Saturday, November 04, 2006
The "calm" before the storm
Four people were let go earlier this week, all from the Service Delivery area which is headed by a former CLA person. My boss had just consulted the one on a process issue. He wanted me to close a ticket that had been opened by the Service Desk, and she supported my position that it was the responsibility of the Service Desk to close their own tickets. I've opened dozens of tickets with the Service Desk and never had to close any of them.
The final Gartner report on outsourcing has been received. The contractor next to me says that it will take a couple of weeks to digest it. My senior VP owns this task. Meanwhile, the grapevine says a reorg will be announced next week. When I mentioned this to the CIO's admin assistant, she made a quip but had a funny look on her face. That was all the confirmation I needed. According to one of my older teammates, people have put their lives on hold because of the uncertainty. It's like they're expecting everyone to go. As the contractor next door reminded me a while age, it's not an acquistion. Actually, she confirmed a rumour that my big boss's area was at the bottom of the outsourcing list.
I had breakfast with the CIO last week, me and about a dozen others. I was disappointed that it wasn't more interactive. She repeated her introduction from the Town Hall. Then she made a comment on the schism between new employees and old ones which seemed to squelch further discussion in that area. After that, one of the long-term employees dominated the conversation. It was funny, but the comments that he and a few others made were the same ones that I had heard at my old shop, e.g. upper management interference and lack of direction, new technology implementations dying on the vine (Active Directory), the large investment in the old infrastructure. Someone hasn't done their due diligence/risk mitigation though, and the company is running major systems on unsupported software. It's like driving a 10 year old car. Sooner or later, you going to have a major breakdown that you won't want to bother fixing/paying for. Towards the end, the CIO mentioned that she had never done an outsourcing where people lost their jobs. She also mentioned that poor performers would not be outsourced. This week, the fellow who brought up Active Directory submitted his resignation.
D.
The final Gartner report on outsourcing has been received. The contractor next to me says that it will take a couple of weeks to digest it. My senior VP owns this task. Meanwhile, the grapevine says a reorg will be announced next week. When I mentioned this to the CIO's admin assistant, she made a quip but had a funny look on her face. That was all the confirmation I needed. According to one of my older teammates, people have put their lives on hold because of the uncertainty. It's like they're expecting everyone to go. As the contractor next door reminded me a while age, it's not an acquistion. Actually, she confirmed a rumour that my big boss's area was at the bottom of the outsourcing list.
I had breakfast with the CIO last week, me and about a dozen others. I was disappointed that it wasn't more interactive. She repeated her introduction from the Town Hall. Then she made a comment on the schism between new employees and old ones which seemed to squelch further discussion in that area. After that, one of the long-term employees dominated the conversation. It was funny, but the comments that he and a few others made were the same ones that I had heard at my old shop, e.g. upper management interference and lack of direction, new technology implementations dying on the vine (Active Directory), the large investment in the old infrastructure. Someone hasn't done their due diligence/risk mitigation though, and the company is running major systems on unsupported software. It's like driving a 10 year old car. Sooner or later, you going to have a major breakdown that you won't want to bother fixing/paying for. Towards the end, the CIO mentioned that she had never done an outsourcing where people lost their jobs. She also mentioned that poor performers would not be outsourced. This week, the fellow who brought up Active Directory submitted his resignation.
D.
