martes 5 de agosto de 2008

Pasa en Dilbert, pasa en la vida


Si alguien externo a nuestro lugar de trabajo y sin suficiente experiencia laboral en empresas grandes cae en este incipiente blog, podría encontrar difícil de creer las situaciones que se dan en los chistes de Dilbert y en algunos otros relatos que esperamos postear en el futuro cercano.
A continuación, presento las 15 frases nominadas en un concurso "Frases dilbertianas de la vida real", organizado por una revista desconocida. Una lista sin desperdicio.

Aquellos que participamos de este incipiente blog hemos tenido exposición a situaciones, sino tan ridículas como las que listo a continuación, sí lo bastante parecidas como para que además de ameritar el revolcarnos por los pasillos en un ataque de risa histérica, nos recorra un leve escalofrío de pensar que EXISTE GENTE ASÍ, Y SON NUESTROS JEFES.

1. As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday, and employees will receive their cards in two weeks. (Fred Dales at Microsoft Corporation in Redmond, WA)

2. What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter. (Lykes Lines Shipping)

3. How long is this Beta guy going to keep testing our stuff? (Programming intern, Microsoft IIS development team)

4. E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business. (Accounting Mgr., Electric Boat Company)

5. This project is so important, we can't let things that are more important interfere with it. (Advertising/Mktg. Mgr., UPS)

6. Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule. (R&D Supervisor, Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing/3M Corp.)

7. My boss spent the entire weekend retyping a 25-page proposal that only needed corrections. She claims the disk I gave her was damaged and she couldn't edit it. The disk I gave her was write-protected. (CIO of Dell Computers)

8. Quote from the boss: "Teamwork is a lot of people doing what 'I' say." (Mktg. executive, Citrix Corporation)

9. My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday. When I told my boss, he said she died so that I would have to miss work on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her burial to Friday. He said, "That would be better for me." (Shipping Executive, FTD Florists)

10. We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees. (AT&T Long Lines Division)

11. We recently received a memo from senior management saying, "This is to inform you that a memo will be issued today regarding the subject mentioned above." (Microsoft, Legal Affairs Division)

12. One day my boss asked me to submit a status report to him concerning a project I was working on. I asked him if tomorrow would be soon enough. He said, "If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited until tomorrow to ask for it!" (New Business Mgr., Hallmark Cards)

13. As director of communications, I was asked to prepare a memo reviewing our company's training programs and materials. In the body of the memo one of the sentences mentioned the "pedagogical approach" used by one of the training manuals. The day after I routed the memo to the executive committee, I was called into the HR Director's office, and was told that the executive VP wanted me out of the building by lunch. When I asked why, I was told that she wouldn't stand for "perverts" (pedophiles?) working in her company. Finally he showed me her copy of the memo, with her demand that I be fired, with the word pedagogical" circled in red. The HR Manager was fairly reasonable, and once he looked the word up in his dictionary and made a copy of the definition to send to my boss, he told me not to worry. He would take care of it. Two days later a memo to the entire staff came out, directing us that no words which could not be found in the local Sunday newspaper could be used in company memos. A month later, I resigned. In accordance with company policy, I created my resignation letter by pasting words together from the Sunday paper. (Taco Bell Corporation)

14. This gem is the closing paragraph of a nationally-circulated memo from a large communications company: "Lucent Technologies is determined to promote constant attention on current procedures of transacting business focusing emphasis on innovative ways to better, if not supercede, the expectations of quality!"

15. No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We've been working on it for months. Now, go act busy for a few weeks and I'll let you know when it's time to tell them. (R&D Supervisor, Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing /3M Corp.)

lunes 28 de julio de 2008

The BullShit BINGO


El post de Rodney genera la previa para lo que será uno de los principales focos de este blog: la BS, literalmente la "caca de toro" - que acá conocemos con otros nombres como "verdulear", y más específicamente la BS corporativa, esa cháchara llena de frases repetidas y que suenan tan lindo pero dicen tan poco. En la empresa que trabajamos la BS no es algo menor, al punto que estimamos que no menos del 40% de los empleados viven mayoritariamente de la misma, al asignar entre un 50 y un 100% de su tiempo a generar y recombinar estas frases maravillosas en nuevas presentaciones, emails motivacionales, memos, etc. Lo que se puede ver de otras corporaciones internacionales comparables nos lleva a la conclusión de que la BS, por la cantidad de fuentes de trabajo que genera, es uno de los pilares de la economía mundial, en especial la americana.

Existen muchos juegos de mesa basados en otros pilares de la economía (Monopolio, WAR, etc), sin embargo no existe ningún juego que celebre la importancia de la BS y nos ayude a apreciarla de forma lúdica. Es por este motivo que para inaugurar mi aporte a este distinguido blog, propongo un nuevo juego: The BullShit BINGO, la Lotería de la Verdura. Un juego de azar, variante de la lotería tradicional, que nos permitirá sobrevellevar de mejor manera las malditas Staff Meetings, Town Halls, Resource Planning Meetings, Performance Evaluations, Delivery Reviews, Stretegic-Call-To-Action-Upon-Service-Excellence-Prerequisites-in-a-Timely-Manner-Meeting, etc.

El juego cuenta con la ventaja de su gran simpleza como todo juego de lotería, y a la vez la elegancia de ser una variante aggiornada y adaptable a diferentes tipos de reuniones/presentaciones.
Las reglas son bien simples:

  1. Todos los participantes, previamente a entrar a la reunión o presentación en cuestión, escogen al azar y anotan un conjunto de entre 5 y 10 expresiones (según previo acuerdo y teniendo en cuenta la duración de la meeting), de entre una lista que se detalla más abajo.
  2. Cada vez que una expresión en la lista del jugador sea mencionada durante la meeting, el jugador puede tacharla.
  3. El primer jugador que logre tachar toda su lista, grita BULLSHIT BINGO!!, y se desconecta inmediatamente del teléfono, o bien si la meeting es presencial, sale corriendo de la sala profiriendo gritos de lémur borracho en celo.

Este fantástico juego no sólo mejora la moral del personal y favorece la asistencia a estas meetings por hacerlas más atractivas al poner algo en juego, sino que la mecánica del mismo nos obligará a ponerles un poco de atención, lo cual será un entrenamiento invaluable en nuestra futura carrera como productorres/consumidores de BS, una industria fascinante de la cual todos esperamos vivir algún día y donde la competencia es feroz.

A continuación una lista sugerida estándar de expresiones, ideal para Staff Meetings globales, Town Halls de un producto, o de upper management de la compañía. Cada cual es libre de modificarla y agregarle expresiones más acordes su división o empresa:

- Strategic thinking
- Multi-faceted strategy
- Customer focused
- Customer service-oriented
- Legendary/World Class/Top notch quality
- Power to action/deliver
- Empowerment
- Leveraging resources/people/knowledge
- Ducks in a row
- Synergies
- Exceeding Expectations/Goals
- Core values
- Proactive response
- Being there for the customer/teammates
- Raising the bar
- Groundbreaking effort/innovation
- Impact on the market
- Creating momentum
- Forefront of the industry
- Corporate stewardship
- Run of the mill


La lista podría extenderse bastante, en función de la cantidad de jugadores.
He aquí una variante con frases más adecuadas para meetings específicamente de temas técnicos u operativos (en las cuales también se tira verdura a montones):

- Action Items
- Best practices
- Resource availability
- Swamped
- Taking this offline
- Contractual agreement
- Rules of Engagement
- Proactive response
- Root cause under investigation
- Application impact
- Escalation procedures
- Disaster Recovery
- Post mortem
- Steering commitee

Para los que quieren hacerlo de forma prolija y son muy vagos para escribir sus propias frases:

http://www.bullshitbingo.net/

Y ya está! quién dijo que el entrenamiento en administración no puede ser divertido?

Nota: Gracias Obelix por la idea :P

Pibe's Dream

Que tiempos aquellos...




sábado 26 de julio de 2008

Worst Corporate Phrases

Quien no habra escuchado esto alguna vez...

Raising the Bar
Outside of the Box
Downsizing
Take This Offline
"You're Fired"
Action Items
We Need to Flex Our Resources
Synergy
"Team Player"
Let's Touch Base
Going Forward
Interfacing
Best Practices
Shoot an Email

Aggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh !!!

viernes 25 de julio de 2008

Got troubles making your DPM?

http://members.aol.com/matt999h/bullshit.htm



Uruguay

Un compañero mandó esta foto, con un poco de GIMP le superpuse un mapita de Uruguay...

Que mejor manera de comenzar este blog?


Ewww! Don't touch that mouse!

Computer mouses found in cyber cafes have been ranked as the second most bacteria-infested items in a list of commonly touched objects.

The survey, carried out by the Korea Consumer Protection Board, found shopping cart handles to be the worst of the worst. Typically, they contain an average of 1100 colony forming units (CFU) of bacteria per 10 sq cm.

The computer mouses, were found to have an average of 690 CFU - more than twice the concentration found on doorknobs and handles in public toilets.

The detected bugs include all kinds of bacteria including pathogenic ones.

The Korea Consumer Protection Board released the report this week after conducting an examination about bacteria contamination on 120 items at public facilities which people commonly touch with their hands in Seoul and nearby cities.

According to the Korea Times newspaper, the board examined 20 hand straps on trains, 20 hand straps on buses, 20 toilet doorknobs at four department stores, 20 lift buttons at four department stores, 20 handles of shopping carts at four discount stores, and 20 mouses at four internet cafes.

A board spokeswoman said that the best way to stop the spread of infectious diseases by hand contact was to wash your hands with soap.

Quoting statistics, the spokeswoman said that while more than 77 per cent of people were aware of the importance of washing hands, only 47.9 per cent actually bothered to wash them.

The Dirty Half Dozen:
1. Shopping cart handles - 1100 CFU per 10 sq cm
2. Internet café computer mouse - 690
3. Bus hand straps - 380
4. Public toilet handles and door knobs - 340.
5. Lift buttons at 130
6. Train hand straps - 86