Garfield

Greetings patient readers.

Since this is Friday, I will keep the post short. It seems that Jaba has been trying to hire himself some competent people. So... he hired an intern. That seems to be a term they use here in Silicon Valley for somebody with a degree (who may even be competent), but no work experience, and hence should expect to be treated like crap. Anyway, they hired this intern and immediately placed her under the tender loving care of the Chihuahua. Please check previous posts if you forget. (I only wish that I could.)

The intern seems kind of cat-like to me. She has the same all knowing, self assured attitude of a cat that is quizzically watching you as you do something stupid. Looking at you as if to say "What are you thinking? You know that I could do better, if I could be bothered". Needless to say, Garfield immediately gravitated toward the Sarcastic Brit, and uses his office to hide from her "boss".

This is a typical discussion:

Harbinger: Why do your co-workers ask me to fix things that are not broken?
Garfield: Because they have no clue. They are biologists, after all.
Harbinger: Biologist is not synonymous with incompetent.
Garfield: Really?
Harbinger: One of my friends is a "biologist". His hobby is building torsion catapults that hurl ten pound pumpkins the better part of a mile.
Garfield: That's nice. He obviously doesn't work at the Mecca.

Of course, I'm not so sure about this one. Garfield has another job offer. When she went to Jaba to see what he would do to try to match it, he offered her a chance to work more closely with the Sarcastic Brit and I. Apparently, we are being used as bait. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I told Garfield not to fall for it... run while you can. She was at work today.

P.T. Barnum wins another round.

OSHA 12

Good evening. It seems that even at the Biotech Mecca, history repeats itself. This is the sequel to OSHA 11. It seems that despite the new location, old habits die hard.

The local fire department was in doing our inspections for various safety issues. This is a good thing, I suppose, except that they keep finding chemicals that are not properly stored, and paperwork that isn't properly done.

Somehow, Jaba managed to get talked into being the safety officer for the company, so he gets to deal with the fire department. I believe that the conversation went something like this.

Safety inspector: You don't have your permit for handling biological waste yet. You can't legally handle most of the chemicals that you are using until you get your license.

Jaba: How long does it take to get a license?

Safety inspector: 90 days.

Jaba: Is it faster to transfer the license from the old facility to this location?

Safety inspector: Why yes it is. Unfortunately, you never bothered to get a license at the old facility.


It seems that permits are not the only place that the Mecca is trying to skimp these days. It would also seem that we are testing the rules on squatter's rights in the state of California.

It would seem that nobody bothered to allocate space for instrument manufacture. Added to this was the fact that the engineering lab in the new facility is about half the size of the space in the old facility and you have problems. How do you overcome such a lack of planning:

1) You fire enough engineers so that everybody can occupy the smaller space
2) You send the used car salesman in to negotiate a lease on more of the building.
--He tells the landlord that the company will lease more space in his vacant building
--The Landlord lets you move in since the space is free anyway and you obviously need the room right now.
--You move your stuff in and then tell the landlord that you are planning on paying him in stock.
--You don't mention that the company is basically out of money and that the share price tanks every day.
--You refuse to sign the lease.
--You don't bother to move your stuff out of the lab.

Presto, you have just increased your floor space by 50% without it costing a dime. Great work. I wonder if the landlord tenant rules for evictions apply to commercial real estate.

Of course, I would expect no less of a company where the directory of finance says things like "Oh, we will pay our vendors. Just, not right now."

Like Rats Fleeing a Sinking Ship

The Sarcastic Brit and I had an interesting conversation with the Enlightened One on Thursday. He had been off for a week due to a bout of Bronchitis. Since he is technically retired, and not coming in for the money, it seemed perfectly reasonable to me that he would not stress coming in when he was ill.

Unfortunately for the Mecca, he had time to think while he was gone. It seemed that the Enlightened One had become somewhat desensitized to the mayhem and foolishness that is working at the Mecca. Apparently, the Enlightened one had an epiphany: with only one notable exception, the entire senior management team is completely clueless. (Not to mention lying weasels.) They are unable to make a decision, and despite the fact that they are planning on selling instruments very soon, can't even figure out the basic market specifications.

This, coupled with the fact that the Enlightened One (who has done some pretty ground-breaking work in the field) is left managing a couple of clueless, arrogant, and conniving punks (that he refers to as "the children"), has left him questioning if this is really the way he wants to spend his golden years. Although the work is interesting, we are never allowed to finish anything, and are forced to cut so many corners that even good ideas are reduced to stinking turds. The Enlightened One has decided that he can find less frustrating pursuits to occupy his free time. Hence, he decided that he would finish out the week (that just passed) and call it quits.

As of last Friday, he hadn't broken the news to the Fearful COO, who is apparently an old friend of his from way back. I have not yet figured out if he is going to just stop showing up, or if his old friend will convince him that it's worth it to keep showing up.

Jaba (also an old friend of the Enlightened One) was not having a good week. About a month ago, he hired a team lead (to lead his team of duds) who was actually good. She made it about four weeks before deciding that risking her life on the highway for the Mecca was not a good thing to do. She took a rather large demotion (and pay cut) to get out and gave her one week's notice. Although she cited the commute, and the fact that she can walk to her new job as the reason for leaving, it was less than a 20 mile drive, and quite manageable by local standards. I suspect that she was feeling much the same way as the Enlightened One.

Personally, I didn't think things had been any worse lately than they were before. It's amazing how easy it is to get used to the pain.

I believe that this marks the beginning of the end for the Mecca. When the good people start leaving...

And the band played on.

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.