Wednesday, 30 July 2014

Cognitive Disabilities

White -straight and white as a lily

Our CEO met the Head of Diversity, a certain Hugh White, in the elevator. Hugh is white and straight. CEO Stan gave White some strategic direction:

"White my boy, do some work to improve the cognitive capabilities of our nerds. The fucking product is a mess. And we need to make sure the documentation is in one language,  English, not Hebrew, Russian or Tamil ! Budget is not an issue; just get Gloria to sign off".

Hugh told CEO Stan that many of our nerds do not speak good English and need intense language training. Stan muttered, "Maybe I need to fire that Ramsbottom bitch; why the fuck does she hire people just off the boat"? 

My guess is that CEO Stan is frustrated. I have learnt not just to act, but to think as well.

I must be honest that I do not know a lot about cognitive disabilities, except for two examples-my sister Claire Ramsbottom who is a total mess and   US born and bred R&D Chief Comrade Carl Marks speaks English with a Russian accent, which is  an apparent psychiatric disorder, as it were. I sometimes wonder if not being understood is not a disability, but an advantage-there being someone to blame. 

I do know that there are people who are experts in cognitive capabilties, but they charge a fee and personally, I love free advice.

My plan to upgrade cognitive disability will focus on increasing English language skills, implement an intense wellness program based on "meaning not doing",  and putting an end to late night pizzas, except for the Mediterranean nerds who eat late supper meals without side effects. 

Our German CEO Mister Herr Krebbs was updated on the savings incurred by my pizza initiative; "gut" was Krebbs' cogent reaction.



No night pizzas

Friday, 25 July 2014

AI makes me excited

AI makes me excited


The words "artificial intelligence" has been uttered more than any other buzzword during the past week by our nerds. More than "big data".

Without appearing frantic, I updated my domain expertise on AI, assisted by my brothers Frank and Ernest Ramsbottom.

Immediately I "migrated the knowledge" that my brothers gave me to the HR domain, supported by a certain Hugh White from Diversity, who takes a night course on "Diversity, Sexuality, Coughing and AI". 

Hugh, who is loonier than a $3 bill, still brings me value in the crunch, as it were. I have started to make massive use of the term "as it were".

I have decided that within a week, all HR services will be AI based, (unless there is sabotage.)  

How this will be achieved is a technical matter that bores me. 

Cynthia Axe will lead the way with  an AI based application to dismiss staff and improve morale simultaneously. Axe is looking for the appropriate AI enabled cloud. Hugh White, the straight white boy who runs Diversity, will ensure that the clouds are not all white.

I have informed my staff that this is a daily strategic priority, at least for the next week.

Follow me @GRamsbottom





Wednesday, 23 July 2014

Aligning with common sense

HR's role is to maintain a civil dialogue in English and ensure sanity.


The fact that our newest product is not "stable" is causing a non wow nightmare. Our product has 30,987 revenue impacting bugs. Most of our treacherous client base wish to uninstall it.

Chief nerd Comrade Carl Mark's personality was never all that stable to begin with. This crisis has made things worse. Comrade Carl Marks claims that product bugs are a result of rumor mongering, not big data.
And Comrade Carl  is convinced that the lack of product stability is a service issue, not an engineering problem. 

There is also a linguistic problem in R&D which impacts product quality, if you ask me. Carl's staff is 39% Russian, and the rest of the engineers are Indians, Chinese and Middle Easterners. Very  people actually understand the English language product specs.....and this explains a lot of product issues, from an HR perspective.

Two hours each day, Comrade Carl has been seen reading a book on the Mossad, which is a foreign version of the infamous and evil KGB, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the defunct Scorpions, and the beloved CIA. Comrade Carl apparently believes our clients can be "convinced"  into believing our product is "a pearl".

Our CEO Stan believes that an HR intervention is needed to "straighten Comrade Carl out" so that he will not wait for miracles, but fix the bugs! Stan instructed me to hire more English speaking engineers because he believes that "people who speak English well generally have more common sense." Hugh White (a white heterosexual) from Diversity disagrees.

The ladies of HR and Hugh White from Diversity started enforcing our global "English Language  Only" policy in the cafeteria, to get more traction around aligning ourselves with common sense.

I may need a vendor with a background in psychiatry and appreciative inquiry, who works pro bono.







Monday, 21 July 2014

No one in our senior management team speaks poor English.

Failed. Un échec

Diversity Chief Hugh White sent me a text message that we failed the government diversity audit! He backed up his text message with a Whatsapp and an email.

We have been given a week for corrective action.

Have I mentioned before that Hugh White is the white boy who heads my Diversity Department? Hugh is a heterosexual.

The diversity audit team was impressed that we have tribal food in our cafeteria. 
Furthermore, our Engineering Departments ethnic composition made an excellent impression, albeit the fisticuffs between Ukrainian and Russian engineers, and a bloody pizza throwing fight between various Middle Eastern factions, which resulted in a state of "unrest" and the riot police being called in, which is non wow.

The ONLY reason we failed the audit is that no one in our senior management  team speaks poor English
CEO Stan is American, as is Comrade Carl Marks, who merely  thinks he is Russian. The Head of Sales, who has been hiding in the toilet for 4 months, is British.
As you all may know, I am from Canada and my English is perfect. Herr Krebbs, our CFO, was in Berlin renting out his home to 340 refugees from the Mid East.

Hugh White was instructed to hire a manager with poor English for our senior leadership team immediately. Highest priority will be given to a thick Russian accent, a Scot, a Taiwanese, a Pole or a Thai.

Comrade Carl Marks: He is American



Rolling out our AI strategy

                                                                                                                          Comrade Karl-Claud...

Glo at her best