Did I work in a sit-com? I have to share with you one of the last things that happened at The Company before they kicked my lovely butt out the door. This could easily be an episode of “The Office.” I suppose TV shows, movies, and comic strips are funny because they are based on nuggets of truth.
Here is what happened. The company re-orged to the Muck style of project development for all projects except the one I was on. The project I was on was being managed by the “nano-managment” concept. Never heard of it? Well, I’m sure you’ve heard of “micro-management.” Micro is a millionth while nano is a billionth. Instead of just managing your employees at every step, as in micro-management, the cofounders of the company had decided to do everyone’s jobs themselves. I call this nano-management. This meant, for the first time ever, the co-founders of the company were both in my ‘team’ meeting (I put ‘team’ in quotes because there was nothing teamlike about this project unless you define a team as a group of people who sit and watch the co-founders redo or undo all of the work that has just been done).
I walked into my second ‘team’ meeting and everyone was there except the two co-founders. We twirled our pencils and small-talked for 15 minutes before we decided we’d better just start the meeting. Another 15 minutes passed before the co-founders finally arrived. (To help you create some imagery in your mind’s eye, one cofounder was a female marketing person and the other a male programmer.) The woman stormed in the room. The look on her face was like a thundercloud. The man arrived about 30 paces behind her. He looked irritable – like when you tease a cat until its ears are flattened back against its head and its tail twitches. They sat at opposite ends of the table.
It was my turn to talk, so I brought up some software defects that seemed problematic and were a result of uninformed design decisions. I presented the problem, some solutions, and the time it would take to test those resolutions. The male co-founder admonished me as if I were a stupid child, telling me it wasn’t important, and that I’m too cautious (helloooo, quality assurance person here, of course I’m cautious, that is why you hired me). Honestly, he was nasty in his demeanor and his word choice. Next, the project manager explained to the female co-founder that we were going around the table reporting on our weekly progress and would she like to report on the marketing stuff? That unleashed the cattiest most inappropriately condescendingly toned progress report I’ve ever heard in my life. If she were my employee instead of my boss’ boss’ boss, I would have called her into my office and had a little chat with her about her attitude.
After that, the rest of the meeting continued under an atmosphere of what I can only describe as the ‘team’ sitting like a bunch of children at the dinner table witnessing that final pre-divorce fight between mom and dad. I walked away with a renewed energy to surf the job ads on a daily basis. Clearly, something was terribly wrong. The ship must be sinking. Why else would two successful, adult, professional CEOs behave so nastily at a pretty mundane project meeting?
Later that day I ran into a co-worker that said he thought his Muck project presentation really made the co-founders mad. Right after his presentation, he saw female co-founder storm out of her office, slamming the door behind her, and stalking down the hall. Shortly there-after, male co-founder exited the office and followed a safe 30 paces behind her with the operations guy in tow, frantically scribbling notes. What could cause such a scene other than news of a project going seriously awry, losing lots of money, and blowing another hole in the deck of an already sinking ship?
I found out the answer to that question a few days later. It wasn’t his project presentation, it was the men’s urinals.
That’s right, you don’t need new reading glasses. It was the men’s urinals that caused all that commotion and nastiness. I’ll explain:
One night while working late on a doomed project, the doomed project manager swung by for a bitch session. We discussed the doomedness of the project and various things before he said to me, “and then there is the whole urinal thing.” Huh?
Some background: We had just moved into a new building. All new cubicles and furniture were purchased. Custom carpet was designed. Many things were done at great expense to make the company look ‘corporate.’ It was a nice building and nice stuff, but a lot of people were unhappy that this money had been spent while good workers were laid off in the same time frame. Additionally, workers were given no input into their environment and the cubes were too small for the super technical folks who needed to use multiple computers and too tall for the collaborative folks who needed to brainstorm with their co-workers a lot. All of middle management was mad because they were given inner offices with no windows. In the meantime, the male co-founder was tearing down the cublicles of his people, removing the nice furniture, and making them practice MUCK in messy non-corporate looking ‘bull-pens.’ There was a lot of bitching going on and apparently the female co-founder, who spent months agonizing over carpet swatches and color schemes, was fed up.
According to my source who was in the most recent managment meeting, which had happened right before my ‘flashback to dinner with divorcing parents’ meeting, another complaint was lodged by the male co-founder. Apparently his all-male programming team was complaining that the urinal closest to the door of the men’s bathroom, was in plain sight of the company lobby when the bathroom door was open. As a result, the programmers were uncomfortable (some were even unable, if you know what I mean) using the bathroom.
The response of the female co-founder was that she would absolutely not spend any money on this issue. The male co-founder countered that it was not appropriate to dismiss a complaint about a privacy issue like this. He pointed out that some of the guys were UNABLE to use the bathroom due to the fear that someone in the lobby, a female co-worker or the UPS guy, might see their ding-a-lings.
The operations guy started brainstorming, “Maybe we can buy a really big plant for the lobby, to block the view, or maybe one of those Chinese screens around that urinal. Those don’t cost much.” The manager tellling me this story was, at this point in the meeting, sitting with his head in his hands trying to hide that he was laughing so hard he was crying. Apparently the issue escalated to the co-founders yelling at each other about the urinals. It climaxed with the female co-founder saying “Well, let’s just go look at the damned bathroom,” and dramatically storming out of the room, slamming the door, and stalking down the hall. Male co-founder stood up and silently followed her. Operations guy stumbled behind them, still spewing ideas and scribbling notes “Perhaps if we change the direction that the men’s room door opens…” Once everyone was out of the room, my informant collapsed in hysterical laughter. Finally, he managed to compose himself and head to the men’s room.
When he arrived, the scientific part of the process was already underway. Male co-founder had propped open the men’s room door and was standing at the nearest urinal miming urination. Female co-founder was in the company lobby, testing various positions and angles around the room to see exactly how much she could see of the urinator. Operations guy had pulled a measuring tape from his belt and was madly measuring the width of the door, the distance from the urinal to the door, the distance between urinals, etc…
And this, my dears, is what caused the co-founders to behave in such an unappreciative and rude fashion toward the ‘team’ of people who were working extra hours to try to plug up the holes in the sinking ship.
I like it, though. It brings about very specific imagery. I wish I could draw. Imagine this cartoon: There is a ship, its mast flies the company flag. The ornament on the front of the ship resembles the female co-founder. The ship is clearly starting to sink. There is water on the deck. The employees are already in the life rafts, and the operations guy is lowering them to the safety of the open sea. The male co-founder is standing on the deck peeing and, as happens from time to time to all of us, his aim isn’t so good. That little bit of urine that splashes on the deck, instead of over the side of the ship, is like the straw that breaks the camel’s back. As the urine hits the deck, the ship tilts and quickly sinks into the ocean, female cofounder ornament first – the operations guy clinging to the mast that still holds a battered and torn company flag. The employees in the life rafts look on, some in horror and others with relief; then, they turn and paddle out to the open sea.
Do you mean co-founders or confounders?
News Update! Repairs have been made to the reception area men’s room: male modesty is no longer at risk and the view from the foyer much improved. Amry