IBM memo to staff: Our CEO Ginni is visiting so please 'act normally!' Marketing folk in IBM's offices in Austin, Texas, were treated to a visit by CEO Ginni Rometty this week – but not before they were handed a list of things not to do in her presence, including taking selfies or using the loo at the same time. Rometty, also Big Blue's president and chairman as well as chief exec, dropped by the …
I wonder if the Austin office has a lot of young employees that aren't aware of protocol when a C-level executive shows up.
Reminds me of the Dilbert where Asok fantasizes: "I can meet the CEO in the rest room and give him my opinions! And he'll be so impressed with me, he'll promote me to Special Assistant To The CEO! That'll show my boss and co-workers how smart I really am!"
And in many ways, this like a visit to the troops from some general. Clean up, spruce up, and beautify. So will she see the "real" Austin? Probably not, even if she is actually in the office for more than 10 minutes.
They should probably just rent a building and put some actors in it for "official" visits. Fly the boss in and out. Repaint, move some desks, and fly the boss back in telling her it's an office in another city.
Mark, when I was in the Army and still enlisted before I got my warrant to avoid that kind of bullshit, we were supposedly going to get a visit from either the INSCOM CG or maybe the CENTCOM CG or G2 (Don't recall which). I wound up being stuck on a detail to sweep the sand. In the middle of the Central Highlands which is a desert in the part of hell (some call it Afghanistan, same thing) I was in. I ran a broom over it for 10 minutes and then went and fucked off in my CHU for a couple hours til I needed to go to the SCIF and get on the knobs and get some actual work done. Supposed General never showed up. I got complimented for my attention to detail from some 22 year old 2LT that was supposedly my supervisor all the same.
It's still better than the most sham detail I ever got put on, which was dress-right-dressing rocks at the NTC on Fort Irwin because some NASA bureaucrat from Houston was coming to Goldstone, which is on the Fort Irwin cantonment, and sometimes they'd tour the regimental facilities. It was like 130 degrees that day and myself and 15 other Soldiers are outside making the rocks look organized, however in the fuck you do that.
In the forces the reason for an inspection is to check everything is ready for action as it has to be clean and in working order at all times. The B******* factor was used to ensure troops knew every part of their equipment intimately and had pride in it's readiness which usually saves lives when the real SHTF.
I'm surprised that no one has an LBK (Look Busy Kit).. It usually consists of a number of books, printouts, engineering drawings, and some scribbled notes on a pad of paper. Set it up each day, change the way the piles look, say every hour and managlement will think you're really I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine what should be on computer screen as that depends on where you work and your job.
During a graduate placement I used to browse websites such as el reg in a browser resized to exactly match the email preview window in outlook. I read a lot about various MIT hacker court cases and read several air accident investigation reports cover to cover.
Never did work out what I was supposed to be doing in those 8 weeks. My manager up'd and left on day 2 saying he was going abroad and would be back soon, and I never saw him again. HR couldn't move me as I was on scheduled rotation without 'bringing the entire graduate system to a halt,' so I was only able to move on when my next manager called me up to make arrangments for the next placement - I asked if I could start immediately and he agreed.
Years ago I worked briefly for a mail order company as a file clerk.The job was ghastly, requiring little slips of paper cut from magazines and posted in to be filed tightly into plastic wallets that cut into our fingers. Most of the files were well out of order because after the first week the clerks would just give up trying. It was a temporary job, but I got fired before I could leave, as did everyone who was hired at the same time, we were taken into HR and fired on the spot..
The difference between us was that I deserved to be fired. I'd spent most of the previous two weeks walking round the building holding a clipboard and pen and waving some sheets of paper.
But tidy the place up, throw stuff that reminds her of how better IBM was before away, wear these clothes, don't go near her, don't touch stuff, don't be on holiday.
"We are a fun and vibrant team of marketeers... but one step wrong and you're out."
That's why true entrepreneurs show up unexpected and look at how things really work.
CEOs now think they are some kind of kings and queens and have to be treated accordingly by serfs.
They are building a "Potemkin office" - and what is worse, they aren't aware of it...
Potempkin office --> great historical reference.
However I think Ginny more resembles this lady - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empress_Dowager_Cixi -
She ruthlessly wielded absolute power over her disintegrating empire.
Cixi also tried to move the cumbersome ruins of the then Chinese government to a goal of constitutional monarchy. However, as much of Chinese history was written by egomaniacs worthy of any modern CEO, only more evil, her reputation was besmirched. As for IBM, pretending to fool the boss is a routine ritual of the PHB class in all companies.
LDS - That's why true entrepreneurs show up unexpected and look at how things really work.
I wonder. I suspect you are right that many CEO's have a bit of a delusion going on when it comes to visits. Some not so much.
I used to work in a tech support centre for US based storage appliance company a few years, ok a lot of years back. Our CEO was coming to visit the place (not only the support centre but also euro HQ). I was (don't hate me!) a tech support manager there and was working to the of shift with the guys and we started talking about the CEO and the visit. On of the team said the CEO would never come up to the centre to see them hard at work as the clock headed towards 7pm. The company made a big thing of being a team etc so thought bugger it.
I went down to the reception area where the great and mighty had congregated and was lucky enough to catch the CEO sort of by himself at the buffet. Now not really having much truck with this kind of thing I asked him if he'd like to visit the tech centre. He readily agreed and I must say the look on the faces of the people in reception as I ascended like some tech support god (ok ok...maybe not but I enjoyed the look of horror/shock on my local compatriots assorted EVPs, SVPs and senior leadership very much). I engaged in some small talk on the way up, mainly about my team.
So we reach our floor and I introduce the CEO to the team. Who then went around to each of my engineers shook hands and spent a good twenty minutes chatting with the guys. He then went around the rest of the centre and met the other teams also working late shift.
Frankly if you cannot approach execs then there is a major problem.
"Frankly if you cannot approach execs then there is a major problem."
In my experience the execs and HoDs that are any good are not only approachable, but will make active efforts to be so.
It's all the middle manglement that are desperate to cut of the information flow either way, since they don't have the ability to do either the top job or work at the coal face.
Email is nice for that. While not every suggestion I've made to a CEO has been taken up, they do seem to take the valid concerns on board and try and address them.
@IT Hack
Our CEO eats his self-packed lunch in the break room with the rest of the staff.
Everyone shares the same tables, from VP's to forklift drivers in the warehouse. None of this elitist bullshit here!
Back in the days when I worked in construction, we had a long and successful tradition of promoting internally so that the Chief Exec was invariably a man who'd started his career in a hard hat and muddy safety boots (it all went a bit wrong when we started hiring in folks in smart suits instead, but that's a different story....). Banksman on a major site saw someone he didn't recognise in civvies on the site and offered a "robust" challenge to the intruder to "suggest" that he vacate the area. There was no objection raised to this but as they walked together towards the exit gate they bumped into one of the senior site engineers, who went a bit pale and demanded to know what the banksman was doing manhandling the CEO...
CEO's response was that he'd been walking around the site for 30 minutes and no-one had challenged him until the banksman, who he was very impressed by - but less impressed by the site manager's approach to security or public safety.
"Act normally! Ginni and the team are here to see what Austin is really like. "
"We expect 100% occupancy during the visit," he said. "If you sit in Building 906, 5th floor and will not be here due to vacation or work travel, please inform [the relevant manager]... so we can fill your seat while the guests are in town."
DOES... NOT... COMPUTE:::
"That's why true entrepreneurs show up unexpected and look at how things really work."
Anyone who declares themselves to be an "entrepreneur", "thought leader" or "visionary" is not the real deal. If you have to claim a title, you are usually not worthy of it.
Got there before me.
This is everything that is wrong with big companies. Treating the CEO like they are a god.
If I had the confidence to run my own company and be the CEO of my own company, I would want people to feel they don't have to kiss arse around me.
In the words of Alan Sugar
"I Don't Like Liars, I Don't Like Cheats,I Don't Like Bullshitters,I Don't Like Scmoozers, I Don't Like Arse-Lickers"
"In the words of Alan Sugar"
Is that the same Lord Sugar who once said "I'm not a difficult boss, some of the staff have been here eighteen months"?
I read that shortly before being offered an interview at Amstrad, which I declined.
This is everything that is wrong with big companies. Treating the CEO like they are a god.
I don't know about treating CEOs as if they were gods, but I finally got to watch The Death of Stalin last weekend and for some reason this memo reminded me of that.
If I had the confidence to run my own company and be the CEO of my own company, I would want people to feel they don't have to kiss arse around me.
Which is why I'm certain Ginny would *NEVER* appear on a show like "Undercover Boss" That would require her and the rest of her staff to actually give a shit what goes on in the company.
"Act normally"? That would require me to slouch in my chair and loudly bitch to my co-workers what a shit company IBM is, and how I look forward to their eventual Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
... we operated a clean desk policy during my time with IBM, and weren't really allowed much to be on show, no lists of phone numbers, no family photos, no personal items (I wouldn't get away with the cacti I have on my current desk.) I got dinged for having a floppy disk on my desk. I can't remember what it had on it now, but I'd lent it to someone, who had returned it, and put it on my desk when I wasn't there. We got audited, I got bollocked.
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I worked at IBM Hursley Park many years ago - the (physical) security staff would do a walk-around every night through every office and desk - anything looking or marked confidential would be removed and you received a red sticker on your desk. Anything marked higher than confidential was an immediate investigated offence. Receive three+ red stickers in a year and your personal year-end evaluation (1-5) was docked a point.
.
At my site, they have someone go around checking twice a day to see if desks are in use and if they are 'clean.' As part of the Agile push we got asked why we failed to have a 'wall' of work up - responded with "Well we did but we aren't allowed to put anything up on walls or partitions." We were 'failed' on meeting Agile maturity level...
When I worked at places that had "clean desk" policies, the "clean" referred to leaving company data unsecured on your desk, not to things like family photos.
When I hear stories like this, I am always amazed that they can find people willing to work in such places.
Well, the big thing round these here parts is 'Activity Based Workplaces'.
Basically, if we assume only 70% of staff are in the office at any one time, we only provide 70% of desks, requiring 70% of the floorspace, saving us money in both office hardware and space rental. Then we give each person a notebook PC (which we generously allow them to lug home with them every evening) and tell them to 'find a space' when they come in to the office.
This means every desk area is 100% anonymous, because nobody has a permanent desk.
This has immediate and massive benefits to our staff because ... well, you know, having a team spread across many different floors (or even buildings) within the campus makes for more efficient... no, wait, you get to sit with people who do a completely different job to you, so you get to try to concentrate on some tricky coding while a salesdroid yells into his phone at the next 'workstation' and ... hang on, I'm not explaining the advantages very well here..
Did I mention we save money on office equipment and space rental?
I remember one job I was in where one manager (not my manager) berated me for failing to follow the company's clean desk policy. I ask him what on my desk violated the policy (it was piled high with reference manuals and program specs that I working on). He was unable to tell me so I quoted the clean desk policy word for word and pointed out that nothing on my desk violated the policy and if he had an issue he should take it up with my manager. My manager was in his office laughing his head off...
When I hear stories like this, I am always amazed that they can find people willing to work in such places.
Usually it's a mix of recent college graduates who haven't yet heard all the horror stories (or are figuring on picking up some useful experience points before moving on to better pastures) and living in an area where the particular black-company is the last remaining gig in town.
My 270 degree desk has Hubble videos playing when I don't have monitoring apps running.
One monster tower above desk, three under, four laptops for poc and dev ops.
SO many useless knicj knacks people keep asking to keep them.
There are about twenty five funny or dank meme reprints (My connection is a little ruff, error human is dead mismatch, how about no bear etc..)
When the VP visited he wasn't disgusted, I was told he was amazed a fifty year old was so up on tech and culture (I was out having a wine and rib lunch).
Yep, same company, same policy ding a while before I got laid off so my work could be done by bozos in Brazil with no training in the product I had been supporting (non-IBM per Global Services customer requirements).
When my crying manager told me of the layoff (figuring she would be next I think) on the phone from 2000 miles away, my reaction was "Free at last!" (nice layoff package 11 years ago, that is not offered any more helped...). Two tears after I took my skills back to my employer previous to IBM, I learned from that former boss (still at IBM) that the US-based customer was fed up with "communications" issues, and had the work brought back to the US to be supported by a guy I had mentored - ha!
Anyway, IBM's downward spiral still seems to be descending per ongoing chronicling by "Robert X. Cringely" (actually Mark Stephens) - look for his writings on that slow motion suicide ( https://www.cringely.com/ )
Reminds me of an Shanghai (China) office manager, who dictated to mark all objects on the desk with a yellow tape (phone, phone-cable, notebook, stapler). If anything was over the edge of the yellow markings you got a worse grading.
I heard that's a common office thingy in China - as I has been told by the CEO, when I told him of my business trip to our Shanghai office.
Given we're talking about IBM, I wouldn't be surprised if the visit is a prelude to there being a 0% occupancy shortly afterwards.
Which, to be fair, might be a relief for everyone who has had to associate with a fun and vibrant team of marketeers for more than the duration of an executive outing.
"a fun and vibrant team of marketeers" who were the first against the wall when the revolution came.....
And don't forget the telephone sanitizers, and the moodily-lit tubes of toothpaste.....
Closest I could find to Fenchurch ---------------------------------------------^^^^
My employer does not have the power to tell me when I can or can not use the toilets; I will go when I so desire.
So as the CEO swans around each site she only see a facade of perfection, a show put on by directors hoping to look good. Are CEO's generally so detacehed from reality they buy into this, or do they really just want to see their actual company and spend some time with the proles every so often and escape the hand wringing?
Well... she'll use the corporate jet first to get to Austin but her chopper will already be there (rental maybe since the other one is at "home") so she doesn't have associate with the hoi-palloi, airport security, etc. But it'll all be good because she works uninterrupted on the plane.. Right?
This is exactly what happens when hordes of childish upper management takes over, they start putting even higher management up on pedestals and worshiping them as gods.
How can anyone get any actual work done under this kind of condition?!
It's sad. I want the old IBM back!
This is exactly what happens when hordes of childish upper management takes over...
Couldn't have stated it better myself. When form is valued over function, you can write off the company, there's no chance of saving it, because all the smart people are gone, leaving toadies and high school vice-principals in charge. These folks are good at two things: playing office politics and looking good when the big boss shows up.
I'll bet Bell Labs and HP didn't have a "clean desk" policy...back when Real Engineering was being done there.
Bell Labs - does that bring back some memories! I had a friend who worked there in the late 70s and he got me in for a quick visit one weekend. The place was amazing - lab after lab loaded with test equipment and who knows what else? Not a clean desk in sight! I was like a kid in a candy store. And then he took me into the anechoic chamber and shut the door. First time I ever heard my blood moving through my body. Totally freaky and yet so cool at the same time. I can only imagine how much fun it must have been working there, surrounded by brilliant people inventing cool stuff. Is there any place like this anymore?
I worked for a Western Electric research center back in Bell System days. We eventually became Bell Labs. No clean desk policy, but we were not immune from top exec craziness.
Every year the top WECo execs would come to give us more money, and those of us on the first floor had to clear out of our offices so that they could use them as telephone booths.
I didn't mind hiding personal pictures, but I had some system diagrams up on my wall, and I got told to remove them also.
"Don't you want it to look like someone works here?"
"No."
>I'll bet Bell Labs and HP didn't have a "clean desk" policy...back when Real Engineering was being done there.
Dunno about Bell but re the ORIGINAL Hewlett-Packard:
"Well... I finally had to quit [from Teledyne, after "marginal people bought the company"]. I just, you know, it was just a bunch of bozos around the company. I don’t know how to run a company; I can't run a company, but I can tell if it’s being run right. I worked for Hewlett Packard. David Packard would deliver the coffee; he’d come around the assembly line and bring us coffee. I mean you know, David Packard knew that the only thing that counted was the product; as long as the product was good, you just take care of the people that make your product good. That's all it takes and the profit will take care of itself, you know, I mean that's the way David Packard was"
-- Ted Dabney, co-founder of Atari. "Oral History" interview
http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2012/10/102746459-05-01-acc.pdf
I spent a lot of time at the SJ site at Cottle Road in the early 00s. They'd already sold it to HDS but kept some of the buildings. My abiding memory of the place was people sitting in coats and scarves in their offices, with bar fires on, while outside it was 40 degrees plus Celsius. Building 5 I think it was, and the A/C was killer.
I had a look at it on Google maps the other day. It's mostly blocks of flats now, although part of it is still Western Digital.
Grandfather was in the Guards for 34 years, and maintained the Queen and most of the upper echelons of the royal family must think the whole world smells of fresh paint.
After they swallowed up SEMA, we had one of the head sheds from Schlumberger US do a state visit to the regional backwater I worked in. Most people had made themselves scarce, and the guys entourage almost outnumbered the grunts in the office.
Veep arrives at my desk
"Hello, and what do you do?" says the man with unnervingly white teeth, looking straight through me
(cluster of Veeplickers behind fix me with baleful stares)
"Err, I sell stuff, sir"
"Well, great job, carry on" comes the reply, and he's already moving away before finishing the statement
As they sweep onto the next poor sod, one Veeplicker murmurs in my ear "well handled, thanks"
So inspiring.
There's so much meat on this!
The "Potemkin village" aspect alluded to above suggests that the CEO is being kept well away from the way the company functions. Which implies deluded decision making.
The distance kept between CEO and staff ( and tbh as far as "elevator pitches" are concerned I do have some sympathy) suggests something about the hierarchical nature of the organisation.
The sprucing up ( deep cleaning etc) suggests that there are issues about the company's values and consistency of decision making - since why is it considered clean and tidy enough for staff, but not for CEOs?
The fact that senior staff are so anxious about creating this artificial impression suggests that they lack confidence about the efficient running of the organisation.
The very fact that staff are expected to act in a different manner when the big boss is on site sums up a significant issue in the company culture.
@Terry 6
Nail. Head. Hit.
AC because - We're a (much) smaller company but it happens here too.
Major client coming in? Oh we'll fix that issue with the upstairs toilets then, that staff have moaned about for 6 months.
Someone from the investors coming in? We will make the cleaners actually CLEAN your desks rather than just pretend.
Makes you feel really valued.
"All this crap is acceptable for you staff, but we've got *important* people coming now."
Putin issued the same sort encouragement to his citizens for the World Cup. Luckily for IBMers the penalties for not adhering to this advice is merely the sack back in he Motherland its a labour camp.
Mind you, as a male, I wouldn't mind running the risk of sacking with a selfie with Ginni in the ladies "powder" room. I'm sure I'd be able to sue for a monstrous amount for unfair dismissal.
An old boss of mine used to work in accounts for HP (computers, not sauce) and told me of the time he'd came back from holiday, into year-end, immediately after changes at the top.
He'd ended up imposing some frank points of view upon some softly-spoken American chap, whilst kicking hell out of his shonky Apollo workstation. When his line manager came in he went white, and my ex-boss was sure he'd be fired there and then.
Well, the very next day he got a very grateful email and a computer that didn't keep crashing. Their new VP of EMEA (or whatever) had been greatly enlightened by his chat about the faults in the company, when all anyone else had said was how wonderfully things were going.
Prepping the landscape for The Big Boss is only there to protect the people in change of that building...
AC because it's not my story, but my old boss'.
I read a military autobiography once; the author was recounting his experience of being on an army base somewhere just prior to a royal visit.
After a couple of days of everyone sweeping, painting, polishing etc he realised the royal family probably go their entire lives thinking the world smells of polish and new paint. Sounds like Ginni Rometty might do the same.
Icon, because I wonder if they needed to polish their keyboards.
After a couple of days of everyone sweeping, painting, polishing etc he realised the royal family probably go their entire lives thinking the world smells of polish and new paint.
I doubt it. Prince Phillip was of course a professional Royal Navy officer before marrying the (at the time princess), and no doubt he participated in his fair share of cleaning up exercises for high ups, as one suspects Princess Elizabeth would have done during WW2 when she was serving as a mechanic.
I'm sure that they will know full well what goes on for offical visits.
Always thought of Prince Philip as a pretty decent bloke - he visted my school when I was doing O-Levels (GCSE in new money..) and toured the newly built metalwork room where a group of us were trying to build a hovercraft. Apart from me everyone was wearing immaculate, gleaming white labcoats but for various reasons mine was uniquely and disgustingly filthy, covered in a mixture of grit and grease. To the horror of the assembled, inanely grinning teachers he made a beeline straight for me and had a brief but surprisingly well-informed chat about why a donated iron-block, water-cooled Vauxhall Viva engine was probably a Very Bad Idea for a vehicle where light weight was an important design factor. He was dead right - the thing could never get off the ground, probably a good thing for the safety of all concerned!
If I'm in the lift and Ginny gets it, does that constitute her approaching me? Can I talk then?
I'm not allowed to make an elevator pitch and I'm not allowed to accost her in the toilets, but can I use the lift as a toilet? Can I talk to her while doing this?
Just wondering
Many years ago, the company I worked for won the Queen's Award For Industry and we got a visit from Prince Phillip. The goods lift was painted and carpeted (!) and the corridors along which his party would walk were painted. Also, one of the cubicles in the toilets was clad from floor to ceiling in painted plywood so that there was no possibility of any part of him being seen by anyone if he should need to use it.
When we looked out of the window and saw his car arrive, we realised that we were in the presence of a living god.
Does that mean BOFH is specifically prohibited from pitching people down elevator shafts, or am I reading too much into this?
Regarding head restrictions, we had a manager send such a request via email only to get a Reply All from a guy saying "I will take care of my needs at a time of my choosing, only now every time I take a dump I will think of you."
While at Maersk Data (long defunct, bought by IBM) the big cheese, Mr. Møller visited. I don't remember any particular instructions, but I did hear him muttering "gud ved hvor mange af dem der bestiller noget?" (~god only knows how many are actually doing anything?)
He was really sharp. Well into his 80es, he told the designers at the shipyard their design wouldn't work - too big to get into Charleston!
I worked for a company based in Houston that had board members from way back who were, basically, good old boys. One of them was shown around the shiny offices with the full occupancy and came upon the legal department, which was well known to be vastly bloated. His reported words were "What the Hell are all these people doing, surely we can't be being sued by that many people?"
Shortly after it was discovered that it was actually more economic to engage lawyers on an as needed basis.
goods lift rigged as his own office
We used to have a client in Bucklersbury House on Cannon Street in London. The lift from the loading bay there had a desk and chair for the security guard. It was ludicrous because there wasn't much space to start with - we had to negotiate with him to get his furniture out first before we could empty the office...
It all looked very Terry Gilliam though.
If they're anything like the marketing teams I've worked with, 'acting normal' means they're not allowed to slip out of their human skins to reveal their true lizard forms, or eat live rodents in the presence of real humans. I also liked the comment about not using the toilet at the same time as the CEO - frankly adults should already have mastered this tricky bit of etiquette.
Treating CEOs like royalty and tiptoeing around them is something that never sat well with me. Even the politicians prostrate themselves in deference to these people, so who really runs the show?
They are just human beings doing a job, with a job description to meet and duties to discharge. They are no more or less a company employee than Jim in building maintenance or Sophie in HR.
I can also relate to earlier comments about the CEO being disconnected and shielded from the realities of what is really happening on the ground, perhaps being fed nonsense by their inner circle. If this is the case, then surely the CEO is not effectively managing the company. I guess it really can be "lonely at the top" if basically all of your peers are yes people, or various people of similar rank and status. How can you possibly empathise or understand what's happening on the ground?
They also said this about North Korea under the now-deceased Kim Jong Il. Senior officials just lied about stuff (and the lies percolated upwards) because they didn't want a bollocking for things being bad, despite it being bad purely because of Kim Jong Il. And he believed it because he knew no different.
I wonder how many businesses go down the shitter because the senior management is presented with nothing but a glowing unicorns and rainbows picture of everything.
How can you take informed decisions based upon false information.
Mind you if the CEO wanted a real picture they could just turn up on site happy to see the truth.
We had the queen visit the little town I stayed in a few years ago. She would only have driven up the road I live on not even got out the car. Even so we still got new lamp posts ahead of schedule, all the road markings repainted and the verges manicured.
The IMB thing sounds a bit like that
"We had the queen visit the little town I stayed in a few years ago. She would only have driven up the road I live on not even got out the car. Even so we still got new lamp posts ahead of schedule, all the road markings repainted and the verges manicured."
We found that having the Tour de France come through had a similar effect on road surfacing a few years ago. It's all going to pot(holes) again now.
On the other hand, IBM do give back to the community in their own unique way.
The road outside their Cumberland Forest offices in Sydney gets resurfaced every year, and the lines repainted twice a year, come what may.
Of course, this only extends about 300metres either side of the building, but they're not made of money!
"The fifth floor was "completely off-limits" from June 21 to 27, with several conference rooms set to host the visit. "Do not enter these rooms even if it appears no one is in there or it is not being used," the email added."
That's somewhat creepily reminiscent of the North Korean hotel with a fifth floor inaccessible to the public that turned out to be full of sinister offices, surveillance equipment and anti-American propaganda.
(This is also believed to be related to the detention and death of American student Otto Warmbier and may explain why the "stealing a poster" justification for his detention- which I'd previously assumed was simply him pinching some ten-a-penny propaganda from a random wall somewhere (admittedly something likely to get your average North Korean in deep shit in such a barbaric and repressive country)- was treated as such a big deal.)
Cheap attempts at humour aside, this is obviously just a coincidence and doesn't *really* say much about IBM, but it's still somewhat strange and unfortunate.
I have a funny feeling that the "5th floor" at BT's "Ratsalad Park" was also off limits to rank-and-file employees and was essentially MoD property. It was apparently guarded.
A friend who works there tells me said 5th floor is now general use, most of the really spooky stuff is long gone and BT's Security outfit operate a different floor.
It occurred to me that "Ratsalad Park" was most likely a nickname or anagram (who said "You don't say?"), so I typed it into Google...
Oddly, the official site of the, er, site was the first result!
Back when BT occupied half of that tower block at the corner of Euston Rd and Hampstead Rd (assuming it's still there, haven't been to London for a few years now) it was rumoured that there was one more floor than accounted for by the number of buttons in the lift.
Back when BT occupied half of that tower block at the corner of Euston Rd and Hampstead Rd (assuming it's still there, haven't been to London for a few years now) it was rumoured that there was one more floor than accounted for by the number of buttons in the lift.
That's Euston Tower, and it's well known that MI5's local radio network was run from there. (Maybe still is - like you I haven't been that way for a while.) The 17th floor seems to be the one.
MI5 themselves used to be just across the road, at the top of Gower Street. They shared a wall with the National Union of Mineworkers. I often used to wonder just how many bugs were embedded in that wall.
same goes for the BBC training centre at Wood Norton. The basement is just a basement, and there's absolutely nothing to see down there. It's not even worth you going down there. In fact, it's a sackable offence.
The fact that, once a month, a diesel oil tanker would turn up, the driver would unscrew one of the ventilator shafts and proceed to pour diesel into it until the tanker was empty, was just one of those odd coincidinks
I worked at a Mars unit for a while when the Brothers Grimm were still in charge. We did the whole 'paint everything' schtick, only to be well-chuffed when one of the Brothers emailed about the enormous waste of time and money that had occurred in getting the place painted just for them. Shortly afterwards, a company-wide policy on maintenance was well-received...
The Alignment -
Each object represent a group of sigils from a very, very old language. It was discovered that when certain sigils are arranged according to the arcane rules of higher-space mathematics, their presence at precisely aligned space-time nodes will overlay properties of another universe, where CEO's come from into "our" universe, making the CEO's feel more at home, a lot less hungry and provide integrity support for the alien personality matrix imprinted upon the fragile human flesh. not the much sturdier stuff of "home".
Think of it as an incantation that creates a CEO-containment field.
Many years ago, we had a visit from some of the higher-ups normally based Oop Narth.
It's a bit unnerving for a relatively young Desktop Support technician to be recognised by the 3rd most powerful man in the UK organisation with the words "Oh that was *you*, was it?"...
Change 'IBM' and insert CQC visit to xxxx NHS Trust
Been there and done it.
Interestingly for me on a my late visit to my usual clinical area (standing in for full time of absent colleague) I happened upon one bedspace with visitors and after I apologised/made excuses to nurse present for being late; said visitors introduced themselves as CQC inspectors. After short question and frank answer exchange I left to finish my day (I normally had daily workload that NHS regs said were 2.7 wte per day)
CQC visited my directorate head and clinical manager and within 6 weeks trust had advertised;interviewed and selected person for 2nd post (normally a 6mo process)
Perhaps CEO visits should always without entourage to get a true picture
...would show up in business casual, have his uniformed staff pin down the O5's, O6's, public affairs droids, strap hangers, sycophants, sociopaths, etc in 'urgent' sidebar meetings and somehow escape from the handlers. He would then walk the halls, buy lunches, help with labor... whatever people seemed to need he would just fall into doing. He would treat everyone he met with respect, and just listen. People would talk to him, and he would act on a somewhat clearer picture than possible from the wheelbarrow loads of crap that had been prepared
Sadly leaders like that are an endangered species.
I remember reading a book some time ago about the British Military in India during the war.
I recall an incident one camp, ISTR it was an RAF base. Now the Raf have never been very good at bull, and the base was happily functioning as well as could be expected under bureaucratic constraints.
Then one of the big cheeses was scheduled to visit. Much wasted effort on spit and polish, importing some coal to whitewash etc.
Come the great day, visitor expected at 2.30 pm sharp.
At 2.00 pm, ancient Indian gentleman driving even more ancient bullock cart loaded to the brim with yet more ancient manure arrives at the main gate and will NOT move.
Eventually he manages to communicate in broken English that he is responding to a telephoned order from the base ".... cartload of bullshi* to be delivered to the main entrance at 2.00 pm SHARP".
It was not recorded what happened next.
>> And the flies, remember the flies. We need a Bullshi* icon.
... of marketeers? Or rather "[...] a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes."
Sounds much like the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation marketing dept. to me.
"Just leave the PJs at home, please!" – So I guess Casual Friday is cancelled, then?
We used to get pretty much the same communication when any big boss was coming for a 'surprise visit'. They even asked us to submit questions once that we might like to ask them so they could be approved and then the centre leader would try and pretend it was completely off the cuff. I always wanted to turn up in my y-fronts and vomit on their shoes just to see the reaction.
I worked in a company where the new VP of HR was scheduled to visit our office. The day before, she was visiting another office, and word got back that she wasn't impressed with the place. Our local HR sent out panicked instructions that we were to have nothing personal on our desks, specifically including pictures of family. While I didn't have any such things, and everyone else busily cleared their desks, I definitely Googled "family picture", printed out the first high resolution one, and framed it. It happened to be an Asian family, and I'm not Asian, but I didn't think anything of it.
The next day, I saw the local HR Director approaching my desk with an Asian lady I didn't recognise, and I suddenly realised who it was. I just managed to slam the picture into my desk drawer before she was introduced to me.
Despite the fact that I was the most senior Web Developer in the European region at the time, I was introduced as the offices' resident poster maker for the Sports And Social club.
It later turned out that she actually had no objection to family photos or personal stuff on desks, but our local idiot HR bods had totally misinterpreted and over-reacted to some innocent remark she made.
I used to work for an information services division of General Electric in the UK (the US GE tho) at a field office. I was always the first to arrive. I'd just got a pot of coffee going when the doorbell rang. It was the new Managing Director there fore a meeting with the senior sales staff (None of whom would arrive for at least another hour).I sat him in the reception area, poured him a coffee and told him I could not let him into the main office since he did not have an ID badge (apparently it was his first week). Ran into him at head office a month later at some 'all hands' meeting and ended up being invited to come have a few lunchtime pints with him across the street. He was VERY appreciative of hearing the truth from the folks that actually did the work.
"Do not interact with Ginni or the group unless they approach you first. This means no selfies, no bathroom run-ins, elevator pitches, or water fountain soirees. If you happen to be in the same area, keep it professional and courteous," the email stated.
This stinks of, the surfs must not approach the royals...else they well be beheaded...,or some such...
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Really? If that is the case, last week at HPE Discover, I think we violated a whole bunch of IBM CEO interaction rules when Antonio Neri was around. Good thing he has no rules about taking selfies with partners, staff, and even cardboard cutouts of he staff that couldn't be in attendance...
https://twitter.com/HPE_Discover/status/1009913883631419392
https://twitter.com/DeanColpitts/status/1009918651061768192
You'd think a CEO would want to hear from their staff to determine just how well things are going, instead of be insulated from them by a bunch of kissasses and brownnosers. No wonder IBM people are so miserable...
dcc
Those who visit and walk around the office all by themselves, chatting to people about their jobs. And those who get escorted. To be fair to the people doing the escorting, I think they were doing so to insulate rank and file for good reason. IBM sounds like an absolutely ghastly company to work for.
" high school vice-principals in charge. These folks are good at two things: playing office politics and looking good when the big boss shows up".
Disagree! The ones that are good at it quickly move on to become principles/head teachers. The ones that are good at teaching are the ones that get stuck as deputies.
"This means you should wear what you always wear"
Reminds me of a couple of instances from my past.
First was a story of when INMOS was bought by ThornEMI there was a demo to be done at Thorn's HQ and the INMOS person to do it asked what he should wear - he was told to come in normal work clothes .... apparently turned out a rainbow stripe sweater was a new experience for staff at Thorn HQ!
Then a few years later we had a meeting with "important people" from HP who were presenting the architecture of a processor we might colaborate on and we were all instructured to wear suits. So we all turned up to meeting room in suits and (while admitedly a couple of senior HP management came in jackets and ties) we waited for the HP architrects to arrive (their flight was delayed) ... and they were, not unexpectedly, all wearing jeans and t-shirts!
My dad worked for Westinghouse at the time it was purchased by Northrop Grumman. His team flew to the west coast to meet with new collaborators, all of his team wearing normal east coast business attire: suits. Uncomfortable meeting when half the group was suited and the rest pretty much ready to surf.
Next meeting was is DC and the left coasties all looked uncomfortable in their new, never used, off-the-rack suits and the easterners kept looking down at their new polos because it felt weird to wear ID badges with no tie.
Finally someone said "Ok, lets meet in the middle... khakis and polos or button down, no tie unless meeting with a customer..."
I knew someone who worked in a UK IBM office many years ago when the company rule was all visitors from other parts of IBM (irrespective of their seniority) swapped they id badge for a local internal visitors badge. However, due to a cock-up in the configuration of the security setup there was a staircase between floors in the office which the visitors badge would allow visitoris to enter ... but not exit. So, I was told it was not unusual for local employees (who didn't have this problem) to opem the door to the staircase to find some high ranking visitor who assumed they were allowed through any door in any IBM office but had been stuck behind an non-opemign door for some time!
One of the reasons that IBM became the behemoth it did was because of the actions of the founder, Thomas J. Watson.
When most members of the company leadership left for the day, they'd take the elevator down to the front entrance, and leave the building, never encountering any of the worker bees. In contrast, when Thomas left, he'd go down the staircase, take his tie off, and wander through the shop floor. Inevitably, he'd strike up a conversation with some floor worker at a lathe or somesuch. Often, the worker wouldn't even know who Thomas was, other than he had a suit. And so he'd be honest with him about what was going on, how likely they were to make the deadlines, and the problems that they were encountering.
Later, when hearing the status reports from other execs, Watson took note of what execs were telling him, compared to what the actual workers had told him. He learned which execs were giving accurate pictures of their projects, and which ones were sugar coating things.
The key thing was that Watson wanted to know what his workers thought, not what their directors thought their vice presidents thought their managers thought their group leaders thought the worker thought. He wanted to know what was going on, and so he talked to his workers directly, and honestly.
The idea of treating the CEO like a visiting dignitary, and dictating behaviour before his or her arrival, is the complete opposite of that mindset. The CEO is not a customer, he/she is not someone that you are trying to impress, the CEO is someone who should be visiting to become informed about the state of the company.
I'm not sure what's worse. The idea that the company is not even hiding the fact that they are trying to impress the CEO, or the fact that CEO takes it as a given.
"Hands on management" is something that actually works. Lately, for the last 20 years or so, management wants not get near the workers much less look at them. This seems to be spreading yet a number of successful companies still do the owner/president walk about. Disconnect from the workers is usually fatal to the company.
I worked for company run by the owner (two in fact). They were great places to work until the owner died and "junior" took over. Both went down the toilet pretty fast because "junior" couldn't be bothered to talk to the troops and find out what was really going on. Morale quickly died and talented people left to find a place where they were appreciated and listened to.
"Hands on management" is something that actually works.
Indeed. There's something to be said for seeing, rather than hearing what's actually going on.
I worked at a company where the technical disconnect was fairly massive. Engineers were equipped with Core Duo PCs with 2GB of memory (and this was in 2015), which were additionally clogged with IT mandated firewall/antivirus/antipiracy/encryption, all running at maximum priority, while execs had i7 laptops bursting with 32GB of memory and ultrafast SSDs, with all processes exquisitely tuned.
In other words, the people who needed fast computers for their work had machines that were running at a tenth the speed of the executive's machines, which were basically there to read emails and see Powerpoints.
It was always amusing seeing executives watching a presentation, and asking "is there something wrong with your computer? It seems so... slow", only to be told that this was perfectly normal, and people had been screaming about the productivity impact of using garbage equipment for development for years, only to fall on deaf ears.
If any of the management team are hands on, while these sorts of things can still happen, they don't stay for decades without being noticed.
This I why I love working where I do, We may only be a small company with about 300 employees and three offices, but when the director comes to our office. He finds an empty desk if there is one and then gets teased as to whether he is younger/older, small/ larger then the person who normally works there and about the fact that he could in no way do their job.
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"If you sit in Building 906, 5th floor and will not be here due to vacation or work travel, please inform [the relevant manager]... so we can fill your seat while the guests are in town."
(/sarcasm) Yeah, I wouldn't expect many people to be on vay-cay during the last week of June, which is after school ends and your kids are free to travel and your extended family can gather, and when the weather is nice. (/sarcasm off)
And who the hell are they finding to fill your seat if you are out of town? Droids from the basement, who normally don't even get to clean a window, much less look out of one?
I can understand not wanting to see a half-empty workspace, but does IBM's marketing vision involve LITERALLY swapping deckchairs on the Titanic??
No need for living persons - just order a job lot of mannequins of all shapes, sizes and colors/colours and dress them up in appropriate/varied attire - Ginny probably won't notice/won't be allowed to notice as she is shepherded around the place by her praetorian guard.
icon: I presume these marketing wonks know that IBM are in the IT business, right?
A long time ago, my top boss managed many sites and would drop in unannounced so no-one knew where or when she might turn up. We were having a tea break and we jumped up to start looking busy, her comment was to sit down if everything is running correctly and to take as long as we like having our tea. We didn't get to finish our tea as we all found something that needed doing. She didn't need to say any more.
As a young structural engineer in late 70s I spent three or four weeks at IBM Cosham preparing the adjacent site so it looked clean and neat for a visit of the IBM board due to hold a meeting at Cosham.
Aggregate was laid for forthcoming construction, but brought forward to make the site neat and tidy. IBM being a single status company coffee was free on the day of the visit, as the board who ate lunch in the canteen might not have British coins, and if it was free for them.....
A particular confusion was that the head of IBM was due to meet the artist whose large painting was on display in the office and both were called R Nixon. No not that one.
The design team played a cricket match against IBM's property department during the time I was on site, but that was in effect the IBM team with a few ringers so we were thrashed. I went in 11 th man was, I think, third highest scorer, 2 runs, and carried my bat.
@Nick London
IBM Cosham - I presume North Harbour? Or there was also Northern Road.
IBM Northern Road building is now occupied by HMRC
And whilst IBM have a small presence in North Harbour, the site is now a business park...
There were various really small IBM locations in the area - IBM Eastleigh (1) - small education facility, IBM Eastleigh (2) - a lock up location hosting old desks and stuff but also the boat and equipment of the IBM Diving Club, IBM Winchester (Customer demo and some research types) - not Hursley - this one was downtown. IBM Southampton (Operations and Hosting Centre) - and of course North Harbour (UK HQ) and Hursley Park (Software Development Lab - which sustained 3 village pubs and the the IBM Club bar, the butcher who would hang rabbits out on a rack until you determined they were appropriately hung, and the baker who did wonderful Lardy Cakes (look it up and make one).
Coincidence? This article was published yesterday...
In August 2008 Gary Hoffman walked into the offices of Northern Rock in Newcastle.
He had been appointed chief executive of the mortgage lender which had been taken over by the government earlier in the year after almost collapsing.
One of his first impressions was the "palatial" offices and the even more luxurious headquarters that were under construction.
"The leadership had lost connection with the real world," Mr Hoffman says.
"They were in large offices, separate from their colleagues. It was physically difficult for their colleagues to speak to them."
Parko: 'No ...elevator pitches...'
Drone: 'I'm sorry to say sir that despite your warning a number of staff have been trying to talk to Ms Rometty in the elevator'.
Parko: 'How dare they? I want their names and badge numbers. I'll fire the bastards.'
Drone: 'Er. There's rather a lot of them...'
Parko: 'OK. Gimme a list of who didn't defy the order. I'll give them an extra bonus.'
Drone: 'That probably won't cost a lot sir'
Parko: 'Ah... OK. Gimme a list of everyone who didn't try to pitch to her in the elevator. They're fired.'
I get the impression that Mr Parko is very concerned about the hierarchy within the company.
So why did he reach down through multiple layers of management to micro-manage the 'team' at Austin? In strongly hierarchical organisations the obvious approach is to say the the next layer down 'see to it that <whatever you want> is done.'. They then hand on the instruction in their own way to their minions. By committing the instruction to a semi-permanent medium like e-mail he can't even repudiate it later.
Prat.
I'm a proud IBMer in a role that intersects with the C-Suite. I've been around our leaders with some frequency across multiple occasions. I've seen Ginni personally meet and greet thousands of our IBM colleagues at lab events, town halls and recognition events. On one memorable occasion I watched her stand for four hours meeting and thanking award winning IBMers and their guests. She is by far one of the most authentic and engaging senior leaders I've ever seen. This seems to be simply an unfortunate event whereby a manager made an error in judgement in an attempt to show their community space in the best possible light.
When so many workers are getting "resource actioned", no wonder the manager is paranoid. The trend has been If you aren't young and/or live in a third world country, IBM may not be the place for you.
Many mobsters were family centered too, but you know, it's a business.
I worked for a few years for an electronics manufacturer. The CEO was coming for an official visit, and we got much the same BS from the muddle management ahead of the visit: there was to be a big effort to present a management image of efficiency. Cleared desks, ongoing repairs to be hidden, everybody in smart dress etc etc.
CEO turned up in casual dress 2 days before the official date. Had the receptionist let him in unannounced. He wandered thought to the production floor and just started chatting to the techs. It was a couple of hours before the management even found out he was in the building.
Most effective way of really assessing what the local managers were trying to conceal from the big cheeses. He knew that any 'surprise' visit would leak out, so he his surprise visit with an official visit announcement.
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