When a product fails, leaders often suffer from acute stress

Завтра завтра

Our beloved but eccentric Emerging Technologies VP Comrade Carl Marks, suffers from managerial hallucination and identity confusion. Why? Well, our new semi wow product hit the market with 39,986 revenue impacting bugs. The product collapses when more than 5 users are logged in.

Furthermore, we are getting semi wow press reviews. Due to customer complaints, our law firm has advised us that they will raise their retainer from 10 hours to 600 hours monthly.

In our management meeting today, Comrade Carl was mumbling to himself in Russian! 

Our furious CEO Stan asked Comrade Carl 3 questions in front of all of us:

  1-What is the detailed road map for bug fixes?

  2-When will Comrade Carl hire people who speak English?

  3-Comrade Carl, are you under the ``influence``?

Comrade Carl kept mumbling to himself in Russian, saying zavtra zavtra. No one knew what he meant. 

Stan told Comrade Carl to "speak English, for Christ sake, because no one speaks Russian except a few Russians and the Israeli foreign minister."

Comrade Carl got up to address the management team, and showed us all a slide which said: Завтра завтра, не сегодня" - так ленивцы говорят.

Then Comrade Carl said that he wants the management team to focus on the real issue: "what is the value of HR if they cannot recruit some service people to solve these minor service issues"?

Comrade Carl did not wait for an answer-he went to the parking lot, and smoked a joint with his team along with Sanjay, Sanjay, Sanjay, Svetlana, Svetlana, and Mike.

Stan sent me a text: "Glo, Comrade Carl needs coaching"

Ciboire, maison de fous

HR and Internet of Things clash

Readers,
I have always believed in the need to pinpoint the added value of HR.
Here is an illustrative case study.
Gloria Ramsbottom-Lemieux

  To: Stan, CEO

   From: Comrade Carl Marks

   CC :Gloria Ramsbottom, HR

Could you kindly define HR manager Gloria Ramsbottom's "added value"?  

I have ordered  IT to block Gloria's internet password until we all have a definitive answer. I need big data.

Thanks and ogromnoe spasibo! 

Comrade Carl Marks

-----          ----------          ---------- 
   To Gloria, HR; Comrade Carl

   From Stan, CEO

   CC 

Gloria, send Carl your job description now.

Carl, give Gloria access to the internet in a timely fashion. What does spasiba mean, for Christ sake? 

Stan

Slogan Index for 2018

                                             

                                                                              You get what you measure

My father Pierre Elliot Ramsbottom used to count the number of times that my mother Constance would nag him at meal time. After 2 nags, Dad would gently say, "shut the f--k up, Constance. One more strike and you are out, ciboire".

Measuring things was Dad's way of keeping control of his life.

Inspired by my Dad , I decided to quantify the use of mission-critical leadership and HR slogans in our beloved company.

Here is July 2018 top slogan index, including the number of times each slogan was used, along with a few comments in the spirit of HR business partnership, whatever that means.

Internet of Things: 343, 841,986,888 times. (Ever since CEO Stan complimented Comrade Carl's idea of burying our software bugs in the platform of internet of things, this slogan is more popular than sex is in Phuket.)

Engagement: 238,909 times. (CEO Stan told Comrade Carl Marks from R&D that "your God damn  big data engineers need to engage, and speak better English")

Cloud-based: 89776544368 times. (Hugh White, the white heterosexual from Diversity, claims that clouds, being white, are not diversity compliant.)

Blockchain: 34,000,005,000,879,930 times. (HR used this term most of all, in the context of figuring out what it means).

Industrial Action: No one used this term. (Several Russian engineers, however, did throw a Molotov cocktail under CEO Stan's car; in the group of protesters was a certain Comrade Carl Marks, EVP of R&D.)

HR Business Partner: This is NOT a slogan. CEO Stan used the term once, and I used it 6000 times. 

Btw, I also quantify the value of our human capital. Our nerds' capabilities are linked to the value of the democracy in the middle east.

HR asked to deal with a "service" issue because Comrade Carl forgot his medicine this morning.

Another weekend is ruined

My dearest Gloria,

I never told you face to face, but I think you are both agile, wise and cunning, a smashing combination for an HR manager. This is big data!

In my opinion, HR brings more value than Supply Chain, thanks to your agile nature.

Our new product is about to be deployed; a quality audit suggests that we have a few bugs (34,980), of which only 8 can impact our clients' revenue.

I wanted to inform you that we in R&D have finished developing this product, and will transfer responsibility over to a new product deployment team in Customer Service. 

As our agile HR business partner, please recruit the appropriate nerds and staff up where necessary. I will lend a "helping hand" once you bring me a candidate to lead this effort. Basically, the product is now a "service issue".

In two weeks, my staff will hand over the product documentation, which is being written up by an engineer in Kiev who has some English skills. (I know this engineers' sister.)

Our CEO Stan thinks these plans of mine are "solid". Stan does not believe R&D needs to be involved in any more grunt work on this emerging technology.

Two more things, Glo. I think Cynthia Axe's cleavage is too pronounced. And don't you think that having a White heterosexual run Diversity is a bit biased? Spasiba!

Comrade Carl Marks

Senior Vice President R&D

Follow me @GRamsbottom

What happens when no one speaks English

Mais oui-I am so popular

Just a few days before the release of our new product, I walked into Comrade Carl Marks office our R&D Executive Senior VP.

The arrogant Comrade Carl  sat in his room sipping some cognac during a consultation with 2 engineers. One was a (lily White) engineer from the southern tip of Africa named Rene de Villiers and the second was Thiri  (from "somewhere" in Asia), an employee with one name only, whom our ERP HR module registered as a "thing".

Thiri speaks some English (79% is incomprehensible) while old de Villers speaks a weird brand of English where the letter E has disappeared...as in "lits have brikfast". 

Thiri and de Villiers came to Comrade Carl because they did not understand one another. Comrade Carl understands everyone. That's because no one in Engineering speaks real English.

Comrade Carl refused to discuss the engineering problem that de Villiers and Thiri had surfaced. Instead he asked me; "is there any reason R&D should not manage HR, Supply Chain, and Finance"?

Comrade Carl, who appears to have forget his medicines this morning suddenly yelled out, "I am sick and tired of kissing the ass of that bitch Ramsbottom to get more money for bonuses. HR- Pizduk!"

Now Thiri and de Villiers were in a bind...to support me or Comrade Carl.

Instead of supporting Comrade Carl, they walked out as he ranted on. Why did I get this unexpected passive support from the nerds?

• Thiri still cannot get a salary because our ERP only recognizes people with more than one name; each month, I register Thiri as "Thiri Ramsbottom" and I transfer his salary to him.

• De Villiers needs my services because Hugh White, that idiotic white heterosexual from Diversity, claims that de Villiers lacks aid entitlement for relocating from Africa because "you do not look African, de Villiers". 

Crisis intervention in our R&D department as shit hits the fan

Union on the way?

Two weeks before product release, there is a non wow situation in IoT - Big Data. 50 engineers (30 of them named Svetlana) have all resigned tentatively, unless they get raises. 

In another development, product managers also refuse to visit clients in nearby Japan unless they fly business class. This is big data.

And R&D Chief Comrade Carl Marks' only comment to this is: blacha mucha, which is an evil word in Russian. 

In a management meeting Comrade Carl said this morning, "now that we need our employees, we are going to be fucked big time, thanks to Gloria's myopia as HR manager". Then Carl added, "I hope we get unionized!" 

Immediately, I set up a response team consisting of Cynthia Axe, Head of our Involuntary Early Bird Retirement Team, and that white heterosexual boy Hugh White, who runs Diversity.

Hugh will seize the workers passports for clerical review whenever possible; Ms Axe will provide a notarized promise that no one will be fired by text.

I will need to become involved-so I plan to "transform" my relationship with Comrade Carl into a business partnership, based on some appreciative inquiry, agility and a portion of big data, with some vodka.

I am also looking for a more challenging company. This role is starting to bore me. 
I  have heard that there are opportunities in the Faroe Islands.

HR's mission critical function can be replaced with a voice enabled help desk service

I need some HR creativity

Comrade Carl Marks, our chief nerd, has had a stormy relationship with HR. Carl seems to feel that HR's mission critical function can be replaced with a voice enabled help desk service.

Strangely, Comrade Carl sees HR as the "guardian of the status quo!"  To be frank and earnest, Comrade Carl strikes me as a weirdo. He was born and bred in the USA; indeed he got his PhD at some unknown Russian polytechnic university, yet he thinks, behaves and drinks like a Russian; he also swears like a Russian! 

Yet today our relationship underwent a change.

Comrade Carl meandered into my office (after having smoked a joint in the parking lot) with a huge smile on his face. "Hi Glo, you look better than ever today! Pizdets, we have an issue-let's talk, sweety".

Comrade Carl told me that 2 weeks before the new product release, 5 engineers, Igor, Igor, Svetlana, Svetlana and Svetlana all have asked for a raise, immediately. Since "sufficient documentation" of the product is not available, WE need to think twice before we say no. After all, WE do not want this failure on OUR shoulders, do we, Gloria?"

Then Comrade Carl said a few words to me in French. Comrade Carl speaks very good French, and he even swore using a few choice Quebec expressions, which I shan't repeat because readers won't know what this is all about. He went on-

"So Gloria, in the spirit of transparency and cooperation, I wanted to tell you that CEO Stan has oked a 30 K ``stay bonus`` for all five employees and he has asked me to make sure that WE stay within the budget for total cost of headcount. Please handle this`professionally, and update Stan before you go home. By the way, Glo, you are a great business partner.`

Comrade Carl questions the value of HR as he announces a "win"

"Yobt tvyou mat, we have done it", announced  R&D Chief Comrade Carl Marks at a hastily convened management meeting this morning in the Joe Stalin Meeting Room.

Comrade Carl detailed his team's achievement.  "Our new product will be released in 3 weeks, and deployed on site in part of the former Ukraine, South Thailand and rural Albania".

Comrade Carl brought some vodka with him, and though Carl is a Lutheran born Atheist, he proposed we all drink "le-haim", which is a Jewish word, or Hebrew. Not sure. After all, I am from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.

Le-haim-to life!

Comrade Carl clarified that we have "a few" bugs left to work out", and the "interface between R&D and deployment needs to be tweaked", yet, claims Carl, these difficulties "dwarf" the technical achievements. 

Hugh White from Diversity did not approve of the word dwarf. Moi, j'men calice. (Me? I don't give a f--k about Diversity, except that our switchboard is a stellar showcase of Diversity).

Then Comrade Carl added, "I know that this has been a long wait, and most of you comrades have been very patient. Thank you Stan. It "saddens me" that this great company has such a low level of HR support. Our workers have laboured days and night, in snow and in rain, with bravery that reminds me of the Battle for Stalingrad. Yet HR does nothing to make their hard effort worthwhile; there is no appreciation. I call upon Stan to allow me to hire my own HR business partner".

CEO Stan, drunk to the gills, looked at me and then texted me: "let it pass Glo; you are a great business partner, most of the time"

I am well paid.

Addressing the skill gap in the Sales Department

I am enriching Hugh's job

CEO Stan sent me a text at 500 am to convene an urgent meeting this morning. The meeting started at 0530 AM.

The participants were EVP HR Gloria Ramsbottom-Lemieux (c'est moi), Comrade Carl Marks, EVP R&D, and the nameless former Head of Sales, who gave notice last week after a 5 days stint.

Comrade Carl Marks ensured us that our new product will be almost nearly bug-free by August 2014. CEO Stan said that "until August", there is a "skill gap" between the present capabilities of the sales force and the challenges the sales force is facing, namely getting sales on this semi-stable product.

Comrade Carl gazed at Stan and said, "Skill gap back-filling is an HR issue, Boss. Do I need to be here?" Stan immediately released Comrade Carl from the meeting. Carl hurried off to his Ukrainian language lessons, so he can understand the 50 cost effective engineers we hired there last week.

Stan then said to me, "Glo, this is an HR matter-fix the skill gap for me, by the end of this week.

Hugh White, the white and heterosexual Head of Diversity, needs some job enrichment. I shall fully delegate this simple task to Hugh, although I will guide him to use Big Data as well as innocuous facts.

Looking for Japan Expert

I am a pleasure to work with

CEO Stan is off to Japan on a business trip.His mission (Stan loves that word which I planted in his vocabulary) is to convince a Japanese trading company to sell our "emerging" technology.

Stan believes that based on our axe-perience in Cuba, Bolivia, Chad, Pago-Pago and Indonesia, there is huge growth potential in Japan.

Stan called in a Japan business consultant who told Stan things he did not want to hear:

1-The utmost importance of quality

2-The use of a reputable reference point

3-Focus on building credibility, reliability and hard work, not bragging about a future technological capability.

Stan fired the consultant, using the services of an ultra cruel Ms Cynthia Axe, who chased the consultant out of our offices, whilst throwing rotten eggs in his direction.

I am now looking for a cost effective consultant who "mission" is "to convince the Japanese trading company to listen closely to Stan and take more risks." 

We pay by barter, within 120 days.