measi's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Train wreck waiting to happen On the wall outside Linda's office, there are two long stretches of paper with a bunch of circles and clouds drawn on it... green ones for original ideas pink ones for building off the original ideas. They're to be used for this memo, which my department received in email: Think of an idea, a way of doing something we already do, but think we might do better or differently...think of something you'd like to see our team or company do or have that does not presently exist...think of an unusual partnering...or an idea for a forum, lecture or meeting,...think of another approach for creating a [Teacher's Edition] or [Student Edition]...or a new way of connecting what we do to the internet...how will a SE or TE look in the future?...how will kids learn differently going forward?...how do kids learn and how can we design differently and more effectively to reach them? could we be structured differently? could we redesign our office space more effectively and condusive to creativity? If you could suggest anything to the company, what would you suggest? TUESDAY (October 8th) MORNING...by noon: Take one or two of your ideas and write each in a GREEN thought-bubble. BEFORE LUNCH...stop by and read what has been written. Think about it, and..... AFTER LUNCH Pick one or two you find interesting and help develop that thought by adding your comments and ideas to a PINK extending bubble. Build on someone else's idea, or add to your own. We'll have a meeting Wednesday October 9th from 9:30 to 10:30 in the Cafeteria to discuss the ideas and possible next steps. Linda and I have heard the results of this little experiment in our sister office. Apparently the entire meeting down there turned into a bitch fest with a lot of mudslinging going on. Our new Bigger Boss just let it run, allowed it to completely turn on the site manager, and offered her no support. To the point that the site manager pulled her aside after the meeting and told her point blank to NEVER do that to her again. Having seen Linda be on the brink of cracking recently, if it happens here tomorrow, it's going to get ugly. Bottom line: Bigger Boss is a moron. Pure and simple. She's coming in here with no respect or working knowledge of anyone. Has openly said (with no specifics) that she's changing things around, and is calling anyone "challenging" who speaks their mind to her when they disagree. Now she's pulling this meeting together to try to inspire "good change." I've got news for her: we're miserable in the trenches. Those of us who have to bust our asses to constantly change the concepts of the books without any real leadership or morale-boosting from the upper management are sick of it. We've gone through these "change" brainstorming before. And it basically comes down to this-- if the change is going to happen, those of us in the trenches who are already overworked and near-burned-out are the only ones expected to change. I'm dreading 9:30 tomorrow morning. ~ Mel. 12:59 p.m. - 8 October 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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