Why is Corporate America So F*'d Up?

I've been working this job now for a year and it never ceases to amaze me that the Dilbert Principle plays itself out on such a regular and predictable basis. It's a sea of cubicles and pointy haired bosses and even less capable "engineers" that really haven't got a clue. I hear things like "We don't use open source, it could have security holes". "You want that one small change made? Sorry, won't happen until next year". "That didn't get done? Oh well you must have forgotten the cover sheet on your TPS report"

What I do in effect is go to a customer site. They ask me what time it is. I ask them for their watch. I look at their watch and tell them what time it is. I then put the watch in my pocket, get on a plane and go home.

The people that really have their act together are the small shops that don't have alot of people. They know how to operate their watches, and what they need is some fine tuning on setting timezones, how to properly wind it, etc. They seem to get the fact that throwing money away on bad projects and not correcting mistakes before the resources are spent is a bad thing.

Big corporations on the other hand cannot tell whether it's 3 in the morning or 3 in the afternoon. They need lots of help just to find out if it's day or night. As a cost savings measure windows are know only available for the Janitorial staff and upper level executives. As an example, I was working at a multi-national fortune 500 company recently and they wrote a bunch of lengthly documents about the requirements for the project. The only problem is that the requirements would not meet the needs of project.

The totally insane part of it is that even after I told them this and documented it, they still proceeded ahead with the original requirements because "That was what we spec'd, that is what we are going to do". "We had knife fights for 3 months to get this document together, we're not changing it now".

It doesn't matter that the project will not give the end users what they want, it doesn't matter that they are throwing wads of cash at a project that won't give them dollar one of return on investment, what matters is they have agreement on some marching orders, and by god, and damned the torpedoes, full speed ahead. They're so far down the river (or up the creek) that there is no turning back. But at the end of the day, they spent a bunch of the companies money, didn't get anything back, but they are still employed because they did exactly what they were told, by the letter.

I wrote something up that called out the error of their ways, but then had someone looking over my should that made me take out any references to lack of accuracy, or will not work. It was a classic exercise in futility, the only thing that was left was a document that said everything was great, make it so number one.

This is not something that is unique either. I see this corporate disease almost everywhere I go. It's the old, "None of us is as dumb as all of us" adage.

There is an epidemic of mediocrity where the barely qualified make million dollar decisions and those who are qualified have left and gotten consulting jobs, or are in Vermont somewhere painting canoes.

I don't have a solution... Yet.. Maybe there isn't one. All I can do is search for the answer and hope that one day a solution will present itself. If I find it, I'll post the solution I found, here on my blog, from my new 100 foot fully crewed yacht.

Meanwhile though, I'm maintaining the status quo in corporate America and sending them the bill. In other words, if your not part of the solution, there's money to be made by prolonging the problem.

-GT

Hot dog for breakfast? Go to jail.

Another one that makes you go WTF? What is this person tryng to communicate? I asked the person inside he truck and he said it was on there when he bought it, it looked kind of wierd so he kept on there.

Google Earth, what cool things have you been wasting time on?

I'm headed of to Jersey City. Before I went, I found a close hotel, got directions and checked out the neighborhood on Google Earth.

Here's a pic of where I'll be working/crashing for a couple of days, with the 3D buildings options turned on.






You just can't beat it. Just about the coolest thing I've seen on the Internet since the browser.

Download Google Earth, you won't be sorry you did. Google is even as cool enough to have a Windoze, a Mac and a Linux version.

Go Google!

New Airport Security Express Lane

Too bad nobody was using it. They only have these in a few airports and it costs $99 a year to join up. This one was in San Jose. The person at the checkpoint said thay are "Negotiating with other airports". I'm taking the wait and see approach. Once I see them in more airports, then I might plunk down the up front cash.

Free Custom Treo 700p Ringtones

So I've had this phone for almost a year now and I finally got tired of reaching for my phone every time somebody else who has the same phone gets a call while they are standing in my proximity. So I finally broke down and tried to get my own custom ringtones on the Treo 700p. I specifically wanted the Timmy! ringtone from Comedy Central after seeing it during the Daily Show (John Stewart Rocks!).

When I went to mobile.comedycentral.com, the first thing it tried to do was play a bunch of flash, on a mobile phone? Come Comedy Central... I guess the jokes on me eh?

I finally break out my laptop to bring up the mobile.comedycentral.com site, after finding that it didn't work on my mobile phone. I had the option to listen in a flash file, or to buy the ringtone.

Ummm.... Riiiiiiigggghhht.... So I do a bit more looking, and I can get MP3 ringtones on my phone, but I have to buy a 25$ program to be able to use these files as ringtones.

Bzzzznnnnntttt..... On to more fruitful pursuits. After much googling about I found that the following works for putting custom ringtones on your phone.

1. Take a PCM wave file or files, of 195k in size or less and e-mail it to yourself.

2. Then using your mail program download the attachment and when the attachment shows up in the bottom of your message, tap and hold the icon on the right of the filename. When the menu comes up tap "select viewer", then pick "voice memo"
3. After you have selected the viewer all you should have to do is click on each wav file, then click "View"
4. Answer yes to transfer it to Voice Memo, then when Voice Memo appears, press the menu button and select "Copy to Ringtone"

Your Wave file should now be available as a Ringtone along with the stock Treo Ringtones.

This will allow you to create your own ringtones from sound files and play them on your phone.

As a note:
You'll have to convert your wav file to a lower bitrate, mono, lower sample rate, etc to get a good length tone. The Treo also chops off WAV ringtones at the 195k mark. Also as a last bit of advice. Don't make the sound file longer than 20 seconds, as it will cause problems with going over to voicemail.

Enjoy.

GT

Pilot Conversations

I found this funny little bit, in the forums of the guild that I play World of Warcraft with.

We're all a bunch of old farts that still lay video games. I digress though. In my travels I've met quite a few pilots, and while I can't say for sure whether this is completely true or not, I can just see these guys saying things like this.

Tower: "Delta 351, you have traffic at 10 o'clock, 6 miles!"
Delta 351: "Give us another hint! We have digital watches!"

Tower: "TWA 2341, for noise abatement turn right 45 degrees."
TWA 2341: "Center, we are at 35,000 feet. How much noise can we make up here?"
Tower: "Sir, have you ever heard the noise a 747 makes when it hits a 727?"

From an unknown aircraft waiting in a very long takeoff line: "I'm f...ing bored!"
Ground Traffic Control: "Last aircraft transmitting, identify yourself immediately!"
Unknown aircraft: "I said I was f...ing bored, not f...ing stupid!"

O'Hare Approach Control to a 747: "United 329 heavy, your traffic is a Fokker, one o'clock, three miles, Eastbound."
United 329: "Approach, I've always wanted to say this... I've got the little Fokker in sight."

A student became lost during a solo cross-country flight. While attempting to locate the aircraft on radar, ATC asked, "What was your last known position?"
Student: "When I was number one for takeoff."

A DC-10 had come in a little hot and thus had an exceedingly long roll out after touching down.
San Jose Tower Noted: "American 751, make a hard right turn at the end of the runway, if you are able. If you are not able, take the Guadeloupe exit off Highway 101, make a right at the lights and return to the airport."

A Pan Am 727 flight, waiting for start clearance in Munich , overheard the following:
Lufthansa (in German): "Ground, what is our start clearance time?"
Ground (in English): "If you want an answer you must speak in English."
Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German airplane, in Germany . Why must I speak English?"
Unknown voice from another plane (in a beautiful British accent): "Because you lost the bloody war!"


Tower: "Eastern 702, cleared for takeoff, contact Departure on frequency 124.7"
Eastern 702: "Tower, Eastern 702 switching to Departure. By the way, after we lifted off we saw some kind of dead animal on the far end of the runway."
Tower: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff behind Eastern 702, contact Departure on frequency 124.7. Did you copy that report from Eastern 702?"
Continental 635: "Continental 635, cleared for takeoff, roger; and yes, we copied Eastern... we've already notified our caterers."

One day the pilot of a Cherokee 180 was told by the tower to hold short of the active runway while a DC-8 landed. The DC-8 landed, rolled out, turned around, and taxied back past the Cherokee. Some quick-witted comedian in the DC-8 crew got on the radio and said,

"What a cute little plane. Did you make it all by yourself?"
The Cherokee pilot, not about to let the insult go by, came back with a real zinger: "I made it out of DC-8 parts. Another landing like yours and I'll have enough parts for another one."

The German air controllers at Frankfurt Airport are renowned as a short-tempered lot. They not only expect one to know one's gate parking location, but how to get there without any assistance from them. So it was with some amusement that we (a Pan Am 747) listened to the following exchange between Frankfurt ground control and a British Airways 747, call sign: Speedbird 206.

Speedbird 206: " Frankfurt , Speedbird 206! Clear of active runway."
Ground: "Speedbird 206. Taxi to gate Alpha One-Seven."
The BA 747 pulled onto the main taxiway and slowed to a stop.
Ground: "Speedbird, do you not know where you are going?"
Speedbird 206: "Stand by, Ground, I'm looking up our gate location now."
Ground (with quite arrogant impatience): "Speedbird 206, have you not been to Frankfurt before?"
Speedbird 206 (coolly): "Yes, twice in 1944, but it was dark, -- And I didn't land."

While taxiing at London's Gatwick Airport , the crew of a US Air flight departing for Ft. Lauderdale made a wrong turn and came nose to nose with a United 727.
An irate female ground controller lashed out at the US Air crew, screaming: "US Air 2771, where the hell are you going? I told you to turn right onto Charlie taxiway! You turned right on Delta! Stop right there. I know it's difficult for you to tell the difference between C and D, but get it right!"
Continuing her rage to the embarrassed crew, she was now shouting hysterically: "God! Now you've screwed everything up! It'll take forever to sort this out! You stay right there and don't move till I tell you to! You can expect progressive taxi instructions in about half an hour, and I want you to go exactly where I tell you, when I tell you, and how I tell you! You got that, US Air 2771?"
"Yes, ma'am," the humbled crew responded.
Naturally, the ground control communications frequency fell terribly silent after the verbal bashing of US Air 2771. Nobody wanted to chance engaging the irate ground controller in her current state of mind. Tension in every cockpit out around Gatwick was definitely running high. Just then an unknown pilot broke the silence and keyed his microphone, asking:
"Wasn't I married to you once?"

Anna Nicole Smith.... Why?

I was having breakfast this morning and reading the newspaper, and it occurred to me that in the newspaper I was reading didn't have a single story about the war in the front sections of the paper. There were only 3 stories semi-related to the ware in the "World" section of the paper.

There was a story about Anna Nicole there in the front section though.

When I got back home tonight, I found this link on fark.com and I have to agree with the submitter.

Pay attention people! There are things going on in the world that need your attention, and Anna Nicole Smith is not one of them.

'Nuff Said

The Story of Naked Guy on Spinning Bull

After some poking around I finally found out what exactly the statue is trying to communicate. Apparently the statue was commissioned by one of the founders of the company. The bull represents one of their competitors and the naked guy is them leaping over the competition. Go figure.... Guess that's art.