Some Days

I just go into work and everything comes together seamlessly.

By-Passing The Corporate Firewall

For almost two of the past three years, the Savage Chickens website was blocked by my corporate firewall. Categorised under "Adult Humour", even the embedded images in the e-mail I receive each working week day were disabled. However to by-pass this, you would just go and view the latest cartoon over on Tumblr. Doug Savage will be pleased to discover that changes to the corporate infrastructure now means I am able to visit his blog without issue and receive his e-mails with bright yellow Post-It Note image.

The cartoon are always brilliant but the work based ones in particular I can fully relate to. Sometimes I could just post Doug's images, as they reflect moments at my workplace (or work history).

This blog post is dedicated to Canadian and all round good guy Doug Savage. His daily cartoons get me though the working week. Sometimes I do not get the humour, perhaps lost in translation from North America over the Pond to the UK but his book is still one of my favourite items. I keep it at work, as a daily reminder not to take work too seriously, even if it does take up a big chunk of our waking hours.

Direct From The Top

There is a prize I have been lucky enough to gain at my previous two employers and hope to continue to repeat for the rest of my career. Rather superficial I agree, but the coveted e-mail from the CEO. Now I do not mean an e-mail that has been drafted by an Executive Assistant or Communications department but one typed by the fair hand of the man or woman at the top of the organisation. In both cases, they were received after I had left the employment of the company, so some of you out there may take dispute with my claims but I care little. I can only make these revelations now as both men have long since retired from their positions as the head of two multinational blue chip companies.

Of course, the CEO of any company would not be e-mailing me or even an ex-colleague directly. They would be following the chain of command. In the case of Microsoft, this was from CEO (Steve) to CFO (Kevin) and then down to Global Commission Director before moving across to the EMEA Director and getting to my boss (Operations Director) into my mailbox with some kind of urgent action attached.

When you work for the biggest microchip manufacturer on the planet with over eighty percent market share you are going to get law suits and you are going to get complaints. People will just complain directly to the CEO when their brand new gaming work station is failing due to the motherboard and processor. The man at the top believes it could potentially be a scam but passes the mail down to his directs, once it gets to the Global Support Manager it then quickly gets forwarded to the Support Centre Manager. A ticket is raised and followed up with the highest priority possible.

With websites such as CEO Mail it has never been easier to get your message to the man or woman at the top of an organisation. Plus with the advent of social media, people tend to vent on Twitter, hoping somebody somewhere will resolve their problem. This works sometimes but not always.

Business Doublespeak

Are there any jobs that do not involve business jargon? The marketing people would make you believe these buzz words have some special innate power to motivate employees beyond their standard capability. Moving working area for the fifth time, we headed to the front of the building, which gives a view of the car park and the M4 motorway in the distance. Making use of the whiteboards that had followed us to our new working homes, the decision was made by somebody to capture all the business jargon than is bounded about on a daily basis.

I suppose in the medical profession you have your own language and lawyers have their own language but perhaps only fair that corporate world create something of their own language. However, we just sell software, it is hardly Rocket Science.