Are you a laddershaker? by Robin Spicer · October 13, 2017 Take the quiz! 1. When you’re invited to a meeting with fifty or more people do you … Relish the prospect of filling your diary Attend so you can take the techies down a peg or two Decline instantly because you have real work to do and no-one will say anything useful Take the opportunity to enjoy a long lunch while everyone else is occupied 2. What do you mostly use your computer for? Technical Stuff plus email because I have to. Email, Word and PowerPoint Above plus Excel I don’t use a computer. My secretary prints out emails for me. 3. Technical staff are … Dangerous and not to be trusted. They need constant monitoring and control. We have to have them, but do they have to be so grumpy? The only people who do useful work I didn’t know we had any. Didn’t everyone go to Eton? 4. Service Level Agreements are useful because … They provide an opportunity to have someone produce lots of interesting statistics and charts which I use to impress senior management. They monitor the performance of our service providers and hold them to account on the contract. They are not useful, just an excuse for the process jockeys to occupy their time generating meaningless reports. They keep the Jag in good shape. 5. What do you enjoy most about your job? Meetings Preventing incidents by stopping reckless techies from running wild. Running wild The tea and cake my secretary brings me in the afternoon 6. At the coffee machine do you … Chat with whoever’s there. Moan to your colleagues about the latest insanity. Wait for some senior people to come to the machine so you can let them know about your latest process change to reduce incidents. My secretary brings me coffee in a nice pot with some ginger biscuits; I don’t use the coffee machine. 7. What do you hate most about your job? Nothing much, everything seems to be going fine. The techies who think they are a law unto themselves. All the people whose sole aim seems to be to stop me doing my job. The little twerps who hang around the coffee machine to tell me about their latest petty victories. 8. When you send an email do you … Reply all so everyone knows what’s going on. Reply all and add as many senior people as you can to let them know how you’re preventing problems from happening. Cut as many people as possible from the distribution list, especially anyone who will just get in the way. I don’t send emails, my secretary writes proper letters for me. 9. When a critical system crashes do you … Reboot. It’s down anyway and you know that will fix it. Notify users immediately and again when the system comes back up. Investigate and rectify cause once system is back up. Prevent all change until you have convened an audio conference with all interested parties. This can normally be done the same day. Once the incident has been resolved, chair a series of audio conferences to craft an acceptable story for senior management. Join the inevitable audio conferences but keep your head down to avoid flak from the techies and the process jockeys. Wonder why it took fifty people three days to fix the problem. You have a feeling that the incident report doesn’t get to the real cause of the problem. 10. A reorganisation is proposed. Do you … Schmooze senior management to make sure you get a senior role in the new organisation. Keep your head down and hope for the best. Grit your teeth and carry on. Expect the new organisation to have more managers and fewer workers. Tell people costs need to be cut by 25% and go to lunch. Loading … Question 1 of 10 Share
0 Where IT All Went Wrong June 2, 2017 by Robin Spicer · Published June 2, 2017 · Last modified September 18, 2017
1 The Good Old Bad Old Days June 9, 2017 by Robin Spicer · Published June 9, 2017 · Last modified June 11, 2017
You forgot the option of “attend for entertainment purposes”