Requiem for the Death Star

There has been mad drama at Death Star, Inc. (DSI) over the last couple of months. Again, we found ourselves embroiled in contract drama that finally culminated in me and several co-workers (including my boss) leaving for a smaller company. It was a good three year run with DSI but I'm excited to go to work for a smaller company where my experience, skills, and connections will be provide me and my employer greater value.

I'll be doing the same job by day at the Department of Stupidity and add some company responsibilities in the areas of proposal writing, marketing, and business development. I started out in the contractor game doing tech support and I've been attempting to run away from that field at full speed since then, so this is a move I've been trying to make for a while. Even though this will certainly mean I'll actually have to work kind of hard for the first time in years, I'm also a bit excited about work.

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Bad Training Class

I've been in a SharePoint Designer training class for the last two days that has largely been a waste of time. I'm far from being some sort of website guru but what I needed was more SharePoint specific information about data sources and pulling info from .xml documents, not a class on how to use Designer to edit HTML and apply master pages. I probably could have taught this class myself with two days of prep time.

Perhaps most disappointing was the fact that the instructor didn't actually have a lot of SharePoint specific knowledge. This kid's (and he's definitely a kid, he might be 25) specialty is DreamWeaver and he's just applying his knowledge of that program to follow along with a really shitty book provided by the training company, New Horizons. Yes New Horizons, your training materials suck.

Honestly, it's not really the instructor's fault that I'm not getting what I need out of this class; I blame our client's training coordinator for that. Since I'm the de facto lead SharePoint developer where I work, it probably would have made sense to consult with me about exactly what I needed to learn in a SharePoint Designer class. And since it would have made sense to do that, it didn't happen.

The real problem with not learning anything of real value in this class, is that we (really I) have been kind of stuck on a couple of SharePoint projects. It doesn't matter that what our client is asking for is shit-in-your-pants stupid, they are now going to expect that I will be able to surmount all previous obstacles and will probably ask for some additional bells & whistles just so they feel like they got their money's worth out of their training dollars.

This brings me to the problem with the gov't and their lack of need for efficiency of any kind. Rather than doing some sort of cost/benefit analysis to determine if it makes sense for me to spend a couple of months developing a "staff locator" or automated meeting agendas or whatever type of computerized snipe hunt they come up with, they just say, "Do it." They don't care how little benefit they will get out of it, they don't care if what they're asking for doesn't make any sense, and they really don't care how much it costs. They want what they want and, as gov't contractors, we're obliged to give it to them. Seriously, it's like working for children sometimes; they just want to see how far they can push you before you tell them "No."

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Work

I haven't really popped off about work for a while because right now I'm in a pretty good situation. I'm working remotely as an analyst and tech writer; I check my e-mail in the morning, call to check in with the bosses once a week by phone, attend a phone conference once a week, make sure my deliverables get out quickly, and life is good. I really consider this whole setup to be a gift from my boss.

For the most part the people I work with are OK. The current setup is that we have no sub-contractors on our team, so we're all employees of the large defense contractor that we work for. I guess that sounds strange to people who aren't familiar with gov't contracting, doesn't it?

It does make a difference to have everyone working for the same company though. Sometimes in a misguided effort to build some kind of phony espirit de corps on gov't contracts were everyone is just there for a paycheck, managers from one company or another will attempt to ascertain some kind of small perk for their employees or have closed door meetings to differentiate between employees and subs or employees of other companies.

The real problem comes with dealing with the gov't workers. We're there to provide advice and support to our gov't customer on a variety of topics. We generally act as subject matter experts where our customer agency has gaps in their knowledge of appropriations, technical subjects, and legislative mandates which frequently takes the form of providing analysis and solutions for a whatever problems they're having. What this really means is that we're there to do what the government workers can't do for themselves.

This leads to situations like the one I find myself in this morning. Within the portion of the USDA that my company services, I'm the designated subject matter expert on SharePoint. I don't do any server side stuff, I'm really just there to train users and figure out a way to extract some value out of the product for our customer. I've been dicking around with this off and on for coming up on three years now and they still don't know they want.

The Hobbit is the gov't worker I have to deal with on all of this and he insists on playing this crazy "Mother may I?" game with me. If I call him on the phone to discuss something I want to do (even though I'm the SME, I don't admin rights) after a 15 minute circular conversation, where I could swear he's deliberately being obtuse, he asks me to write it all up in an e-mail. If I dare to skip the introductory phone call with the Hobbit and broach a new topic in a detailed e-mail, he likes to wait a week before responding and when he does respond he asks a series of questions that I answered in my initial e-mail and makes several nonsensical counter proposals. It's positively maddening.

I have a co-worker who has spent a bit more time with the Hobbit than I have and he says that the real problem is the Hobbit doesn't communicate effectively via e-mail. True, he doesn't communicate well via e-mail but he also is trying to communicate bad ideas for the sole purpose of feeling like he made some sort of contribution to what's going on.

Here's what I wish I could make the Hobbit understand: I don't really care. It's your show, I'm not invested in this institution other than wanting to help it function better. My paycheck keeps coming every two weeks and that's all I need out of this deal. I'm content to create and implement a winning strategy with this technology and let the Hobbit take all the credit for it. If only he were smart enough to recognize the situation, shut up, and get out of my way.

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Meeting Haikus

Meeting Haiku #1

Meeting is boring

Too much talking, little done

We did this last week



Meeting Haiku #2

Katheryn talks loud

Bill may be losing control

Steve is unnecessary



Meeting Haiku #4

Too much time wasted

This happens, when there is no

Need to make profit

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