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

Harnessing talent

Updating the Reverend Axe

Cynthia Axe managers our Early Bird Retirement Plan. She is a uni-lingual American who has been chosen least popular employee for 87 quarters straight.

The Reverend Oliver Axe, Cynthia's father, sent me postcard from Oklahoma, where Cynthia was born and where the Reverend Axe tends to his flock till today.

The Reverend Axe worries about Cynthia's "moral fibre"; this is a term Dad (Pierre Elliot)  never used. My Dad (Pierre Elliot)  was in the Royal Canadian Airforce, and not a preacher, thank god.

I wrote a very polite letter to the Reverend Axe that his little "petit choux" Cynthia, is executing her role well. 

However, I spared him the details of the text I received from CEO Stan today which read, "Gloria, did you harness the talent of young Ms Axe; please keep me abreast." 

I did not tell the Reverend Axe that recently, Cynthia received a new Blackberry Passport from Stan which stores lurid texts messages, as well as small, medium and big data.

I am not the worrying type, but when Stan uses terms like keeping abreast, or harness or Young Ms Cynthia Axe in one breath, I stop to think. I did not share these thoughts with the Reverend Axe.

I need to put this incident out of my mind. Luckily, I have so many texts to answer, that I do not think for too long. HR managers need to manage the contradiction between being, doing and thinking. I am pretty good at this; I just do.

HR - RH adapt agile process for new smartphone allocation

Ramsbottom and Ms Axe

Ms Cynthia Axe (Head of semi-voluntary Early Bird Retirement) asked CEO Stan for a new Samsung Note 9 Stan, always the man, fell into the trap, as he told Axe: "I have no problem with that, Baby-just have Gloria sign off on it to ensure we follow procedure". 

My Dad (Pierre Elliot) would have said that Ms Axe dressed like a slut the day she asked for the new gadget.

Cynthia Axe sent me a text updating me. I sent

Cynthia's text to Purchasing and asked them to "sign off" as long as this is according to procedure. Procurement texted the request to Supply Chain, and Supply Chain forward the request to Hugh White, from Diversity. 

Supply Chain wanted to know if Ms Axe was a member of a persecuted "minority" group. The white heterosexual who runs Diversity, Hugh White, texted me back the purchase request, and I "forwarded" it back to Stan.  (All in all 76 texts were sent on this mission critical issue.)

Today, I saw Ms Axe flashing her new smartphone. 

Stan and a certain Ms Axe also had lunch at his mahogany table, and I will not go into details about how Ms Axe dressed. (Had I dressed that way at Moose Jaw High, my hide would have been tanned).

I will however note that Stan kept abreast of all Cynthia said...unlike most men Axe dates. I will also note that I snapped a picture of the two of them and sent to Wifey. This is big data.

Squeeze the vendor till he chokes, in line with one of our core values.

Shocked

This morning when I woke up I had an urgent text message from both Cynthia Axe and that hen pecked white heterosexual who runs Diversity, Hugh White; it appears that Comrade Carl Marks hired an OD consultant who is to begin work on Monday morning! Tabarnac.

I may not have mentioned it, but I dislike OD consultants more than I dislike anything else, except mid size data. Ciboire, HR business partnership excludes the need for OD, as anyone with half a brain knows.

Using my Blackberry 10, I texted CEO Stan and cced Comrade Carl, mentioning in "passing" that I had not signed off the consultant or his fees, which comes from my talent management budget. Stan apologized and told me to "interview him by Skype this weekend" whilst Carl sent me a curse in Russian, "youb tvoyu mat".

I interviewed this consultant and I had 3 "asks".

1) What is your detailed plan, hour by hour, of the entire project?

2) What questions are you going to ask whom, why, when and how?

3) How many seconds go by until you text me an update about who said what?

Based on the answers I received from the consultant, I sent his budget proposal to Sarah Barracuda from Procurement/Supply Chain.

Sarah

Kindly kill this asap; this may be a good time for me to ok your daughter working for us this summer. Lets talk after you update me.

A bientot!

Gloria

---

The vendor was pronounced dead at 1042, before he could reach Groote Schuur Hospital, which is a strange name.

Gloria considers career change-from HR manager to hair dresser.

CCM

There is no reason in the world why employees should not be engaged.  However, sometimes I encounter non- wow situations, which call for HR intervention. For example, Let's look at HR vrs Engineering to compare levels of  engagement.

                               Engagement in HR

• Thank heavens there are no engagement issues in HR.
• I love my work; “people” is my middle name on Thursdays.
• Cynthia Axe (Early Bird Retirement) feels axe-hillarated at the end of each week that she meets her downsizing quota.
• Every time that Diversity Chief Hugh White learns something weird about someone’s sexual life, he is engaged for days,as if he had found a big data mine.

                            Engagement in Engineering

There is, however, an engagement problem in Engineering.  

• Our new product now has 45989 identified bugs; even worse, the product “reboots” when more than 30 users log in.
• Comrade Carl Marks, R&D Chief, believes that these technical issues are “service related”.
• Nevertheless, CEO Stan has insisted that Comrade Carl’s engineers deal with product stability issues until HR hires a service manager.

Ciboire, I should have become a hair dresser.

                               Wifey Intervenes 

I received a text from Wifey (Stan’s wife): “Gloria, use spot bonuses to motivate Comrade Carl’s people. Wifey.”  

3 seconds later, I got a text from Stan, “Have you acted on Wifey’s text? Stan”

                             Gloria acts

I convened a meeting of my HR team to deal with Wifey's proposal.

Cynthia Axe “declined” and white heterosexual Diversity Hugh White was in court, defending our company’s stellar Diversity Policy, after someone anonymous complained that “Diversity should be more than hiring a Scot at the switchboard”.

I put together a spot bonus program to reward engagement.   

•     For each product stability issue solved, an engineer with receive an extra cheese coupon, to be used with pizza ordered after 11 pm at work (on Fridays only).
•     For every 100 revenue impacting bugs solved, an engineer will get a trip to Moscow (February) in an unheated dacha on the Volga River.
•     Comrade Carl Marks will get a discretionary budget deflated 4000 rubles to slip into his staff’s pockets, in “collaboration” with VP HR Gloria Ramsbottom and in full alignment with Hugh White. The allocation of this slush fund is big data.

This post is dedicated to Comrade Ilana from Israel and Monsieur Thibadeau from Quebec City, Gloria’s loyal fans. Spasiba and merci.

AS