Able & Tireless

Adam 3:01 pm [+]

ok, so despite the fact that I'd like to be positive about the company, I just have to share this:

This is from cw.com about the type of place Cable & Wireless is to work. Now, C&W is a lot of things, not all bad by any stretch of the imagination, but one thing we are not is free of rules and regulations. We are a haven of red tape and pointless forms. I find these marketing blurbs so hilarious; I just hope that prospective employees realise that all companies are bare-faced liars and don't fall for this sort of crap. Otherwise, they'd be sorely disappointed

Adam 2:29 pm [+]

Setting your own objectives actually turns out to be a very good thing. I was concerned that, like Tom, it wouldn't be possible to come up with some interesting objectives that the boss men would approve. However, I seem to have worked it out ok. Now its not been officially approved by anyone higher than Steve but it should be, and this would be a good thing.

Basically, my problems (excluding office space) revolve around being stuck doing billing support and not getting to do interesting development. I managed to solve both these things with a little studying of Steve's objectives and the company objectives. Then I thought up what I wanted to do, and then I explained to Steve how my doing these things would solve his and company objectives.

So, I explained that I didn't want to do billing support because Transact SQL support is not my strong point, and he agreed.

I then said I wanted to look into the feasibility of mobile development for the intranet (making the Address List accessible from a mobile for example) and he agreed that this was a good idea, and also fitted into strategic goals of being a forward-thinking organisation.

I then said I'd conduct a review of all our currently used applications within the business. This gets me out talking to the business (which strangely, I really enjoy) and also will hopefully lead to some more interesting development as people explain what it is they want, and I explain how we can help them.

I also agreed to look into developing greater reporting from MARTHA (our senior management reporting tool) which will allow me to work with SVG and XML and .Net - stuff I'd really like to get to know better.

I even agreed to write a document about team processes, simply because it allows me to document the standards our development team should follow. Standards are a good thing (tm) and making sure we all work to the same ones is something that will help get me excited about having a "team" and all that other good stuff.

In fact, the only one that was rejected was my idea to rewrite our intranet from the ground up in .Net (we use MSCMS 2001 at the moment - we really should upgrade) with a new design following the UMA Principles (I'll link when I've written the damn thing ;). This was rejected because of the expense (1/2 a mill or so) for something that added value is hard to quantify. I can sort of understand this, but I still think its a shame. We'll see.

So overall, I'm pretty impressed by the way this is working so far. Of course, its possible that Steve's boss won't approve them, and I'll get handed down some other bs objectives. Until that happens, and I really get the impression that it won't, then I think this is a great idea, that at the moment at least actually seems to be working.

Oh, and there is even a rumour that we might be able to get better office space soon.

Thomas David Baker 5:52 pm [+]

There's directives from very high up regarding objective setting for the coming year. Yes, they created a silly pow-wow in Egham to tell us about it and there's some silly flash-based presentation too. But overall it might not be a bad thing to make people set up real objectives. If Jaws is mailing me about his new objective to share technical knowledge through the wider team (which must be 20+ people now ... Steve is turning into the Master of the Universe and about time too) then that's got to be a good thing.

My only problem is that it feels a bit like a veneer and not anything deeper. Can you really set objectives for a whole year in a business environment? Are there companies where you have a clear vision and you see it out over 12 months? Could this company be one of them? Or just this team? I don't really know what my objectives are or what I want them to be. I don't really know how I can help the company. What do we do that is so useful?

The telephone directory is useful. We run that. I suppose that the newsroom is somewhat useful and we have some involvement with that. I know our billing support is theoretically useful but I imagine any monkey could do that. What I'm asking is, what can I do that is a genuine C&W-focused objective that is also fun? If I wanted to get motivated and make the boss men happy without consigning myself to billing support what can I do?

Thomas David Baker 9:46 am [+]

The office space revolution seems to consist mainly of working at home. Still I have a ten foot sash window that opens to a five feet gap, a view of a garden with blossom and squirrels and *brilliant* tech support in the form of me. The only thing that's missing is the team element. Skunkworking at Adam's despite being suggested numerous times doesn't really seem to have taken off so we're all in our own little offices cut off from each other.