Part II
Later, the buzz has died down a little and I’m sitting in my cube working on about a three week backlog of timesheets. This is a tricky maneuver, inasmuch as a large piece of my time (sometimes 40% or more) is spent on non-project-related work — filling out timesheets, writing status reports (except for project-specific status reports, which of course may be billed to projects), standing around drinking coffee and speculating about what everybody is standing around drinking coffee and speculating about, and (of course) surfing the Web and sending out personal e-mails — but this presents a huge stumbling block in that no more than 10% of my time can be billed to these administrative or overhead activities.
Getting administrative time down to "between 5% and 10%" is a departmental target. If we achieve this target, we’re that much closer to getting our full departmental bonus, or "bonus opportunity" as the Glen Meadow folks like to say. So in fact, while the target is from 5%-10%, the pressure is on to keep admin time around 5% or less of total work time recorded.
Not a problem, really. All I have to do is bill the time spent on overhead activities to various legitimate projects. The trouble with doing that is that each project has a Project Manager who has an allotted budget and who has a target of keeping hours billed to his or her project to a minimum. So they keep a close eye on who is billing hours against their projects, and how many hours are being billed.
Naturally, I only bill to projects I am actually working on. To do otherwise would be to invite chaos. If I were caught billing time to a project that I’m not assigned to, I would have to
Worse yet, if I bill to a non-assigned project, the project manager might decided that I work for him or her and start assigning me work. I certainly don’t need any more of that.
So in the end, filling out these timesheets becomes a delicate balancing act of discretely adding fifteen minutes here and an hour there to work I actually performed until the whole thing adds up to 40 hours with not more than 10% of that time (preferably less than 5%) billed as overhead.
Oh, add to all that one more complication. I usually only get around to filling out my timesheets about once every two months or so. A three week backlog is a fairly light one by my standards, but even so — imagine trying to reconstruct your precise day the Tuesday before the Tuesday before last with an eye to subtly but thoroughly covering over most of the wasted time, whether that wasted time was the result of your own (lack of) volition or whether it was forced upon you by organizational mandate.
It’s a creative process.
I’m about halfway through two weeks ago when I hear a loud "knock knock" and I turn to see who it is. Of course, when I say I hear a loud "knock knock," I don’t mean to imply that anyone is actually knocking on anything, or that my cubicle has a door or other suitable surface for knocking on. No, an attempt to knock on my or any other cubicle would result in a plastic, upholstered, shuddery sound that would best be rendered as "thwop" or some other equally Dr. Seussian sound effect.
When I say that I hear a loud "knock knock," I mean that someone is standing at the entrance to my cubicle and literally saying the words "knock knock." This is a partly cutesy way we have of dealing with the fact that we work in a sometimes all-too boundaryless environment. There is something so perfectly absurd about standing at an open entrance that we all know really ought to be a door and vocally pronouncing the sounds that the correct introduction of our presence should produce, that it seems a friendly and lightly humorous thing to do, rather than the disturbing, pathological shriek for help from the deep recesses of the soul that it actually must be.
I digress.
So I hear this "knock knock" and turn around to find my immediate supervisor, Frank, standing at the entrance to my cubicle.
"Mr. Childers," I say in greeting, gesturing towards the guest chair. See I called him Mr. even though we’re on a first-name basis pretty funny huh.
"Hey, Emmett," he says taking a seat. "How is everything coming along?"
A question like this, plus a conscientious collecting — even if never accompanied by any actual reading — of my status reports is what passes for hands-on management in our group. Not that I’m complaining. I’ve had lots worse bosses than Frank. He used to be a tech writer himself (in one of the competing groups), so at least he knows what we do. Or anyway he used to. Plus, he’s a pretty regular guy. The kind of guy you can go out and have a couple of drinks with and always time your punchlines precisely so he’ll end up blowing beer out his nose. He never catches on to the timing, but he does get the jokes.
I’m not sure, but that combination could make him the perfect WorldConneX manager.
"Everything is coming along fine," I sigh. This is the only acceptable answer. Anything too positive would arouse immediate suspicion. Anything too negative would indicate a problem that Frank would have to do something about, and that would mean work, which he doesn’t want. But a resigned "everything is fine" is just about perfect.
"Good. Have you finished cleaning up the product spec for Tweety Bird?"
This is alarming…a detailed question that references not only a project but my deliverable by name. It cannot be a good sign.
"Well, that was actually due by close of business on Friday, but I’m still waiting for answers to some of my queries."
"How many queries?"
Definitely not good.
"Ah, well, actually…all of them. There are 39 all together, but most of them are pretty small. Anyway, I can show that I’ve been sending out daily follow-up e-mails. I called Gloria on Thursday and she promised me that I’d have everything by the middle part of this week."
"That’s fine," says Frank. He makes a note on the little clipboard I have just noticed he’s holding. I don’t believe this. He’s taking notes.
"I assume," he continues, "that you have renegotiated the delivery dates with Gloria?"
"Yeah, of course. I mean, not formally or anything, but she knows I can’t get the document finished until her people get back to me."
Frank drops the clipboard on his lap and lets out a loud sigh. I can’t believe it. He’s annoyed about this.
"Frank. Buddy. Don’t worry; we won’t take a hit on this. I’ll have the due dates changed by the end of the month. Nothing will go out showing that we missed a delivery date, because we didn’t."
He sits back, arms folded, and studies the ceiling for a moment.
"Yeah," he says, looking back at me. "I know you would. I just wished you’d done it sooner."
"Well, sorry I didn’t," I answer. "But what’s this all about?"
"It’s the experiment, Emmett. The QC Protocols."
"Yeah?" The hair on the back of my neck begins to rise.
"Yeah. Sheila called us all over and said that our group was picked." Our group, in this instance is System Development and Support (SDS), one of three segments within PED. Frank’s group, TDP, is one of the workgroups within SDS. "Buddy, Raku, Melinda, and I — " these are all the workgroup managers in SDS — "were all there. Sheila told us we each have to pick one person."
"Yeah? And?"
"I’m sorry, Emmett. I wish there was another way. You see, everybody else is tied up in mission critical stuff. And you are the junior member of the group…"
"Wait a minute," I cut in. "Hold it. So you’re telling me I’ve been picked. Okay. That’s okay. I think it’s a bad choice on your part, but okay. But what’s the big deal, here? You’re trying to cover my projects? How long does this thing take?"
I’m in free fall. I never saw this coming.
"It...it’s not like that, okay? It’s not about how long it takes. The point is…you’ll be leaving the group."
"What?"
"I’m sorry, Emmett. You, uh, need to sort everything into piles. Your own stuff in one pile; company stuff in the other. Security will come by in a while to box it up for you."
I’m staring at the man in complete disbelief. The words are getting through, but they just don’t register. Sure, people get laid off. It happens all the time. But what the hell is going on here? QC Protocols? I make a desperate lunge at reality.
"Frank, if this is a joke or a prank or something, it isn’t funny. Who do you think you’re fooling? I’ve seen people laid off and I’ve seen people quit and I’ve seen people get fired. Everybody boxes up their own stuff, with security standing by. I’ve never seen security box up anybody’s stuff."
Frank stands up.
"I, know, Emmett. This is different. You aren’t being fired or anything. You’ve just been picked for this thing. Security will be by to box up your stuff, but you’ll already be gone."
I can’t think of anything to say.
"They’ll be coming for you in about ten minutes. I hope that gives you time to get your stuff piled up. Oh, and be sure to use sticky notes to say which pile is which."
He sets the marker down and reaches out his hand towards me.
"It’s been a pleasure working with you, Emmett. We’re all going to miss you."
I stare at his hand for a moment, then give it a limp shake.
"Goodbye, Emmett."
"Frank." It’s all I can manage.
He turns to leave, then stops and turns back to face me.
"One more thing. Don’t leave your cubical until they come for you. And don’t talk to anybody."
And then he’s gone.
A long moment passes. I turn to start stacking up my stuff. I’m numb. I’m trying to think of what it all means. And then it hits me. I turn back to the empty doorway and say loudly (to no one)
"Hey! What are you saying? My stuff’s not mission critical?"
Posted by Phil at March 1, 2004 12:00 AM | TrackBack