca.

First of all, Flyboy's contract had expired. He was not under contract, not full time, not under any agreement. He would show up (after an hour and a quarter on the road), work for the day, trying to avoid drive-by abuse by the likes of MNB, and hope like hell every payday that they would provide him with payment. I can't think of a better way "Sleep Well Wesley... for I shall most likely kill you in the morning."

Second of all, the Dragon Lady has a very simple set of rules. Do your job. Don't screw up. That means primarily not losing track of trivial things like purchase orders and packing slips. After all, how can she pay the bills if she doesn't have the purchase order (so that you know what you've ordered), and the packing slip (so that you have a record or receiving the goods?) Unfortunately, she wasn't getting these things. The larger problem was that her boss (The Used Car Salesman) is chronically trying to avoid paying the bills, so wasn't all that worried about the missing paperwork. The best way to keep cash in the bank is to not pay the bills. If you don't see the bills, you don't have to worry about not paying them.

At the core of the problem (in my humble opionion) was that the Used Car Salesman has no idea about running a finance department. He has no idea that for a company producing product (as such) purchasing is a full time job. You can't add facilities management, shipper, and any number of other duties to that. Flyboy however, saw the precariousness of his situation, and didn't say anything.

Unfortunately, Flyboy isn't really a crack administrator, and was always looking for ways to streamline the process. Usually that involved doing things in a way that would entail the least amount of work for him. So... the paperwork was pretty much always the victim. I think that he knew better... but was trying so hard to please that he lost track of the need to dot the Is and cross the Ts.

Now the Dragon Lady was in a bind. She was missing all of the paper trail that she needed to do her job. As a result, even with whatever temporary help they brought in for her, she was working an extra three or four hours each day, and her mountain of papers kept getting larger. Needless to say, when she started having days starting at 7:00 am and ending at 10:00 pm, she had to do something. The final straw was when six months of purchase orders and packing slips were found in Flyboy's desk. The obvious conclusion was that Flyboy was setting her up.

Although I will admit that it certainly looked like that, I believe that the real issue was that Flyboy was not an administrator, and hence chose to throw the paperwork out of the sinking ship that was his workload. He probably meant to get back to it... but the funny thing about paperwork is that the longer it sits, the harder it is to go back and sort it out.

The upshot was that the Used Car Salesman decided that Flyboy had to go.

Did he speak to him before hand and try to find out what was going on? Not that I heard. He just decided to turn on his "employee" (much like a rabid dog), and attack. The only problem was that Flyboy was not at the office. He was taking a couple of days off.

Eager to take action, the Used Car Salesman called Flyboy on his cell phone. He didn't answer. I will admit that I don't take calls from the Mecca either. They are never good, and I have heard about the sky falling too many times for it to trigger any emotional reaction apart from disgust.

Flyboy didn't return the call, and the Used Car salesman is a man of action. Actually, I think that he was probably intimidated by the thought of having to fire him in person. So, he left him a voicemail. I can imagine that it went something like this. "Flyboy, I'm afraid that we are going to have to let you go. We will send you your last check and your things in the mail."

Thanks. They say that getting dumped on your answering machine is hard. Perhaps the people who say that have never been fired via answering machine. Just another example of the professionalism and class that are so pervasive in the senior management at the Mecca.