Dryza with a Bone

Sometimes I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I think about the people who've been proposed and trialled to fill that missing functionality hole that I identified a long time ago when MadDog just wasn't doing it for me. Now that Dryza is back on board, I thought that all of my desires had been fulfilled, but now FO is claiming that she's a temporary measure to act as an internal consultant and gather enough material to be able to present the company in a better light. This, of course, means that we'll lose that link to reality when her period of consultancy ends, and we're back to square one.
Anyway, FO's grand scheme was to have Dryza do a round of interviews with the folk within the organisation, expand to the Board, and then on to key customers and overseas representatives, and perhaps beyond that to potentials, gathering information about how we work, and then presenting that to each successive group, and finding how that relates ot what they're looking for in a development partner, or whatever relationship is most appropriate.
Dryza hadn't been desk-placed, because I've got Roddy sitting at that desk I used to reserve for the likes of Dryza, so she was stopping by irregularly, chatting to FO, Arkel, or myself, and then flitting away again, while she sorted out her marketing commitments elsewhere. Then, one day, FO suddenly looked excited about the prospect of her getting underway - she'd given him a proposal, and he was unhappy with it, but she could start work anyway. He asked if I'd like to be interviewed, and listed key personnel who would be - the exec, most of the VPs, and Axis, because of the work he does. No problem.
Early next morning, I got a meeting request, and I responded without much thought. No clash, no thought. I noted that Dryza had been in on the previous afternoon - the lipstick-marked coffee cup in the sink. I thought no more about it until FO came around and asked for a few minutes of my time.
"You know that interview this morning?"
"This morning? Bugger - I thought it was tomorrow!"
"Well, it's in - 10 minutes. I just want to give you some background, but I'm not allowed to show you this," and he waved the questionnaire about like a flag of truce. "I'm not exactly happy about what she's come up with, and I want your feedback on whether you think it will be worthwhile continuing with her services, or just cut our losses."
"... and lose the only one we've got with these skills."
"Yeah, well, better than waste money."
FO and I have some very different ideas. He thinks it's a waste of money to hire people, but it's nothing to offer rewards to those we have for working excessively, in the extreme, or hiring consultants and contractors short-term. As long as it doesn't affect the long-term costs. I believe that the right people make the business viable. Having too few people will kill us. Keeping the wrong people will kill us.

So, there is twa, I was about to be interviewed for my take on product and company direction and how it should be presented to the big wide world. I got a new glass of water.
The interview was a slow process, as it should be - you should never rush these things. And it did need some refining. Other people were supposed to be put on the rack for an hour. I got three. I'm not complaining, because I had to sort out a lot of misundersatdnings.
When FO gets talking, he goes off on his own little tangent. If you weren't with him at the start point, you've lost him. Dryza, coming in from the outside, had been overloaded with FO-concepts that were misrepresented, misinterpreted, and generally missed.
A good example is "I want you to draw a bubble-map of each product, breaking it down into components, so that we can see if there's value in what we have."
This is so overladen with assumptions, that I spent nearly half and hour deconstructing the question.
If the company is service-oriented, then product is next to irrelevant. What the hell is a bubble-map? Is it something that non-technical people draw when they have no formal training of how to represent a concept? How do you draw it? What are you allowed to put in it? Who is its target audience? What is its purpose? Componentise in what dimension? Who said it could be done at all? What is value? To whom?
I ended up not drawing anything myself, but allowed Dryza to draw two diagrams - one showing the service that we provide, and how that can be componentised into marketing advantages, and another breaking down the product, showing how that related to potential new services. I guess from a marketing point of view, a service is product.
To me, if you can see it, it's product, if you can't, it's service. Call me an engineer at heart.

The interviews went on. I saw Axis and Polo have their turn, and then I had to laugh - she'd hit Bubble. I've got to find out what she makes of him. I don't think she's spoken to him before. I could tell that she was concentrating really hard on what he was saying, which is different to me, when she was either trying to clarify a point, or else was busy writing things down.
When I first heard about this interview, I jokingly asked FO if he wanted me to be honest. It didn't really come up, because we spent three hours on product, so I had no opportunity to talk about management issues and company go-forward. Maybe I'll leave that for a chat over coffee.

Mustn't Grumble

So much for my holidays. It was a silent struggle to achieve them, and, once achieved, their taste was not as sweet as anticipated.
For the first time since I began working in this place, I decided to take off those precious days between Christmas and New Year's - those special three days that are the most peaceful known to man. Sure, the trains weren't working, and it would have been impossible to get into the office without facing the empty streets, but I usually work from home and get as much done in less time (with fewer distractions). I had decided this year (being now last year) to bite the bullet and stay at home and not work. I told my ladies to stay away and not talk to me until the new year, or words to that effect.
Beach rang me just before Christmas.
"Are you working through the break?"
"Maybe."
"Will you be in the office?"
"Most likely not."
"Will you be working from home?"
"Not if I can help it."
"So you'll be on holidays?"
"Unless someone wants something really desperately."
"So, I'll put you down as on leave."
"But if I come into the office, then I won't have been on leave, and I won't be able to get that time back."
"Can't I sort it out if that happens?"

Beach was going on holidays, and trying to organise the end-of-year pay before she went. I could sympathise. Just. I took holidays. I kept them.

However, some didn't. Doodles had brought us a Spanish market, which meant that I now had to find a way to ensure that our product actually worked. I put the call in to engineering to do some investigation, and Gabrial assured me that, even with WildMan and Bull away for that week, they would put in every effort to make my new lady's job a breeze when she started in the new year.

First thing Tuesday morning, having forgotten that WildMan hadn't been in, I went up and asked him how things were going, and got a blank stare. Bull, nearby, also shook his head sadly. Gabriel then admitted that no-one had really had any interest in doing the work, so ... it wasn't done. Fine. I got Roddy, my new Spanish Market Expert, working on something else to satisfy my curiousity, and fumed in silence.
Wednesday, and I collected the milk on my way into the office (being first in). It hadn't occurred to me that the kitchen had been a bit of a mess without Tutu around last week, but I don't notice things like milk unless there isn't any. On this occasion, there was no space left in the fridge for the fresh milk because of what could generally be described as very unfresh milk.
I removed 14litres, went off to put my coat on its hanger, and forgot about it until Stripe came in an hour later. When I thought about it, it was a good little demonstration of the state of things that no-one had noticed 14litres of curdling milk filling up the fridge. We had the stench of the sewer invading our offices for weeks with constant complaining, but no-one notices chunky green milk.
Several hours later, I returned to the kitchen with the express purpose of removing said curds. It was at this point that I discovered some kind soul had ordered the contents by date, and by solidity therein.
Ten minutes of nose-holding, hot-water-running, and sheer terror later, the collected works of several bovine gas-producers was wending its way through the system to add to the general post-new-year's detritus such a city produces.
I wonder if that counts as green waste?