The Company -- A differently-abled dot-bomb tale
			draft v0.31, (c) 2002-3 M.I. Smith


0.1

Through a series of Mergers, Leveraged Buyouts, Acquisitions of
Equals, and just plain Stupid Business Tricks, Michael ends up
working for a series of companies (Ki=1,n) without leaving his
office. By the end of the chain he has become wholly owned chattle
of The Company (K!) and has no where else to go.

It started innocently enough when he took a job with a small
start-up, Ki=1. In so doing he believed that he would have a
chance to work from the ground up, learning much about the market
and products while greatly increasing his chances of being able to
direct them to his way of thinking. Also there was the possibility
of a stock-option-windfall should all go unrealistically well.

Just a month after starting his insinuation into the power
structure, Ki=1 was purchased by a larger and more established
company, Ki=2. This had the dramatic effect of firmly lodging
dollar signs into the eyes of his new associates who spent most of
their time standing around in small groups discussing Alternative
Minimum Taxes and other arcana of the United States' governmental
policies. For Michael's part it meant that the hoped for windfall
was a reality to the tune of over a quarter-million dollars should
Ki=2's stock merely hold its value.  More if it soared into the
stratusphere like every other irresponsible software company on
the surface of the earth in those heady times.

The expected lift-off began and Michael, who's job description was
reduced from taking over part of Ki=1's product direction to being
a non-descript mid-level minion in Ki=2's development process,
decided it would be a good time to join the Employee Stock
Purchase plan and invest 10% of his salery into his new company's
stock, at an attractive 15% discount.

That very day, Ki=2's stock began a steady decline from which it
was never to recover. In fact, with few exceptions, the stock
always seemed to fall about 15% between the time the employee's
stock was purchased and the time that said employee got control of
said stock.  This, it should be noted, was three years before the
great dotcoming that hearlded the dawn of the new millenium. In
this, and many other respects, Michael was way ahead of the curve.

But the work, initially, proved to be interesting and resulted in
his being listed on a patent and having to explain what he had
done for the past 3 years to an ever changing set of lawyers.
Otherwise, his opinion of the job varied from mild interest,
through why-bother, to maybe-I-can-get-early-retirement-if-I-
just-keep-my-head-down.

As the slide down the great razor blade of corporate decline
accelerated, employees responded by bailing out to work for less
established but seemingly more promising opportunities. Executive
management responded by buying other small companies (Kj=1,m) with
vaguely related products in order to justify replanning the
corporate strategy every quarter or so. This resulted in at least
one employee being purchased and re-patrioted three times. There
was also some re-statement of earnings. Followed by the usual
lawsuits and payoffs to vulture capitalists.

Being devotees of the Squirrel-in-the-Street philosophy, whenever
things looked especially grim the Board of Directors made a big
show of replacing the "Management Team". This would then shake up
the structure of the Board of Directors, who would catch wind of a
new breeze, reset their tack, and march off with a different
drummer. Once again.

The endgame began unobtrusively with the purchase of Kj=m.  There
ensued much of a sameness with management reasignments resulting
in Kj=m's CEO becoming the second to Ki=2's, with the standard
rotate-right-and-decrement shuffle on down the various command
chutes. What was left of the product development group comprised a
few old white guys, like Michael, who were clinging on because
they needed the health benefits, and a bunch of Fresh-Out-of-
School Asian kids who needed their job to get Green Cards.


0.2

Thus they were all one small disfunctional family, until the day
that some particularly difficult quarterly results were announced.
Soon thereafter an email is sent to all-employees-worldwide:

"There will be a conference call meeting with the CEO, Peter
Bodkin, on Tuesday at 10am. Please gather in conference rooms so
as to not use up all the phone lines." Reading the message,
Michael thinks, "Isn't the CEO named Jean-Pierre or something? I
can never keep up." Sure enough, at the scheduled time, the CEO of
company Kj=m announces that he is now the CEO of the combined
company Ki=2+j=m. No mention is made of Ki=2's recently executed
CEO's seeking new opportunities or any of the usual obfuscatory
hand waving. It's as if he never existed.

"And there will be a few management changes announced in the coming
weeks. Please stay tuned."

Over the next few days, in an apparently bloodless palace coup --
except for the still MIA ex-CEO, Drowned while sailing? Killed in
a hot-rod crash with James Dean? Dead from a mysterious wasting
disease? No one asks -- Pete puts his Kj=m cronies in charge of
just about anything left to which something can be charged. The
minions are told that these experienced managers are excited about
their relocation to Sunny California. Then, suddenly, it is
discovered that this well intentioned plan contains the kernel of
a cost-non-beneficial flaw: Since all of the new managers live on
the East Coast it might make more sense to move the company back
East.  So, out of the blue it is announced, "We will begin the
process of closing our old heaquarters and redistributing the
1000+ employees to other existing facilities within a 100 mile
radius." This sucks the morale from the marrow of the remaining
workers and development grinds to a halt. Even the Asian guys
start looking for new jobs, which means restarting their visa
applications and/or the danger of returning home to marry someone
they met once when they were six years old and hated the opposite
sex anyway. Among other painful realities.

In this manner, the young Prince kills the old King, banishes the
court, places his warlords in the newly opened positions, and
begins burning the old castle to the ground as an example for the
peasants.

After few more rounds are fired behind closed doors, a Brave New
Marketing Strategy is announced. "It has been decided that the
current flagship product," upon which Michael and his teammates
have labored lo these many years, "Will be mothballed into
maintenance mode. From here on we will devote our energy to a
single new project, code named Woody. This will put all the wood
of our scattered development efforts into one big shaft behind a
single arrowhead, zinging into the future. In this way, we,
Ki=2+j=m, its management, and its employees, will regain our
accustomed position at the head of the technology pack." Except,
of course, for those of you who are still trying to make those old
products, that will generate the cash for this endeavor, work.
"Anyway, the analysts we've talked to like the idea."

Soon thereafter it is also decided that Michael's product's old
and mothballed current release candidate will not be able to
complete Quality Assurance Testing by the announced date. Meetings
are held, strategies studied, pontifications provided, but no one
of any importance mentions that the problem is mostly that QA has
not written the tests to prove the code is not full of bugs, and
that QA has lost most of its staff so those tests will not
magically appear. Also, questions as to the source of the release
date, which was apparently pulled out of a hat by the new division
manager, are not addressed. What's left of the development group,
after being cherry picked to work on Woody's shaft, is ordered
to return to the previous code line and add only those features
and patches as are determined to be absolutely necessary. This
triggers a massive research effort to determine what patches were
actually made in the past two years of development and if they
were at all necessary, followed by a significant amount of
redundant reverse engineering to back-port the lucky selections
into the old code. It also moroons all of the new features for
which development, but not QA, is complete.


0.3

As the newly scheduled date approaches, more and more of the
orphaned features are discovered to have been promised to
important customers and, according to marketing -- who previously
swore that they needed something new right away to keep the
momentum going -- cannot be left out.  Therefore they are
absolutely important after all.

"Or maybe not. We'll get back to you."

In the middle of this, the New Improved Management Team announces,
"Well, gee, maybe it wasn't such a great idea to completely burn
that old castle. Therefore, it has been decided that we will keep
the dungeon open for employee use. Those of you who are still
there may stay, and more of your kind will be summoned from other
offices to keep you company." The affected employees generally
just hunker further into their foxholes and wait for the torrent
of shoes to diminish.

"And to make this all seem to make sense as well as attempt to
compensate those of us who thought we would be compensated in the
Kj=m+1 timeframe, it has been decided that the company will be
split into two parts. Part A, Kk=1{((i+j)-(i-j=m,n-1))} to be
known, for now, as Kk=?, will consist of the stuff we brought with
us and the few parts of Ki=2 that we think we can use. And, so
that the rest of you may rejoice that your old castle will once
again be the headquarters of something, Part B will be what's left
over, Ki=2{(i-(j=1,m)}, now known as Ki=2.3333, crippled beyond
recognition. This will make it easier to show that we are
profitable." Or something like that. "Anyway, the analysts we
talked to liked the idea." Needless to say Michael and his product
are in Plan B. "And there's a contest to name the new company, so
keep those cards and letters coming!"

Now Michael begins seeking other opportunities as well. He does
this by conning his boss into letting him spend the summer
'working remotely' from New Mexico, where, through the offices of
an old friend, he has managed to arrange an academic research job.
Unfortunately, it also involves an academic salery, but this, for
the moment, is pure gravy. His success in going remote can be
attributed to: 1) He has finally regained his Yahoo status and can
get away with just about anything; 2) His boss is just too chicken
to fire him on the spot; or, 3) Everyone is so dispirited that it
doesn't much matter anyway.  In any case, he has cunningly and
accidentally put a plan in place to take up the slack in the final
days of the empire.

After a brief period of rumor mongering it becomes known that
Ki=2.3333 will be bought by K! -- where Ki=2.3333 << K!, in other
words, Ki=2.3333's little drip of a company is less than a drop in
the bucket of the buyer's supra-national empire. The purchase
price is about twice Ki=2.3333's annual revenue, so it's a fire
sale, and none of the proceeds will ever get within sight of the
chattle being sold, barring a momentary lift in the, now doubly
dot-bombed, price of Kk=?'s stock due to the altruistic market
feeling that any change must be for the better. This means
Michael's windfall stock options are now just about equal to the
price of a used double-wide -- which may be useful in New Mexico
afterall.

Thus it comes to pass that the consumation of the union of
Ki=2.3333 with K! takes place while Michael is ensconsed in the
mountains of northern New Mexico, his major remotely-working duty
being a daily conference call with his teammates. This he takes
from his hammock within view of the Jemez mountains. He often
meditates on the basic nature of pinon trees and puffy clouds.
Sometimes he is awakened by the forced cheerfulness of the "Ok,
goodbye"'s at the end of the call. Every day he thanks the God
of Wind for the invention of the MUTE button.


0.4

All is peaceful until K! decides to sweeten a retention bonus that
the now defunct Ki=2 offered to many of its employees in order to
keep them on the books until the sale closed -- so K! wouldn't
back out of an obvious pig-in-a-poke situation.  (Michael has
begun to suspect that the whole Woody/shaft/head thing was also a
ploy to keep some of the real talent around, but since he wasn't
among the first cherries picked he doesn't much care, except that
it means that the entire bait-and-switch release sleight of hand
was also just to keep up the appearance that the wheels of
business were still functioning, which, of course, in the end,
means that everything he is doing is pretty much pointless, but he
knew that already.) This tastier bonus requires that a new
agreement be signed, and it slowly dawns that Michael is no where
to be found to perform this duty. The news travels the Management
and Human Resources grapevines in small wavelets of consternation.
Michael's boss performs one of his first K! CYA actions and
cajoles _his_ boss into going along with the ruse that Michael is
a valuable employee doing his best work supporting the team in
debugging subtle problems in the inner recesses of the product. Or
something on that order. At least that's what Michael hopes was
said. The main piece of evidence is an email message analysing a
particularly nasty bug which he sent just past midnight a few days
prior. Michael must be working hard at that time of night, right?

In the end, the document is faxed, signed, and returned on
schedule.  For a few days Michael fields emails and phone calls
from minor functionaries and the storm front passes with no
immediately apparent damage. But now, unfortunately, they know
that he is out there, somewhere, operating on his own.

In order to maintain the pretense that everything is under
control, Michael is promoted to a pointless position with a nicer
title: Architect. He starts perusing triangle and compass sets in
order to improve his drafting skills, but soon finds that a
_Software_ Architect is responsible for divining and directing the
future of his product, or in this case, since he is still just a
baby Architect, feature set. The small fact seemingly overlooked
by all concerned is that not only Michael's feature set, but his
entire product line, has been fast-tracked to the incorporated
ashcan and thus effectively has no future to dowse nor develop.
However this does not prevent him from ordering new business cards
with an impressive title.

As it turns out, the most important task of an Architect is to
attend meetings with other Architects and talk about stuff. Very
important and arcane stuff that no one understands because it has
been obfuscated by years of bricollage. Since Michael is still in
New Mexico, and the weekly meeting is headquartered in Kansas --
somehow the locus of power has shifted to Ki=2's packaging
facility without anyone mentioning it -- he phones it in from his
acustomed hammock-with-a-view. For the previously mentioned
reasons there isn't really much to do Architecture wise, and what
there is generally boils down to angel-pin-head sorts of
discussions.  So, having met only one, and caught the names of two
more of the amorphous group of participants, he has no idea who is
talking about what and/or why they might care. He takes the route
of least resistance, puts the phone on MUTE, posts a note of
appreciation to St. Jude for 1-800 conference numbers, and takes a
nap. The only real fly in the ointment is that the meeting
conflicts with afternoon tea-time and he misses his cookie ration
on Thursdays.

One disturbing trend does emerge from the snippets of conversation
that impinge on his semi-consciousness during these naps. His
collegues have begun to suspect that they, also, have no earthly
function, and are generally not so sanguine about the
implications.  Therefore, over the weeks, with no basis in
reality, the hindquarters of a new Process Component rears to the
fore. The Architectural Specification Document is touted as the
missing link in the Process chain that will make development run
like a finely tuned machine producing product akin to fine tuna.
Many meetings are spent honing the Microsoft Word template --
"When did we start using Word for official documentation," Michael
wonders? "Must be something to do with Kansas..." -- and
discussing the finer points of routing the result for sign-off.
When the dust clears, the newly birthed ASD is introduced to the
working classes as a required piece of documentation for any
contemplated product improvement. At least before the life support
plug is pulled.


0.5

As with all good things, those that are not experiencing them
begin to wonder, "Is it over yet?", and Michael is reluctantly
obliged to return from the high desert to his lowly office. He
feels fortunate to have, apparently, aced the worst of the
absorbtion process by being on walkabout, and begins to believe
that he may have finally fallen into a corporate crack.

But the K! machine grinds nothing if not slow and steady and his
scent is eventually detected. He begins to receive communications
from "Human Resources" about a required three day seminar entitled
"Speaking of Language" which, Michael gathers from his peers who
have been-there-done-that, seems to have something to do with
absorbing K!'s media presence interspersed with discussions of
bits of corporate philosophy. One of the more disturbing
philosophical tidbits is the Intellectual Property Agreement.

With the SOL and IPA now on his track, the messages which started
out in the "We're sure you just forgot," we're-here-to-help-you-
just-call-us-any-time tone, slowly take on the "This is no
laughing matter, young man," voice of the HR Janus. When Michael
receives notification that he has been registered in the very-last
SOL session, at another office, 40 miles of rush-hour-traffic
distant, he replies on the order of "Gosh, I'd really love to, but
I have to work that day." As luck would have it, this is the last
week of the transition manager's tenure, and Michael's SOL
experience is not at the top of the new factotum's list. Saved by
the shuffle once again, he breathes a quiet sigh.

The IPA is no laughing matter however.  Since The Company makes at
least a quarter of its income by licensing its patents to other
unsuspecting companies, ownership of its employees thoughts and
deeds is very high on the list of must haves. Once the baggage has
been stripped from the carcus the Agreement literally says,
"Anything done by the employee, on or off the job, in which The
Company can show a research or business interest, belongs to The
Company." Period. This is non-negotiable.  "And yes, since The
Company does just about everything you can think of, even if you
don't know we thought of it, when you think of it, we own it.
Please sign here."

Michael is not particularly buoyed by this wording, and more
especially its all encompasing interpretation.  He finds a lawyer.
His lawyer says, "This is utterly rediculous." Michael relays that
information to K!'s lawyer. Their lawyer says, "Not at all, young
man," even though he is probably 10 years younger, "You work for
us, we own what you do."

"But what if it has nothing to do with any of my job
responsibilities?  I work for The Company in certain areas and I'm
glad to let them have anything they pay me to do. But I have lots
of other interests."

"You may be using skills you learned while working for The
Company.  You can see that we don't want you to use anything you
learned here to compete with us, can't you?"

Actually Michael can't, but he begins probing to see if there is
any way to tell what might be in "The Company's business or
research interests". "Let's say I make a piece of technologically
based art, how do I know if it's 'of interest'?"

"Does it have a website?"

"Yeah, sure, a website....whatever."

"We're definately interested. Websites are something The Company
does."

"Ok then, what if the website is done pro-bono for a non-profit
organization that probably doesn't have enough money to pay anyone
for it anyway?"

"Like I said, we do websites, you'd be competing with us. Lets put
it this way, if you want to open a shop where you bake and sell
pies, we're not interested. But everything else, you gotta get our
approval."

"I see. Even if it's pre-existing and on-going?"

"Everything," he pauses. A chill enters the air, "Were you working
on this stuff before the buy-out?"

"Sure, when else would I do it?"

"Then we might own it already because we bought the rights to all
of K=2.3333's IP."

Michael feels a pounding in his head. He tries to control his
voice.  "That is impossible. First, my work is in no way related
to the what I did for Ki=1,n or to any of their 'business
interests'.  Second I never signed an IP agreement with any of
them.  I didn't really have to assign the rights to the patent we
did get for my work."

"Look guy, the bottom line here is: Either you sign the agreement
or you're out."

"So, how can they fire me if I never officially worked for them?"

"Good bye."

In the end Michael realizes that he really has no choice if he
wants to continue being a highly-over-compensated-computer-
professional.  It is tantamount to agreeing that nothing he does
will ever even make it onto their radar. This is not so good for
his morale. And, as goes morale, so goes the ship. Since what
he does doesn't matter he begins a concerted effort to accomplish
absolutely nothing, and becomes quite successful at it. He finds
being actively non-productive to be rather rewarding in itself.


0.6

But, as hitherto noted, nothing lasts...

One day email is sent to the entire staff to the effect that: "It
is not The Company's policy to provide free coffee for its
employees. We don't want to make a special case for your
pre-existing condition because it might be bad for morale in other
offices, therefore no more coffee will be purchased to replace
current supplies.

"Oh, and while were at it, since there won't be any coffee we
might as well take out the coffee machines. And, yeah, since there
are no coffee machines you won't be needing the water filters on
the sinks either. That's why we invented drinking fountains.

"And, by-the-way, since no one should need First Aid supplies in a
white-collar industry like ours, those boxes are of historical
interest as well.

"If you want coffee we will be installing a vending machine on the
bottom floor for your use. And speaking of vending machines, we're
not subsidizing the soda and candy machines anymore either. Full
price or no price."

A flurry of email is sent in reply. Michael volunteers to buy both
coffee and water filters for his floor.  One of the other wags
inquires as to the price of sheets of toilet paper. But in the end
the plumbing is ripped out, leaving the kitchens stocked with the
last of the coffee and no way to brew it.  Which is fortunate
because there are no longer any salves to sooth the inevitable
burns either.

The promised machine arrives. It is one of the finest examples of
Maxwell House BowlingAlleyModerne to be found in the greater Bay
Area. It has a 'Cappucino' button annotated as "Frothed coffee
with whitener".  Samples are taken and it lives up to its image.
There is a non-unanamous boycot. Some people actually don't care.
In fact, Michael doesn't care, because, on the few days that he
does make it into the office instead of 'working from home', he
makes his coffee in a french press. But there are principles at
stake after all, so he shows support for the loyal opposition.

Perhaps due to low usage, Le Machine begins to produce fruit flys.
The flys escape and have everyone swatting at apparently empty
air. Carol, the floor's admin tapes Le Machine's product delivery
door closed. It is somewhat effective, as evidenced by the piles
of dead bugs that collect on various interior surfaces. Soon
thereafter Le Machine is disappeared, leaving a lone rubber water
hose dangling from the wall which Michael finds is good for
threatening co-workers with a drenching when they enter the
kitchen.  But only when he is not 'working-from-home'.  The only
lasting effect is to encourage the staff to take extended coffee
breaks at cafes in the neighborhood. This improves overall
job-satisfaction by a tiny amount.


0.7

During one of the monthly Thinking Around the Box meetings
development on Michael's main feature set is canceled and handed
over to the maintenance group for further attention. His teammates
are reassigned to work on something entirely unrelated and Michael,
]being too important an Architect to waste on unrelatedness, is
placed with a new manager. This is Sandy's first forray into
leadership. Having been a junior engineer when they first met he
is still a little imtimidated by Michael.

Michael does his best to smooth the transition for his less
experienced superior by assisting in leading their team meetings.
He has a particular fascination with adjusting the blinds in the
meeting room to counter balance the blinding sunlight as the
seasons progress with subtle indirect lighting conducive to Big
Thoughts. It seems that the Architectural Specification Document
is necessary for features and additions that are already complete
but languishing in their forward-rev-never-never haufenmist; so,
many of the meetings' Big Thoughts are on the subject of writing
and reviewing ASDs for work that has been code complete for years.
Being the Architect, Michael is required to rubber stamp these
documents before sending them off to the authorities for further
processing. When not adjusting the blinds, he often attempts to
liven things up by asking rhetorical questions.

"Is anyone going to use this?"

"I don't know. Marketing says that we have to finish it."

"For Whom?"

"I don't know. Here's the Marketing Specifications Document."

In one particularly spirited meeting the subject of "Why ASDs?" is
finally broached. The feature of the moment is something that is
documented and in customer use, even though it hasn't been blessed
by the Quality Assurance pass-over. Due to the sense of emptyness
left in the wake of this missing ritual, the Architects' Committee
deems it necessary to review the feature's raison de estat, which,
of course, requires that its papers be in ordinung. Michael
attempts to explain the genesis of the ASD, "Its the end product
of a group of people who realized that they had nothing to do and,
if they didn't do something soon, someone would find out." None of
his compatriots believe him, but they all think it's a funny story
anyway. In general they humor him, laugh at what they take to be
jokes, and then steer clear of the loose canon.

Michael's negative productivity index eventually comes to the
attention of management. Once again he begins to receive outside
communications.  One day Jerry, the division head, calls him at
home to deliver a little pep talk.

Jerry introduces the subject of expected output from a Level Nine
Employee -- up there, but not high enough to matter to anyone.
Michael explains that he is doing everything that Sandy asks of
him. Reviewing ASD's, consulting on bugs with the junior engineers
(some of whom, transferred from the India Development Office, know
infinitely more than Michael ever will), and even, occasionally,
attemping to fix something by himself...although this effort is
usually stymied by various Process requirements that make it
impossible to integrate changes into any known code base.

Jerry is concerned that Michael is not taking initiative. Michael
explains that, basically, his product has been mothballed, his
features for that product canceled, his development team
disbanded, and his worksite more-or-less dismantled. In fact,
Michael's view is that he has been hung out to dry like an old
pair of shorts and never retrieved from the laundry line to be put
to use protecting someone's sensitive genitals from the rough and
tumble world of scratchy pants. He tries to present this view in
somewhat less graphic terms.

Jerry, in general, is not pleased with the course of the
conversation.  "What about the Architects' Committee?"

"I would call it utter nonsense, except that the discussions must
mean something to someone or they wouldn't be so adamant about
them.  Besides, all the subjects I've heard are so far from my
area of expertise that I couldn't have an opinion. And, I don't
even know who most of them are anyway."

"What did you do about that?"

"I gave Bob a list of topics that I thought were relevant to my
area with marketing requirements and risk/reward assessments." At
least I remember the name of the guy who's in charge, Michael
thinks, at least I hope that's his name, "But I never heard
anything about it again."

"Look, as a Level Nine Employee, we expect you to use your skills
to make contributions to The Company and its products. You should
be able to overcome minor obstacles like this."

"Well, you know, in the whole discussion of the IP agreement,
which I brought to your attention a couple months ago when you
were out here, The Company's lawyer told me that one of the issues
is that they don't want me using skills that I learned here,
elsewhere.  That leads me to believe that I shouldn't be using
skills that I learned elsewhere here."

"You What....?!!" At this juncture there is a commotion on the
phone line, "I just got to the gym, I gotta go." Jerry hangs up on
Michael.

"I guess that didn't go very well," Michael thinks.


0.8

The next day, Gary, the department head comes to inspect the
offices, meet the underlings, and spread the good word about the
future. After the revival meeting with the tiny group of employees
who are still clinging on for dear life Gary drops by Michael's
office. Fortunately Michael has been forwarned and is still in his
office.

"I'm just going around talking to people to see how things are
going," Gary, a doughy, mid-aged, mid-westerner, takes a seat on
the far side of Michael's desk.

"So you talked to Jerry?"

"What?"

Michael realizes that he is going to relive the entire previous
day's conversation in real time, "Well, I have to say I'm not a
happy camper. Basically I have nothing to do, and I'm doing it
really well...."

After it's, mostly verbatim, over, Gary takes his leave saying,
"Maybe we can find you some projects."

Soon thereafter Gary sends an email to everyone under his command.
The message contains two attachments, one is 4 page single spaced
Word document, the other is a 7 page PowerPoint presentation.
Michael has long since become innured to the management assumption
that he has these products readily available, even though, 1) his
work is, by policy, done on systems that don't support Windows,
and 2) K! is in direct competition with Microsoft in a number of
markets.

The attachments detail elements of K!'s "Employee Life-Work
Strategy", a hydra-headed proposal for productivity improvement
couched in terms of employee benefits.  Basically they comprise
many bulleted round-about ways of positing that what's good for
The Company is good for all. One of the bullet points is:
"Employees spend too much time performing un-necessary tasks."

Michael deletes the documents. Then he reads Gary's accompanying
message: "I want you all to read the enclosed documents carefully,
think about them, and get back to me with the three things that
waste your time the most." He bites his tongue even though there
is no one around to hear anything he might have to say. He stares
at the screen and re-reads the instructions. He has no idea what
to do. He emails a synopsis of the proceedings to several of his
close advisors in the computer industry, all of whom share his
somewhat jaundiced view of said industry, asking for advice. The
general consensus is that he should claim that the instructions
sent his brain into an infinite recursive loop and then demand
permanent disability benefits.

Wisely, he does nothing.  At the next team meeting he asks if
anyone replied, and if so, with what. No one remembers the
message.


0.9

Two weeks later Michael receives email directly from Gary
assigning him to work on an issue that has been hounding the
product since Moore's law overtook decade old assumptions about
how many chickens could come home to roost. The message says,
"Please look into this and send me a plan to address the problem
in two weeks." It is, like the Architects' Committee agendas, no
where even conceptually near his area. It's as if Michael has been
working on the dark side of the moon for the last six years, and
now suddenly, the moon has decided to get-wit-da-program and
rotate him into the sunlight.  He is blinded by his new
orientation.

"It's a set-up. Management shenanigans so that I will fail and
can be bounced as an incompetant schlimiel.  Oh well, I guess
I might as well see what it's all about. At least it's a job
befitting my Level Nine status. Maybe...." After polling most of
the people who should have been working on the issue, getting many
informative ear-fulls about plans that were not implemented,
mostly because the planners feared, deep down inside, even though
they were apparently incredulous that their advice was not taken
to heart, that they would break everything and as punishment be
put in direct contact with angry customers on a 24x7 basis,
Michael figures out what the problem is. In fact there is no easy
solution, only stopgaps. Every real solution requires that
tera-bytes of customer data be rewritten in a new format, which
might not work, and thus leave the progenitor in the dreaded
24x7 direct mode, forever.

Using his sharp intuitive skills Michael realizes that he is not
being set-up, but rather that Gary has no idea what to do and is
grasping at straws. Also, either he, Gary, thinks that he,
Michael, is brilliant, or he, Gary, has no clue about how the
product works and who the appropriate personnel are. Michael
prefers to believe the former, but deep down he suspects the
latter to be more in keeping with the times.  He rises to the
non-existant challenge. "Even if I don't know shinola," being a
Level Nine Employee and all, "I should be able to propose and
dispose like the best of them.  Right?" His report contains a
detailed description of the problem with references to the various
bugs, fixes, and proposals in the historical chain of events. He
even includes a couple of explanatory diagrams of own devising.
It concludes with what he thinks are the short term solutions,
Customer Expectation Management issues, and future development
directions. Also, as an after thought, he looks into the the
original bug report that set the meschugana in motion.  It turns
out to be a testing problem.  Nothing to worry about.

Only a week late Michael sends it in. Sandy complements him on
completing it.

Time goes by.

Gary finally replies by sending a copy of the report to all the
people who should of been working on it saying, "What do you
think?" and Michael never hears anything about it again. He even
asks Sandy if he is supposed to be doing something himself. But
apparently it is out of their hands. New horizons to conquer, etc.


1.0

In April Michael begins to have issues. He wants to 'work
remotely' from New Mexico during the summmer again. He is rather
adamant that something will 'have to be worked out'. Sandy
attempts to smooth things over by saying, "We'll see what we can
do." But as expected "What we can do" turns out to be "Nothing".

Michael has already made arrangements to disappear in mid-June,
and his vacation time adds up to about a month -- mostly because
he 'forgot' to deduct the time used when he was traveling back and
forth to New Mexico during the previous year. He figures that now
is the time to make the move, take the time off, and then bail out.
But it is important to stay on the payroll through June 30, because
that is when payment number two of the retention bonus occurs. He
thinks it might just work, so he gets his vacation approved and
awaits the inevitable.

At the beginning of May some unease is felt in The Company's
force.  Spectors appear forshadowing change. Rumors of Reductions-
In-Force circulate. Plans for Realignment are perhaps being
discussed.  The topic of Surplus-Employee-Reassignments is
raised.  The Company's internal job posting site is cited
numerous times.  Nearly every team will suffer losses, but no one
knows precisely who said that or when.  Sandy looks terror
stricken at the thought of having to escort one of his team to the
exit. Michael can't stand to see Sandy suffer so in his first
management position, so, out of the goodness of his own heart, he
volunteers to take the bullet for one of his co-workers, all of
whom actually need the job, and be the first one out the door.

Sandy says that the decision is out of his hands. Michael cancels
his vacation.

A week later Sandy calls Michael while he is 'working from home',
to make an appointment for a 'discussion' at 10:00 the next
morning.  At 9:45 Michael walks past the boss's office.  Sandy
darts out and says, "We have a phone meeting with Gary in
fifteen minutes. No matter what happens, _please_ don't say thank
you to me while Gary is on the phone."

"Yah shure, ya betcha."

Sandy is from India, has never been to the dairy states, and is
not sure what to make of the response, so he mutely backs into his
office and pulls the door closed. Michael uploads everything from
his workstation to a server outside K!'s firewall.

Promptly at ten o'clock Michael enters Sandy's office. Venkman,
one of the other recently promoted managers, who had also been a
FOS engineer when Michael started at Ki=1, is in attendance, and
looking very much like he doesn't want to admit that he is sitting
on a tack.  Due to pre-existing facial dispositions this makes him
look like a frog with hemoroids. He nods to Michael in greeting.

Sandy says, "Well lets get started," dials the phone and punches
the speaker button. In a couple of rings Gary picks up. After the
rather terse pleasantries he says, "As you may know, The Company
is RIFing to balance expectations to head-count."

"Yup, I figured as much."

"And, not due to anything about you in particular, you have been
selected to be let go. Your last day is in one month."

With Sandy's recent plea fresh in his mind Michael says, "Aw, gee,
after everything I've done."

"Well as I said it's nothing personal. I'm really sorry, but
that's the way it is...." Sandy is staring at his hands which are
twiddling a pen. Venkman is leaning forward in his chair, ready to
bolt for the door in case Michael, who has a, generally
undeserved, reputation for being volatile, becomes overly
agitated.

"I understand completely...So what's the package?"

Both Sandy and Venkman relax. "Uh, err, well lets see," Gary
stutters through the sounds of paper shuffling. "Umm, you get all
your accrued vacation of course, one month of pay for every year
of employment, six months continued health insurance, and....uh,
well, and," Gary's voice takes a slightly chagrined tone, "a payout
on your retention bonus."

Michael modulates his response. "Ok, so what should I do now?"
There are a number of minor tasks that he could complete after all.

"Look for a new job."

Just outside the door he says, "Yess!"

By the time he gets back to his office he can't login in to his
workstation. The Company can be ruthlessly efficient when it needs
to be.


					 xxx