Derek @ Work

Summer, Q1 2005

The stains of corporate love. Archive.

Redeployed!

Derek @ Work needs a new strategic direction in order to remain relevant to the business. A Gap analysis has highlighted the following areas of concern:

Updating the section is technically time consuming, relying heavily on manual work;
The volume of idiocy screaming to be published is increasing.

The need for faster response times has prompted trialing the move of Derek @ Work to http://spaces.msn.com/members/dtcwee

It is a structured blogging engine that 'best-fits' our business needs. It uses existing sign-ins, has automated archiving, and allows reader feedback.

Hopefully, this move will position us favourably to leverage future enhancements, such as RSS feeds, with our strategic partner, Microsoft.

The rest of the website will remain as is. An interim transitional framework will be applied temporarily, while service delivery will continue using the old methodology as well as the new.

Thank you for your patience.

A stayer, not a quitter - 23 Feb

Hi Team,

Please note that the Policy on Policies now applies to all policies developed or revised. See below for instruction.

From: HR
Subject: FW: Implementation of New Corporate Policy - Policy Management
Dear Everyone,
The Executive Management Committee have developed a policy governing the development of Corporate policies. The Policy Management provides guidelines on creating, implementing, monitoring and reviewing policies to ensure a standard format and procedures for all corporate policies.

It's official, I'm a 'quit-stay'. It's such a joy to know that the state of my entire career can be encompassed by a trite little term. And now that I've been diagnosed, I can euphorically await the remedy. Kahloo kahlay. Frankincense and myrrh, stat.

But being a quit-stay is as much a choice for me as it is due to chance or fate. Every day I choose to go to work and then divorce myself from it. I could listen to the HR bunnies and seek transfers, training, or another job. But to what end? To do so would require more effort than cruising on low-batt quit-stay mode. (As anyone who's applied for a public sector position would confirm.) I choose to stay a quit-stay.

Strategically, staying makes sense. Although my salary is not spectacular, I am being paid very well for what I do, which seems to mainly consist of enduring restructures and micro-managers. Government positions have incredible pay security. So while I languish, my mortgage is being hacked away with little threat to my cashflow. With only a year to go, the Devil I Know is a reasonable chap I can make a temporary deal with.

I can also claim as an immediate benefit my gradual emotional separation from work. I used to want to feel part of a team, a family if you will. Unfortunately, I wandered into a few Tasmanian foster-care situations. I have excised fulfilment and dissatisfaction since then. I'm working on ambition and fear. When those two are gone, the fun starts. Once I am immune to reprimands or rewards, the healthy schism between work and life will be assured.

Another way of looking at it is that I have modelled myself after the service providers my workplace outsources to. I will suck this relationship dry, owing a duty only to my shareholder (guess who?) I will use their facilities, drink their coffee, and rummage through their folders. It's business, not personal. So how can pundits paint emotion-drained quit-stays in a different hue to the cold, deceptive, ultra-professional outsourcers they idolise? Ultra-professional, yeah. Ultra-professional at reaming y'all up the keester. At least I have enough morals to refrain from screwing over a new employer, in favour of exploiting an old one with whom I have a long history of denied opportunities and deteriorating environments.

Being a quit-stay suits my current situation, and I resent the patronising, over-simplified advice to change jobs. I don't feel guilty being a 'survivor'. Giving up attachment to my work has allowed me to focus on a greater agenda.

Not bad for a quit-stay.

From www.careerone.com.au - "Are you a quit-stay?"

RS was called a "quit stay" at work. He asked 'what is it and is it bad?'

Well, it's not great. A quit stay is someone who has mentally quit their job but they keep turning up for work.

This person might well have been enthusiastic once. However, repetition, lack of challenge and just plain boredom has taken the fun out of work. A quit stay could also be the result of a poor manager or too many changes of manager. Not having any input or control over your working life could also grind you down into a quit stay.

Whatever the case, the quit stay has usually wandered down the path of indifference over a long period of time to find he or she is now just going through the motions.

Organisational psychologist David Peake's name for the quit stay is a "survivor". While it sounds better it's actually the same thing.

I heard David speak at the annual Recruitment & Consulting Services Association's annual conference in September.

The "survivor" or "quit stay" has actually moved on from whinging and trying to fix things - they don't see the point. This person will do just enough to keep their job and not enough to come to anyone's attention. The quit stay will turn up to work five minutes before the boss and leave five minutes after.

Life's too short to be a quit stay. Don't quit on the spot though. Look around for a training option to give you a new lease on your professional life or at least look for a new job.

Kate Southam is the editor of www.careerone.com.au.

De-motivation in one easy step - 19th Jan

From: Comms
To: Wee, Derek
Subject: Re: Updating a page on the website

Robert has to make a decision about it.

If he wants it removed he tells John B. John does it by asking Sharon to do it. Sharon tells me before she does it so I can, if I need to, check with Robert.

If Robert wants it changed, he tells John B to change it. John prepares it and sends it to Sharon. Sharon gives it to me, to read through, then I tell her to made [sic] the change on the site.

That's the process.

Cheers

I'm trying to define my passive-aggressive attitude to what may be the last year I work here. It's utilitarian in that I try to minimise effort, yet I don't want to ignore my humanist streak. (What humanist streak?) I guess I'd also like to explore not fearing vocational suicide, and facing bureaucratic hopelessness with my own brand of slack-tivism. Maybe I'm just looking for a nice way of saying I'm going to do bugger all and see how long I can get away with it.

The biggest challenges this month has been scheduling a killer Lion Dance season, visiting my script editor, advertising the vacant room, losing bids on xboxes, and trying to write the Philippines Banana-log so it won't offend Rhea; all of which would be impossible without the people at work being so entangled in their pockets of officiousness that they don't mess with what I'm doing.

I think I'm beginning to like it here again.

More Derek@Work