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.

The paycheck is not important. Go about your business.

Greetings. I must apologize for not blogging more, but things haven't been quite as utterly stupid lately. I can almost believe that the Mecca is a viable company, and that we will make it. Then, I take stock of things and think that I must be REALLY crazy.

The competent accountant finishes his last day on Monday. He was the guy who did the payroll. That made him the canary in the coal mine. I used to ask him routinely - Are we going to get paid this week? His answer was always, "I'm still here, aren't I? When the money's gone, so am I." Needless to say, I have to question the state of the Mecca's finances. My understanding is that it's not that bad... and they haven't cut my pay recently, so that's a good sign.

What scares me is that the accountant did all of the things that made it worth my while to go to work. He did the payroll, administered the benefits, and made sure that, in general, Swiper and his crew of merry backstabbers didn't treat the employees in a fashion that violated too many labor laws. With the accountant leaving, the Accountant that does the SOX compliance (or not... as the case may be) will be doing payroll. Yikes. He is always out back doing business in Spanish on his cell phone. If you walk in on him when he's holding a private teleconference in the meeting room, he scuttles like a cockroach. When things get really bad, he resorts to using really bad English in order to make you think that he's too dumb to be up to something. Not the kind of guy I want responsible for making sure I get paid, and can therefore pay my own creditors.

The "Director of Finance" is a used car salesman that feels it necessary to shake your hand every time he talks to you. (Let me tell you that grows tiresome really quickly. He drives a gigantic truck with Florida plates (does he commute in to California?). Moreover, he takes up four parking spaces with this monster truck that he supposedly "inherited" from his brother. Ironically, I asked him why he was running Florida plates one day, and the story terminated in his inquiring as to my interest in buying the thing. As I said, he really is a used are salesman.

The HR functions are going to be handled by the "Executive Assistant". This is the replacement for the Horsie Princess. I actually like the Horsie princess much better than this woman. She keeps bragging to the Dragon lady about how she "Married herself a white boy". She is Latino... which I didn't think was that far from "white", but apparently, being a Canuck, I am not cultured in such things. I really don't care about her white husband, or white kids the she brags about. However, it would be really nice if she would answer the phone when she is supposed to be working the switchboard. Too bad she's too busy flirting with all of the senior managers. (That would be men and women.) If you are a VP, she has all the time in the world for you. If you are low level scum, she can't even be bothered to talk to you. My desk is literally one cubicle from the front desk, and yet she will call me two or three times in fifteen minutes to come and get packages when they come in. If they are offending her so much, she could bring them over. Needless to say, I don't see any useful HR functions being filled there.

Then, there is the fact that Flyboy will end up taking on a bunch of the accountant's shipping duties. That would be fine, except MNB keeps threatening to fire him. Of course, I should probably talk to MNB, as Flyboy supposedly reports to me. I should probably feel upset about my boss threatening my employee all the time. Unfortunately, It just makes me feel relieved, it means that MNB can get his threats out of his system before he runs into me.

In short, the guy who does everything useful (at least as far as the things that are important to me... like getting paid) has quit. There has been no real plan to replace him, and everybody who is supposed to be taking up his duties is either lazy, incompetent, or likely to be sacked for no good reason.

It all seems to be running fine, until you take a good look under the hood.