Dilbert was on point yesterday.
Boy does this bring back memories of my time at IBM. I remember John Akers running the country into the ground. Meanwhile, he had us taking this two day course called Transformation Leadership. It was a course designed by idiots and taught by idiots. We had group exercises that I was unable to do since I was a cripple. They were supposed to drive home at how we were supposed to react to changing markets. Meanwhile IBM’s senior management had managed to not react to the changing market of the 90’s.
Anyhoo, at the end of this wasted two days I talked to the instructors facilitators. I was an instructor at the time and I pointed out the fallacy of the class. It was supposed to teach flexibility but was inflexible. It was supposed to teach how to react to changes but was unable to do so. Since the exercises were all physical I asked what they would have done if they had walked into the classroom and everyone had been in wheelchairs. Game over. Class dismissed. They both gave me a deer in the headlights look and stammered out that they didn’t know. “That”, I told them, “was why the class sucked and was a total waste of time.”
Everyone at IBM had to take this class. What’s more, the managers had to take a three day version. One of the few times I felt sorry for IBM managers.
Later on, there was a follow on class called The Journey Continues. (Fortunately, I managed to skip out of going to this class.) It continued alright. IBM continued down the tubes. Shortly thereafter, IBM hired Lou Gerstner and he turned the company around. But, just like Trump, Gerstner was just a bump in the road. IBM continues to decline.
Fortunately, it does value Diversity (All Hail Diversity!)
I remember how OS/2 came out and was a very good OS. I ran it for a while and prefered it a lot over Windows 95.
But as you say IBM couldn’t market their way out of a paper bag and let MS drive them into the ground on the PC. Pity.
Yep! Remember when Windows 95 came out and everyone said it was the first multi-tasking PC operating system? OS/2 had already been out for at least two years and was better than Windows 95. I loved OS/2. Of course, IBM management, in their infinite wisdom, had decided there was no money in PC software and had given the keys to the kingdom to Bill Gates. By the time they discovered they were wrong it was too late. IBM management was good at that. The guy who invented the copier took it to IBM first but management said it would never replace carbon paper. He went on to found Xerox. When IBM got into the copying business, Xerox sued them for patent infringement and IBM had to pay a settlement. Without Watson Jr. betting the farm on 360 against the wishes of his father who didn’t think magnetic media would ever replace his cherished punch cards, IBM would have died a slow death.
I worked on a project for a MCI in the late 90’s that used a OS/2 based server to run the program. It was actually really great, stayed up was stable didn’t leak memory etc. (something MS still can’t do to this day). However the thing that always got me, was hitting cntl-alt-del just once did a reboot. (instead of twice on windows). Oppps
Gates was supposed to write OS/2 but reneged on the deal and bailed. OS/2 was what Windows 95 should have been.
IBM is still in business ?
Their present slogan is, “Put smart to work.” (We pause to snicker. Twice.)
I burned out two of their office grade Correcting Selectric II units, overpriced junk I now regret buying. But the answer to your question is, yes.
I have to disagree on the Correcting Selectric II being junk. Properly maintained they were very good machines. I worked on them for 4.5 years.
My mileage varied, particularly onmce Lexmart got into things. It’s been so long ago, and one I don’t miss due to ribbons costs. I now use a combat grade Das Keyboard: it’s vastly better than the Sec-II.
PCs put typewriters out of business. Why buy a Selectric when you could get a PC for less? When I became an instructor/programmer in Atlanta I started seeing some of the OP CE’s I used to work with coming through I/O schools. Some of them even moved up to mainframes which I did in 1978. I had a friend in the Field Engineering Division who pulled some strings and got me out of OP where I had worn out my welcome for pointing out the incompetence of many CEs and management’s lack of interest in addressing the problem since so many OP managers were themselves incompetent. OP management told the FE branch manager that I was an “attitude problem”. He told them that they knew how to deal with attitude problems in FE. I was impressed with the professionalism of the FE management and I was never an “attitude problem” in my seven years working for FE in St. Louis. The only times I was an asshole in Atlanta was when I worked for incompetent managers or coworkers which wasn’t very often.
My personal favorite slogan was “Market Driven Quality” or MDQ. Some not-so-wise HR type came up with the slogan “IBM = MDQ+You”. It took some smart unknown person about 3 milliseconds to write:
“If IBM = MDQ+You, then MDQ = IBM-You”.
This was during the time of massive “resource reallocation” (layoffs, in the real world).
What I remember about MDQ (and six sigma and 5 ups) was them saying it was not “just another quality program). Of course they always said that when they introduced a quality program. Did you have to attend a class on scoping the process? I really hated all of the time we spent on quality programs when the best quality program was setting goals and achieving them.
Spot on Denny, in the Navy was sent to a race relations class. First step lets separate everyone then make the whites (non African decedents) listen for half a day how they had to treat the black ( African decedents). Yep all hail diversity rather than saying that what separated people was someone’s skin color yet all being the same with similar ideas and dreams. Better to work on the idea of making the blacks victims of their white oppressors. Would think that after 40 years the stupidity would finally stop. However it just gets worse.
Sounds like you were a really fun guy to work with and supervise. People really love the guy who calls bullshit on everybody/everything. I’m sure everyone just loved having to deal with you.
Think of House. That was I. Believe it or not, people did enjoy working with me because I got stuff done. My team enjoyed working with me as did most of the instructors that I supported. The only people I had problems with were incompetent people and my clueless dipshit manager. What’s funny is that even though he despised me, a year after I left, he wanted me to come back as a contractor. The contractor he hired to replace me couldn’t do in 40 hours what I did in 30. I turned him down. A year after that he asked me once again to come back as a contractor, again I turned him down. I was very good a my job and had the respect of my peers.
Nobody enjoyed working with House. I would imagine that character would probably have thought that people liked working with him. But he was wrong. You are likely wrong too.
I’m sure you were very competent. I’m sure you did the nuts and bolts of your job well. But that doesn’t mean that you weren’t a miserable, difficult contrarian that people didn’t like working with or supervising.
Since you didn’t work with me you wouldn’t know. I was well liked. We had a lot of fun. My immediate supervisor, my team lead liked me. We shared an office together and got along great. It was our clueless dipshit manager who hated me. Most of us hated him, including my team lead.
Look who missed the “Grouchy” in the site-title.
Denny …I worked for American Sterilizer , once the world leader in Steam sterilization,hospital Beds, Operating Room Lighting & Tables as well as other related medical equipment. I say was because the then management ran the business into the ground & we were bought by a much smaller company …from being #1 celebrating 100 years in business to a bargain basement clearance sale down the tubes was the final humiliation
Anyway I kinda expected a comment was coming from you with this cartoon …..Sadly so true concerning management competence., our management was hung up on Mission statements with endless revisions & group quality training sessions .
I did receive a cut glass paper weight for completing one of the mandatory group training sessions. The timing was perfect as it was in the same month 32 of the managers & supervisors with 10 years of service & being 55 or older received letters stating they had one year to voluntarily retire or lose retirement medical insurance coverage.
The part you just cannot make up is the surprise senior management expressed as we all chose to leave rather then stay.