Sunday, April 26, 2009

Hypothetically

Sometimes, working out what the fuck is going on at work requires the mindset of a natural poh-lice. A McNulty or a Freamon, maybe. That may be difficult when what you actually want to do is be all like Omar Little on the place, which if we're talking about the shotguns is often and if we're talking about the gayitude is more like "what the fuck would you want to think about the Gayness of Omar for, dude", but I digress.

So anyway, I'm having a what the fuck let's get investigative shall we? Let's throw a hypothetical situation into the mix shall we? Let's say that a very small department has an IT guy. This department, which we'll call House Slytherin, has to do a few, very routine things . One of which is the notifying of the Central Elves of which software they wish to have licenced. This should be a short process of sending an email and finding out.

But now let's suppose that this isn't the case. Let's suppose that The Elves are building a new Central System system (out of their elvengold or something). The It guy doesn't know this. He also does not know that this means that he has until friday to bid for items, and that if there's no bid they will be gone. Nobody in Slytherin seems to be able to understand this point. So the message goes through at least two "managers". before landing with the least useful person, adminstratoid with little IT clue.

Hypothetically, you'd say that, hypothetically, at least one of the people in that chain is an idiot. You might also say that, hypothetically, that's a complicated management structure for a little teensy weensy department, and you might also be right, although, hypothetically, I couldn't possibly comment on that case.

But no-one could actually run anything like this, right?

Well, leaving aside the question of whether anything actually runs, which is, I should hasten to add, a question on which an open answer is advisable, the answer is yes. Your tax money supports the teaching of management by the world's worst managers.

Cool huh?

2 comments:

The High Priestess said...

And even now they all know about this - there still doesn't seem to be any sign of a department-wide co-ordination of requirements. Although Les Grandes Elves upstairs have probably been asked, although this is just hypothetical of course.

cherubim...ergo sum said...

cherubim is happy to hear that chaos on desk resembles chaos at Institute of Almighty Knowledge. cherubim is also highly entertained by hypothetical situations....a sponge for all IAK blunders. the world of work awaits. joy.