The visitation

Okay, probably (I hope) the penultimate update on my current employment situation. (I might post next Friday when I’m officially unemployed. Or I might just drink.)

At last report, I had the official—and officially surreal—meeting with HR. That was Tuesday. Several times during that session, when she wasn’t saying how sorry she was to be meeting me “under these circumstances”, the HR chick also told me that SM (program director) and JC (colleague who, for completely unknown reasons, was my “acting supervisor”; also one of the two who have displayed nothing but disrespect for the actually vital knowledge and experience I brought to the project) had wanted very much to be present, but just weren’t able to.

Oh. Right. Here’s my “I really believe that” face.

However, they were both in on Wednesday, tone deaf as ever. JC wafted into my office for the first time in the six months I’ve been on the same floor to inquire with feigned concern, “How are you doing?

I just looked at her, waiting for the follow-up, “What are your plans for the summer?”

“Oh, not well, yeah. I get that.” She went on to put the blame on the foundation whose seven-figure grant was supposed to have been made last Fall (although SM had told me that even if that money came in, she still couldn’t keep me on staff full-time, as she's already pre-spent much of it); it’s all their fault. And she continued by describing their slowness as “beyond constipated. It’s like they have a bowel obstruction and there’s no way to clear the blockage. It’s a…shitty situation.”

No, I am not making this up. She fancies herself quite the stand-up comic. Also, see above about tone deafness.

She made the obligatory yet empty offer of giving any help possible. We should connect on LinkedIn. She could write a [generic] letter of reference. Which is how things are done in academia, but is useless in the business world. Also—imagine the irrelevant claptrap such a document would contain; she has no idea whatsoever what the program is losing with my departure.

Viz: I updated her on the status of the proposals for scoping the IT requirements I’ve received from four vendors. I’d asked for clarification from all of them, and in the course of doing so, one of them lowered their estimate considerably. She was dumbfounded.

“I had no idea that just by asking questions you could lower the price!”

No kidding—this is kind of basic in the business world; you never pay retail, and contracts are all about negotiation. But on Planet Academic Cloud Cuckooland, you don’t mind paying over the odds for goods and services. (This was not the vendor to whom LW had disclosed how much funding we had asked for; they still think we’ve got cash in hand in the high six figures.) However, she gave no indication that she would consider that course of action in the future. She's one who likes doing what she's always done.

I also reminded her that they cannot launch the program without the IT, and that she/they need to decide when that launch is going to happen. It’s already slipped from January 2020 to Q3 2020, and they aren’t going to make that. About a year ago, when I was writing the business plan, and I told them that they’d need the whole IT up and running to launch, JC waved airily and proclaimed, “Oh, I don’t believe in setting deadlines. We never meet them around here.”

No, I am not making that up, either. I was so gobsmacked that I wrote it down. And she’s running this show.

What no one except me seems to realize is that every day this thing doesn’t launch and begin generating revenues is a day where they go deeper into the hole.

Further, I reiterated that you can’t charge subscription fees for services that you can’t provide. (Those will all be on the IT platform.) She solemnly agreed. She has, she said, considered charging modest application fees until they can launch. I refrained from pointing out that a few thousand dollars a year is not going to keep the lights on; instead I said that if you get customers used to, say, a $1000 price point for a transaction every five years, it’s a hard sell to, six or 12 months later say, “Oh, by the way, we have these cool things now and you need to pay $35,000 a year for them.”

She screwed up her face and announced with satisfaction, “I have no business acumen; zero. I guess I’ll gain some some day…" (And on that note she drifted out.)

Maybe, maybe not. My money’s on the latter. And you sure as hell aren’t going to gain it in time to save this program.

And I’m sorry about that, because the program is worthwhile, and I don’t see how it has a chance of living up to its potential. But at least I won’t be pushing this particular boulder up that blasted hill.