LookOut

A lot of stupid found its way into my inbox. This is nothing new, except that yesterday I was dead tired due to a super-pregnant wife who couldn't sleep and is in much pain, so my cognitive shields were in desperate need of recharging. I knew better than to actually go into work but I couldn't help looking at my inbox and responding.

No matter how fast I type (and I can beat 80wpm on a good day), I tend to forget points as I get involved with other points, so I've learned to make notes for important mail in order not to miss out on a salient fact in my corporately-acceptable non-ranting missives to the Powers That Be. Notes which I tend to write in much the same way as I write this blog because it's just that stream of consciousness shit.

You can see where this is heading...

$BrokenBusinessProcess_X requires subprocesses H1, J1, K1, L1 & L2, M1/2/3/4 and N14. $MistarManagar decided he's going to make things better (read: worse) by modifying subprocess L1 to cover M1-4, moving them to Q7/8/9/10/11/12/19. Yet another bureaucratic "simplification" which complicates things further. And so I fired off a quick note.

Except I've learned over the years that "firing off quick notes" is akin to "raping babies" and so I open a few text editor windows and spew my bile in them. And then I cool off. And then I come back and extract the actual content and reorganise it into some semblance of bullet points to be addressed. Which I then let myself think about and reconsider so that I can address them in a way which ensures both my child's parents remain gainfully employed.

Fire up Notepad and rant away.

$MistarManager,

You're a cuntnuzzle. You suck donkey cocks for a living. You're more incompetent than Amy Winehouse in a fucking surgical theatre. Process L1 is ass. Process L2 is even more ass. You can't fix it, you moron, so cut your losses. Join us. Come to the dark side. You know just like the rest of us that $BrokenBusinessProcess_X is completely fucked. Cut the shit. Look, We can deal with K1 but not if you try to break it into K1/2/3/4a/4b/4c/4d. Ain't gonna happen and you know it. Get on -board and we'll support you. (Fail to and we'll be sharpening our knives).

Love, REC

Fine. Bullet points established. Certain bits might be a bit strong but the general feeling is conveyed. There's no way in hell I'm actually sending this though. Not even if I took more drugs than Keith and Michael combined could I be stupid enough to do that. And so I wait, let the points filter through, come up with "acceptable" ways to present my opinions, and then I'll send off the mail.

Oooohhh! An oldie but a goodie!

Where was I? Oh yeah....

Let me just proofread this quickly. MS LookOut has a decent enough spell-checker, and unlike FireFerret and LightningBird, it has all the company addresses and the specialised terms in it. I'll use that.

{copy}
{click}
{control-N}
{paste}
{F7}
{fix, fix, fix}
{control-A}
{copy}
{paste into Notepad}
Right, that's done. Now to write the "correct" mail

$MistarManager,

I received your note concerning the modification of Processes L1 and L2 earlier and hope that I'm not disturbing you as I would like to take a moment of your time to discuss them with you. Process L1, since its inception, has been of questionable benefit, at best. You were on the conference call when we discussed the trebling of resources necessary in order to implement such a process and in practice, not only has it required a quintupling of resource allotment but those involved in carrying out this process have found that they are not relieved from their other tasks which already exceeded their expected output capacities based on both worker metrics and Charts 12-YP-14 and 12-PP-09 which you yourself presented at the $UpperManagementMeeting last September.

In this meeting it was you who pointed out and described in great detail the potential difficulties resulting from any number of exigencies in any one of a set of potential affecting variables. It is for precisely these reasons tat I believe you may wish to reconsider the point of L2 as regards its standing in the overall position of $BrokenBusinessProcess_X with respect to sub-processes M3 and M4 as well as the potential knock-on effect to process G which up until now has been wholly unrelated but which, when one considers the externalities raised by questions concerning K4c, could possibly become a serious mitigating factor.

{blah blah blah 18 more paragraphs of this sort of shit blah blah blah blah}

Spell-check.
Re-read.
Tweak.
Spell-check again.
Hit send.
Notice that the business-like mail is still visible but that the "framework" mail window has disappeared.
Notice the Outbox icon blink and disappear.
Remember there's no Exchange Server to allow for a hasty recall.

Wait for a pink slip with a big 17 written on it.

In my defense the guy really is an incompetent cuntnuzzle who's managed to Peter Principle himself at least three steps beyond what he's capable of handling.