Sunday, July 06, 2008

No Rant, but an Explanation

So I know that there are a number of you out there who gain enjoyment from my anger but I'm trying to pare back from that. I'm disgusted, and tired of the things that are going on with The Company but I'm not going to sit here and badmouth my bosses or whine about the way things have gone, especially when the real-life impact to me, personally, has been minimal. Yes, I've fretted, yes, I've looked for other jobs but in the end, I still have my job and I still intend on keeping it.

So, while I was on vacation, camping in the mountains, Intuit announced the infamous 575 jobs that they had cut. I came back and found out that Marius, my cubicle-mate, and my "Buddy" (new hires get a buddy to help acclimate them to the way things are done) had lost his job. He's okay with it. After all, he's been with The Company for ten years and his severance package is quite ridiculous (in a good way). So he'll take some vacation, decide what he wants to do and he's happy with the way things have worked out.

The reasoning for the jobs going away is still a little sketchy to me.

The Company Line is that they are positioning themselves for growth into the future. But it appears that most of the people cut (all of the people that I have heard of, anyway) are in product development. How a software company can grow while limiting the amount of things that can be made is not something I can understand but the people in position to make the decisions are there for a reason. I am not there, also for a reason.

Another thing that they are concerned with is Speed To Market. So basically, you take a code base and turn it into a product that people are willing to pay for. What is the way to do that? To me, it would be to
1) hire observers to see what the problem is (product management, User Experience, product development, operations, qa, etc.)
2) hire a consulting firm to reorganize processes for the functional group that is holding up the release to market
3) implement those procedures

In this case, I believe the issues lie with Operations. They have a large process that involves a lot of redundancy and CYA.

In the case of The Company, however, they have decided to remove PD resources and hire Ops people. I guess the way you make ops more successful is to remove more things from the pipe so that they can handle the load.

Again, I'm sure there are reasons for this but I will be darned if I can understand them and it's not like bosses make it a habit of explaining their reasoning.

5 comments:

El Cliff said...

Aaaah, the hollow, perplexingly strange explanations of management types. They're like music to the ears of those who have really, really bad taste in music.

Anyway, I'm certainly glad that your employment didn't end up being affected, man, that's certainly good news.

KimProbable said...

Same here. I'd hate to have to find a sugar daddy to pay for my house.

Liam J. said...

Oh, sorry, Kim, I didn't realize I was logged in as you when I posted that comment.

El Cliff said...

Well, why would she possibly be insulted that you basically intimated she'd follow the path to prostitution? :)

Why are you logged in as your wife, anyway? Utter paranoia over what she's up to, or some bizarre wordplay with Clarence, the lonely, barrel chested truck driver from Tuscaloosa just looking for a good time?

Liam J. said...

I wasn't. I just thought it would be funnier if you guys thought it was me that posted that.

Truckers need love too, y'know!