Launch the Torpedos

Greetings avid readers. Please don't faint - it's two posts in a week. What can I say? The Mecca is a happening place.

So... you run a company, and you have been trying to bolster the share price so that you can find more little girls willing to let you steal their stuff. What do you do? You could always resort to the "product launch". Who cares that you've been trying to sell your product for six months already? Who cares that it really doesn't work? Who cares that you have no defined way to determine if a customer installation was successful? Who cares that the engineering team is coming up with band-aids daily? It doesn't matter. The fact is that nothing jazzes investors like a good product launch. Of course nothing sinks a ship like a good torpedo launch either.

Swiper and the Fearful COO have disappeared from sight in order to concoct a way to get the most mileage from a momentous event that they will be unable to recycle for at least six months. Of course, the hiding phase is followed by the now familiar flurry of activity. Change the company logo. Change the company colours. How about those press releases that really say nothing? Perhaps that is a result of the fact that the Mecca is currently in litigation with the company that does their media relations. Something about unpaid invoices. Or maybe there's nothing to say that wouldn't result in an SEC investigation. But, I digress.

Anyway, all of the pieces are in place. Recycle the same "customers" that we have been "shipping product to" since the very beginning. These guys have seen lots of instruments. Some day, they might actually pay for one. The only missing element is the company bling. It's a product launch, so they need to do something nice. They need to make sure that we feel that our dedication and team work are deeply appreciated. So, they gave out very nice polo shirts with the company logo.

I know what you are thinking right now... "what's wrong with that?" I forgot to mention that directors, VP's, and important people got that. The Proles got tacky plastic lunch boxes, defective coffee cups that hold approximately 1.5 ounces of coffee (trust me... that may be a favour though), and slightly different shirt. Rather than the nice polo shirt, the peons got $2 T's with the following slogan. "$mart A$$ays, not Half A$$ays". Great. My employer gave me a shirt that's too vulgar to wear to work. That's class.

Note that my security team has insisted that I replace the S's with $'s. Although, after a quick web search, it seems that even the marketing geniuses at the Mecca are not dumb enough to use that slogan in their literature.

Harbinger of Doom Versus the Stupid Acronym

This post will henceforth be known as HODVSTSA, in order to keep competing blogs (or Scott Adams) from stealing my material.

I must apologize for not having blogged for a while, but all of my mental energy is consumed by learning the names of all of the new employees at the Mecca. We now have five applications scientists. Four of them are in United states. Strange, since our US install base consists of two instruments presently. The new characters in this post are:

My Next New Boss
This is one of MNB's cronies that he brought in from his former (tanking employer). His cronies now compose over 2/3 of the engineering team. He has also been parachuting them into manufacturing, product management, and any other function he can drive a wedge into.

The Product Mismanager
This is another of MNB's cronies, although he was not billed as such, the Product Mismanager admitted it to me. Apparently, he thought that it would impress me. The Sarcastic Brit's first comment on this particularly character: Wow – just think of the material that you will get from him!

The Borg (only 5 so far but the mothership is coming)
Yep, they have hired five apps guys to support effectively two instruments (although it may be up to a whopping 10 instruments by the end of the year. ) That's two instruments per guy. Oh right, our service engineer is still doing all of the installations and real work. What are these guys doing? They are home based... so my guess is – sucking at the corporate teet.

This except is from a real email thread that started with some remote troubleshooting of a customer unit by one of the new applications chemists that we hired and threw out into the field with two day's training.


Borg – 1 of 5

MNNB
Could you do me a favor and translate that into English?
Seriously, what is a cylinder. My guess is that it extends and retracts the platform?
Thanks.
Borg – 1 of 5


MNNB

Borg – 1 of 5,
The [brand 1] cylinder is the rotary and up-down air cylinder that moves the sample holder in and out of the instrument.
Pardon the vernacular. When I got here I also wondered what “snoots” and “choils” were here till someone told me.
MNNB


Borg – 1 of 5

MNNB,
You are just torturing me. You mean to tell me that you aren’t going to include the definitions of “snoots” and “choils”? I have no idea of what they are either!

Thanks!
Borg – 1 of 5


Product Mismanager

Hi,
As a side note, I would really, really encourage us to not reference any outside component vendors in our discussions – internally and externally.

I’ve heard: [brand 1] and [brand 2]. Please refrain from using these references in the future. It will be a vernacular change.

These should be the [our stupid product part 1] and [our stupid product part 2], respectfully.

I realize these are a mouthful…

Snoots and choils are OK for now since no one seemed to know what they are…

I’ll be implementing a piggy bank approach and getting people to pay $1/reference.

Thanks for your support and I’m really pretty laid back…


Harbinger

Not to cause trouble, but doesn’t it make it hard to procure parts if we are not allowed to discuss vendor identities? I tried your idea of vague descriptions on a couple of the POs that I had to file today, and finance was unappreciative.

When I told them that this was your suggestion, the Used Car Salesman asked me to email you for clarification.

Cheers,
Harbinger.



And for those of you wondering if I actually submitted PO requests with the company names removed... Do you really need to ask. Of course I did, and then ran as fast as I could from the Dragon Lady :D