<< Hoopla Part One

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Hoopla - Part Two

By Dean Webb
September 23, 2001

Of course, such a rapid demand for documentation only meant one thing: everyone had LaLa in their sights as an incompetent ninny for not getting the antivirus software rolled out the first time. To be fair, LaLa wasn't an incompetent ninny for that. To be sure, LaLa was still an incompetent ninny, just not for that reason.

Having just gotten started there, I got right to it and whipped together some rough drafts. While whipping together the rough drafts, I had visions of promotion to project manager dancing on sugarplums in my head. Everyone would be dazzled by my skills and technique, I'd be in the management seat in no time.

The next day, I handed my rough work over to LaLa and went over a few points with it. LaLa's eyes glazed over and it told me this would be enough and it was in a hurry and would I mind please getting out of its way for the very important meeting. I stepped aside and LaLa dashed off to its meeting. One very important meeting later, LaLa was furious. LaLa called me into its office and had me shut the door.

It is never a good sign when the manager has you shut the door. It always means some kind of bad news. My only wonder was how I could be in line for bad news when I'd only been there a few weeks.

LaLa got to the point. "This project plan is crap. You left out entire sections of the enterprise."

"What do you mean? I had in there everything from the original plan."

"The scope's changed. We have to cover all servers and desktops."

What was LaLa going on about? "But you told me to leave out the desktops because Po and Dipsy had a cow when they saw what resources the antivirus program required."

"Well, Po and Dipsy want a desktop solution, and, frankly, so does Tinky-Winky and myself."

"OK, well, I can add testing and installation plans for the desktops, whi-" LaLa waved its hand and shook its head. "No, we're not installing anything on the desktops. Po and Dipsy are adamant about that."

Given that the antivirus software came from a very bad vendor of corporate software suites, I could understand Po's and Dipsy's reservations about it. Nevertheless, there weren't any other ways of protecting the desktop workstations from viruses. Well, no *easy* ways... As I pondered that, LaLa had another bombshell.

"Also, Dean, you have way too much time allocated to planning and testing. We need this stuff installed yesterday."

"But... that could crash our mail servers! I've seen this program eat them for lunch! We have to make sure we're doing it right!"

"Just follow the vendor instructions, Dean. You're making this too hard. That's OK. You're technical. I'm here to make sure we get things done right from a business perspective."

"How can it be the right thing from a business perspective to crash an email server?"

"Just follow the instructions and make things simple. Now have these plans updated for my 3 PM meeting."

3 PM? It was already past noon!

I now realize a few things, errors on my part I hope not to repeat. The first was my overall eagerness to do work. That threatens managers no end and leads to them forming unreasonable expectations about schedules and such. The second was my overall candidness with my manager. Managers hate being told they are wrong, mislead, or off-base.

The third, and most critical, was not being present in the meeting where my manager was presenting my plans. That lead to both my manager and I being painted with the same brush. Since my manager was an incompetent ninny, I became an incompetent ninny by association. Fortunately, I had a way of getting around that last problem, even though I didn't know it was a problem at the time.

"LaLa, there is no way I can get this ready by 3 PM. Tomorrow morning at the earliest."

LaLa went paler. "Well, I'll see if Tinky-Winky can reschedule the meeting. You go get to work."

LaLa dismissed me. I stepped out of its office and it shut the door behind me. Confused, I dropped in on Tinky-Winky, who always had an open door.

"Tinky-Winky, got a second?"

"Sure, Dean. What's on your mind?"

"The antivirus rollout. LaLa tells me we need a desktop solution, and I was curious what you had in mind would be good for it."

"LaLa told you that? I guess it's good you get involved. We're at a loss about how to best proceed for the business needs at hand. Bla bla bla bla bla."

I liked it when Tinky-Winky went off on a philosophizing bender. It gave me time to think. During that interval, I realized LaLa had taken my ideas and presented them as if they were its own. Being relatively young, I was shocked such a thing could happen.

"Bla bla bla bla bla. Bla bla bla why don't you come by our 3 PM meeting today and bring up these thoughts of yours."

"Well, OK. I won't have anything firm ready."

"Aaaah. Don't worry. We're just brainstorming right now, anyway."

Tinky-Winky's phone rang. I started out of his office, but still overheard him telling the party on the other end, "No need to reschedule. I've invited Dean to our 3 o'clock today to give us some more technical depth in our meeting."

It did not occur to me at that time LaLa would never forgive me for undermining its credibility in such a fashion. Instead, I ran a few numbers and prepped for that 3 o'clock meeting.

>> Next... PART 3!


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