Tales from other ‘verses, Part 1

November 18, 2007

In a discussion with a coworker last week, I had related that I’d seen a lot of wacky corporate shit, yet was shocked at how long he has managed to survive being so bad at what he does. In addition to my previous list, I would add “the company needs to generate a sufficient paper trail.”

Anyway, for humor value, I will spend the next few days recounting tales of organizational weirdness. Please feel free to share your own tales.

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At Company T, when someone was going to be deposed of humanely, that person would receive a lateral promotion to the lofty position of “X of Special Y,” where X is the current level they’re at and Y is chosen randomly among a list: Initiatives, Projects, Refactoring, Research, Marketing Partnerships, Harpsichord Purchasing, Alpaca Shaving, etc. Thus, you might have “Vice President of Special Projects.”An email went out announcing the “exciting change” as the future deposee was being promoted, yet it was also cagey about what the new role actually was. The key, you see, was “Special.” As would be custom, the VPoSP’s staff and any projects they were attending to would be reassigned. At this company, it was the VP of Sales who wielded near godlike influence in the organization.The email would add “To facilitate concentration on the new challenges ahead, the new VPoSP will move” from his current window office to the “X of Special Y” window office whose view of the dumpsters on the roof of the parking garage was improved by the huge, concrete pillar bisecting the window.Junior directs would frequent the office for the first week, congratulating the new VPoSP, hoping to extract a clue what he was working on. The VPoSP slowly tapered back his hours. By the third week following the congratulatory email, the VPoSP was no longer showing up in the office.The cogs who hadn’t forgotten about him speculated the VPoSP was traveling to exciting destinations, negotiating hard fought deals, learning the nuances of alpaca shaving, acquiring harpsichords from artisans, etc. Little did they realize that the VPoSP was interviewing for his next position, availing himself of a non-bouncing email address or use of the photocopier after hours.

Typically the second or third month, a follow-up notice announced the VPoSP “had decided to pursue other opportunities. We wish him well.” The office was sanitized, ready for the next “X of Special Y.”

Although I’d seen this a few times, I hadn’t connected the dots until I’d worked my way up to middle management. I was two rungs below Ray, our Senior Vice President of Marketing, but had little insight into what he actually did. My interaction with him was a side effect of sharing an office with other people in my group who golfed.

With an unlit cigar in his mouth and a chip putter in his hand, Ray would drop by to talk golf about some course they played. Or, if Ray needed money for a bag of potato chips from the vending machine, a challenge to a round of “office golf” was issued. It was worth a quarter.

One lazy summer afternoon, an email went out informing us that the marketing organization was reorganized to report to the VP of of Sales… except Ray, who would be assuming a new and exciting role of Senior Vice President of Special Projects. Ray now had eighty-nine fewer reports. Three months later, Ray had left to pursue personal opportunities.