Dexter sat down at the conference table and studied his ten project leads. They shifted uneasily in their seats. They knew that Dexter was a man in trouble, and they didn't want any of the trouble falling in their lap. The Director made a point of belittling Dexter in every public meeting, and it was making people uneasy.
The past month had been hell on everyone. Eric Samuels had been temporarily promoted into the position that had been offered to Dexter. The poor guy had been given the same terms, and was now pulling his hair out. Things had been so bad that he had shown up in Dexter's office, and screamed at Dexter for a solid thirty minutes, before realizing he was talking to the wrong person.
Dexter understood what the poor man was experiencing. He had calmly waited for his temporary boss to calm down, and the proceeded to explain to him what his plans were. Eric was stunned.
Today was the day for Dexter to unleash his plans on everyone else.
He said, "As everyone knows, I'm not 'Mr. Popular' among upper management."
"You can say that again," Jim said.
Dexter rubbed his hands together and said, "I want everyone here to identify the weakest person on their development team."
"I can't afford to lose anyone. I'm so far behind that I'll never catch up," Harry said knowing that was the first step in getting rid of more people.
"I'm not getting rid of anyone. I'm reorganizing the work force to respond to the increased work load," Dexter said.
"How?" Jim asked.
"You're all getting secretaries," Dexter announced.
"How did you swing that?" Harry asked nearly falling out of his chair.
Dexter said, "I didn't."
"What do you mean you didn't?"
"I'm doing this on my own. I want you to take the weakest person on your team, and turn them into a secretary. Their job is going to be doing all that bullshit work that sucks up the time of you and your people," Dexter answered.
"You can't do that," Jim said.
"Maybe not ... but I'm doing it, anyway," Dexter said.
"You're going to piss them off. They are engineers," Jim said. All it would take was one person heading off to personnel and they'd all get ruined.
"We won't call them secretaries. We'll call them 'office engineers, '" Dexter replied with a smile.
Looking skeptical, Alice asked, "Do you think they'll buy that?"
Dexter said, "Don't view this as a demotion. Don't let them view this as a demotion. It isn't. It is a reorganization of job responsibilities, that's all. These folks just might be the ones that make our jobs enjoyable, again. They are going to have a lot of responsibilities. They are going to be dealing with everyone on your team, and across the teams."
"It sure would be nice to get some of the Mickey Mouse shit off my back," Harry said.
"The fact of the matter is, that you would have fired every one of them as deadwood years ago, if you could have found a way to do it and had been able to replace them. Now you'll be getting some work out of them that is of some value to you," Dexter said.
He looked around the room. His people had a mixture of reactions to his comments. He could see that they liked the idea, but weren't quite sure of the full implications.
"Here's the new game. Each of you will have a weekly project status meeting with your people. I won't be attending your project status meetings. You don't need me there, and it is sucking up ten hours of my time every week. Your office engineer will type up the meeting notes and forward them to me. We will all meet once a week for a status meeting. That's it. Any other meetings you guys go to, will be working meetings," Dexter said.
"What about the individual meetings with Eric?" Jim asked.
Dexter said, "Eric doesn't want individual meetings with each project. The poor bastard is overwhelmed with work. He'll meet with all of his group leaders, once a week."
"Sweet," Harry said. That one meeting ate up an entire morning.
"I'm taking John Coleridge to serve as my secretary," Dexter said.
"Damn, I was going to use him," Jim said. John had the worst attitude of anyone working under Dexter. He was grumpy, irritable, and complained about everything.
"He'll still appear under you on the org chart, but I want him answering only to me," Dexter said.
"If you say so," Jim said unsure if he was pleased about that or not.
"He'll be around later this week with templates for all the damned reports we have to file. Give the templates to your office engineer and have them pull the numbers and fill out out the templates. You can review them and then forward them to John. I'll review them and call you only if I have questions. He'll put together the reports that I have to give every week," Dexter said.
"That will save me a whole day of work, every week," Al said.
"John will also be 'the conference room Nazi.' If you need to book a conference room, you'll call him. Actually, you won't call him, your office engineer will call him. If your folks need a meeting, they should give your office engineer the attendee list, and let him figure out when and where the meeting can be held. The days of wasting engineering time trying to get a meeting set up, are over," Dexter said.
Alice said, "You're making a lot of changes."
He hadn't even gotten started with the changes. By the time he was done, the engineers would spend all of their time engineering, project leads would be overseeing the technical issues of their projects, and he would be spending his time making sure that projects were running as scheduled.
Dexter said, "They are long overdue. If this company can't see fit to hire a secretary for thirty thousand a year, I have no problem having someone who earns a hundred thousand dollars a year doing that job. It is still cheaper than having you or me do it."
"That's true," Jim said rubbing his chin.
Dexter said, "Now, your people are going to have a lot more time to work on their projects. As a result, I expect to see some real progress on your projects. I also expect people to be done by five, and to go home."
"I don't know if that's possible," Alice said. She sat back in her chair. She had no idea how much time people were wasting on other stuff, to know what kind of impact that would have on production.
"I'm going to be turning off my Blackberry at five thirty. I'll expect you to do the same. If you call me after hours, I'm not answering my phone. Once I leave here, I'm not checking my e-mail," Dexter said.
"You're kidding, aren't you?" Jim asked.
Dexter answered, "No."
"What if there's a problem?" Alice asked.
Dexter answered, "I'm freeing you to manage your projects. If you are any good, there is no reason for last minute work assignments. Problems may arise, but they should be an exception to the rule. We are engineers. It is time for us to start acting like engineers, and to anticipate problems before they have a chance to develop."
"That, is a big change," Harry said.
"I want you to rotate weekend assignments among your staff, in case there are any problems with the production systems. That person is to fix the problem, and only escalate if they can't find a solution. It isn't doing anyone any good to sit on someone's back while they are trying to fix a problem," Dexter said.
Al asked, "What about..."
Interrupting, Dexter asked, "When was the last time you overruled one of your people when they were fixing a problem?"
"I don't," Al said.
Dexter asked, "When was the last time you suggested a solution to their problem?"
"I never have," Harry said. Others around the table nodded their agreement to the comment.
"Exactly. Why are you and I sitting there wasting his time, when he could be fixing the problem ... particularly if we aren't contributing to the solution?" Dexter asked.
"That's a good question," Alice said.
"Your people will only have to work one weekend a month, rather than be on call every weekend. We'll be getting weekends off," Dexter said.
"That'll be nice for a change," Alice said.
"Jim, Harry, and Al ... I want you to deal with the Indian companies that are supporting your projects. Assign someone on your team to be their technical contact, and to join you on the conference call. It is idiotic for you and me both to sit on the telephone at the same time, and then relay everything to one of your technical people. If there is a problem, then they should come to you. If you can't handle it, then you come to me. This passing around a hot potato is a waste of time," Dexter said.
"The Indians aren't going to like that. They want to know that a real manager is on the call," Al said.
"Tell them you're the boss. If they argue, then let them know they aren't the only company in India that can do the work," Dexter said.
"What is Mr. Morris going to say?" Jim asked.
"Fuck him," Dexter answered.
There was a long moment of stunned silence around the table.
Dexter said, "I told Eric what I was going to do. He's going to watch us for a couple weeks. If he likes what he sees, then he's going to do this with all of the groups under him."
"Mr. Morris is going to fire you," Alice said.
"Let him!" Dexter said. "Do you know that only two people in the company went to Mark's funeral? I took a personal day off to attend the funeral. Mr. Morris was pissed at me for doing it. I say, let the asshole fire me."
Mark's funeral had been exceptionally depressing. Mark's wife and kids were the only family present. Two people from the office had shown up. There had been one neighbor, an elderly man, who didn't seem to have much else to do except go to funerals. Dexter sat there thinking that his funeral wouldn't be any better.
"Whoa! Remind me never to piss you off," Jim said.
He stared at Dexter with a lot more respect than normal. He couldn't believe what Dexter was doing.
Dexter smiled and then said, "You'll know when I'm pissed at you ... I'll promote you to assistant office engineer."
Everyone laughed.
"We've wasted half of an hour. I can't think of any other business that has to be done. We'll have a status meeting Thursday. Jim, send John to my office when you get back to your office. I'll send John around to each of you tomorrow," Dexter said. "Are there any questions before we break up?"
No one said anything although Dexter was sure they would come up with some questions later.
After fifteen seconds, Dexter said, "Okay. See you Thursday."
After everyone filed out of the conference room, Dexter sat back in his chair and smiled. That meeting had gone a whole lot better than anticipated. He figured that he wasn't the only one tired of playing 'phone tag' in setting up meetings, and wasting hours in generating presentations that were seen once and quickly forgotten. He returned to his office feeling as though a ton of weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
Fifteen minutes later, John showed up.
Dexter said, "Come in, John. Shut the door, and have a seat."
"You're the boss," John said not hiding his displeasure at being there.
Dexter said, "I wanted to personally congratulate you on becoming the office engineer for our group."
"Office engineer?" John asked looking puzzled.
"Yes. I'm putting you in charge of facilitating office processes. It is a position with a lot of responsibility," Dexter said.
In a way he knew that was actually true. Anyone who had much experience with large departments, knew that secretaries were critical to the smooth operation of a department. The worst thing someone could do, was make the secretary angry.
"What's that mean?" John asked suspiciously.
He had expected to be told that he was being let go. After thirty years as an engineer he was burnt out and just coasting. He knew it. Everyone knew it. All he wanted to do was reach retirement age. That meant he had to last five more years.
"It means that you're going to be responsible for putting together all of the group briefings, scheduling, and generally getting this group to function in an effective manner," Dexter answered.
"You mean I'm going to be a secretary," John said.
"Basically," Dexter answered.
"Is there a cut in pay?" John asked.
"No," Dexter answered.
"That's good. I'll be able to coast until retirement age?" John asked.
"Probably."
"Okay," John said.
After two back-to-back years of reviews as a below average performer, he hadn't expected to make it to retirement. The last thing he wanted was to try and find a new job in his late fifties. He'd put up with a lot of garbage, just to keep his job.
"With your help, we're going to change the way this entire group functions. I mean it when I say that you'll have a major role to play. Don't view this as a demotion. I'm going to be delegating the authority to you, to get things done," Dexter said.
"You're serious," John said.
"That's right," Dexter said. "Look ... this place is fucked up. You know it, and I know it. It took me three hours to schedule a meeting that lasted thirty minutes. I need someone to fix that. You've been dealing with this screwed up mess for years. You know what needs to be done, and I'm telling you to do it.
"If you need software, buy it. I'll sign off on it. If anyone is acting like an ass, call their boss. It will be taken care of. I'll back you one hundred percent!"
"Why me? I've had the lowest performance review for the past two years," John said.
Dexter said, "I know that. I also know that you're tired of writing code on systems that you could care less about. I know you're fed up with the bullshit going on here. I think you'll enjoy putting an end to it."
John said, "I remember when being an engineer meant something. I watched us go to the moon while I was in high school. Engineers and scientists were Gods. Engineers put a man on the moon. Now being an engineer doesn't mean a damned thing any more."
"I know," Dexter said.
"Did you know that I have five patents?" John asked.
"I didn't know that," Dexter said.
"The company made a hundred million dollars on one of them. They paid me a dollar for it, patted me on the back, and threw me in with the rest of the engineers. No raise or promotion. I kind of lost my desire to contribute to the company, after that," John said.
"That would definitely do it," Dexter said.
"I'll be your glorified secretary," John said.
Dexter said, "You won't be a glorified secretary. I've asked each of the project leads to assign someone to serve as office engineer for their project teams. The person they identify will coordinate with you. If there's a conflict, you will decide how it is going to be.
"Your engineering talents won't be wasted. If someone needs a product to help them do their job, I want you to find it. If we aren't using a product, then we shouldn't be paying for it. You'll be in charge of software licenses. You'll need to coordinate with the other office engineers, and they'll need to coordinate with the engineers on their product teams.
"You and the other office engineers are going to have to dig into some of our systems, to extract meaningful measures of how we are doing. The automated reports we use now, hide our areas of incompetence, rather than identify them. That's got to come to an end."
"You're right. It is more than being a glorified secretary. I think I'll enjoy working for you," John said.
Dexter said, "You'll still appear under Jim on the organizational chart, but you'll be reporting directly to me."
"So what is the first thing you want me to do?" John asked.
"Come up with a common reporting template for all of the projects. Use Jim's latest presentation as a guide," Dexter said.
"Okay," John said.
They talked a little more about the job and his responsibilities before John went back to his cubicle. Dexter was actually very pleased with how John had accepted the situation. He also had a feeling that John would convince the other office engineers that it was a more important position than it might, at first, appear to be.
Eric stopped by his office a little after lunch. He stuck his head in and asked, "How did it go?"
"It seems to have gone well," Dexter answered.
"I hope it works. I've been so damned busy that I haven't had a moment to think," Eric said.
"I'm sure things will improve," Dexter said with a smile. "I'll only call you when I've got a problem that requires your involvement."
"That's all I need ... more calls," Eric said.
Dexter smiled and said, "You don't understand. I'll only call you if there is a problem that I can't handle. You won't be hearing from me much at all."
"That sounds better," Eric said with a smile.
At five Dexter made the rounds of all of the cubicles. He stuck in his head, and told whoever was inside, that it was time to go home. His project leads were right there with him. People reacted like they had been given a day off. By five thirty, the entire floor was dead quiet. Dexter left the building with a smile. It was the earliest he had headed home in ages.