Disembogulated

"Is disembogulated a word?"

This, from Lemon, at 9am this morning. It popped up on Skype. 

"Morena!" she added*. She was clearly bored.

I went to her desk. Dear Fellows & Dear Princess, you see we normally sit next to each other but today an INTERLOPER had got in there and stolen Lemon's desk. Which was annoying.

I got to Lemon's desk. "It's a word NOW," I told her. "It sounds like a cross between discombobulated and disemboweled." To be fair, it was sort of how we felt. The interloper had thrown us off balance and the team dynamic was all off. 

Smock was cross about it. "Bah!" she grumbled. She explained it was some sort of Management Initiative. 

Okay, now I was cross about it too. I HATE Management Initiatives. On account of they tend to lack both "initiative" and "management". Senior managers had decided that their hot-desking experiment was being made a mockery of by the likes of me who arrive early every day and resolutely sit at the same desk regardless. So they got in there early themselves today and interpolated themselves amongst the plebs.

And THEN they came over to talk to each other LOUDLY about THINGS. Of no IMPORTANCE. Do you SEE?

To be honest, it didn't bother me so much. I have Invisible Managerial Bullshit Earmuffs that I wear at all times. But Smock was unable to screen out their pointless, self-congratulatory jibber-jabber and she was getting annoyed.

Lemon, meanwhile, had been off looking at another Management Initiative. "I think it's a kanban board," she told us. "But it is hard to say."

I could see her point. Theoretically boards like this have actual tasks written on sticky notes on them, that move from left to right as they are completed. But these tasks were weird. They were things like, "Achieve Excellence!" and "Be Visible!"

Because, as you know, employees without such exhortations will Achieve Shitness and become invisible. 

"And why is there a teal unicorn?" asked Lemon.

"Well," sighed Smock, "it's a unicorn because it's a mythical creature that could be brought into existence through belief," she explained.

"Uh-huh?" said Lemon.

"Like DevOps**," said Smock.

"Uh-huh," said Lemon.

"And it's teal because that's the colour of innovation," said Smock, clearly not believing a single word she was saying.

"I see," said Lemon. Not seeing.

So it was that sort of day. I suppose it wasn't JUST the unwelcome managerial visitor to our corner of the office. It was also that it was the day before Good Friday and there was an "end of term" feeling about the office.

Lemon went back to her desk and then Skyped me for a login into Salesforce. I supplied her with one and then she said it had stopped working.

I went around to see what the problem was. Had I sent her the right link to Salesforce? Yes I had. Had I passed her the right userid? Yes I had. Oh but wait, the userid incorporated her full name.

"Oh," she clarified. "I've been mis-spelling my own name, that's the problem. It's got an 'A' in it."

Disembogulated. It deserves a place in the dictionary.

S.

* "Morning!" 

** Development Operations. It's a thing, sadly.