Mike

My Dear Princess and Dear Fellows,

I was thinking about Mike today. I promised myself I would blip about him ages ago but never got around to it. But today was a "Mike" day.

He came to sit opposite me in the Scottish Widows Office in 1994. He introduced himself as my new PM.

"Oh eff," I remember thinking. He had a sharp suit and impressive manager hair. I remember thinking he reminded me a bit of a Nick Park character because he seemed to have far too many teeth for his face.

Worse. When he spoke it sounded like this:

MIKE: Okay, we need schedule a debrief to discuss the key milestones to ensure we satisfy stakeholders while at the same time providing a cost-effective yet pragmatic and strategic solution.
ME: (Thinks) What a w*nker!

But then something unexpected happened:

MIKE: I know. I sound like a right w*nker.
ME: (Panicking) Oh b*llocks. Did I say that out loud?!?

Mike explained to me that his use of flowery-office-speak served three purposes:

1. It completely baffled our delivery manager who was a clueless little toolspank with no effing idea.
2. It made him sound Big and Important.
3. He thought it was really funny.

"I promise that I will only use these powers for good, and not for evil," he reassured me. I took this to mean that he wouldn't attempt to b*llocks ME with his meaningless managerbabble.

He demonstrated to me. "Now I'm going to speak to a man on the phone who wants me to get you to do something pointless and stupid," he said.
"I'm going to say no to him. I'm going to KEEP saying no to him. In fact, I'm not even going to be listening to anything he says, I'll just be saying no in a variety of interesting ways until he goes away."

The conversation went like this:

MIKE: Hiiiiiii! No! Great you hear from you too. So the thing is at the moment our resource profile -

(Mike pointed at me. "That's YOU," he whispered)

MIKE: Yeah, so our resource profile isn't looking good. Yeah. No. So unless this work is of sufficient priority... Well, I'm sure it is but - have you spoken to procurement? Oooh, that's a shame. Because unless you've had this impact-assessed and run past PMO. Yeah, so no. No. I'm afraid not, no. Then there are the security aspects. Have you considered those? Also we'll need you to complete the service assurance matrix before we can  even CONSIDER.... What? You haven't even seen one of those? Oooh dear. That's a bit of a shame. No. No, I'm afraid audit and governance have tied our hands on this one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So no. Yeah, sorry. Bye. No, no, no, no. Bye.

I should add that he was also doing the universally-acknowledged sign for self-abuse during the entirety of that conversation and silently mouthing a word that looked suspiciously like, but wasn't necessarily "aunt" while the other bloke was talking.

It's one of the few times in my nearly 30 years in IT when I've felt like a manager was on MY side. He even used to come in with me when I got called out. He was completely effing useless. Rocking up with his perfect manager hair all mussed, looking bleary eyed. We'd go into the Dalkeith Road Scottish Widows office together and he'd ball up his fleece like a pillow and fall asleep on a desk while I tried to fix things. 

"Let me know if you need me to authorise something dangerous," he'd mutter before drifting off and snoring loudly.

But I appreciated his effort.

Here I am, over 20 years later and I still think of Mike whenever I have to deal with ridiculous and pointless office things. Instead of getting annoyed by them I just ball them up and pitch them back at the offender. Today I had to re-write a RUBBISH document from Amboubou the Change Manager, so amused myself by using meaningless Mike-isms.

So I'm "interrogating" data as opposed to just reading it. And "authorised users" will be given "appropriate access" even though no-one can tell me who is authorised or what appropriate means or what they'll be given access TO. It doesn't matter. I've finished my document and fired it back to Amboubou. It is HER problem now.

If I sound bitter, I am really not. I find it all as amusing as Mike did. And as the Princess knows I DO use my Evil Powers for good. I've been writing her Performance Reviews for the past few years. And even though I don't actually know what it is she does and even though they say NOTHING and even though they are utterly MEANINGLESS, her managers seem to like them.

I suppose what I am trying to say is that I may sound like a w*nker, but I'm a GOOD w*nker. No, wait, that didn't come out right...

S.

p.s. Today's picture is very festive. It is the Christmas tree in Midland Park and you can see the office workers having lunch around it. I expect there's a bigger one in Civic Square. I'll have to head over there soon to blip that too.