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.

Kondoing the office

Along with a functional reorganization, which took place a few months ago, the department had a physical reorg, too. We’ve spent the past two weeks packing up and schlepping our offices; some only a couple of doors down, some to different floors.

Almost no one is a happy camper about it.

Of course, in my case, it’s a matter of indifference.

Anyhow, as a part of this, Facilities brought up a flock of industrial-sized barrels for people clearing years of stuff out of their offices, and lined a few of them up in the atrium. I just liked the look of them:

Of course four bins is nowhere sufficient to clear out my manager’s office, much less the rest of the floor, but not my problem.

Two week notice

Further to Monday’s post, the head of HR called me to a meeting yesterday; the short version of this is I’m employed until 20 June, and my health benefits end ten days later.

Also—because I’m grant-funded, I get no severance pay. The HR chick parried words with me, but essentially—while they do have a severance policy—it’s at the company’s discretion whether they follow it. (They did for the mass layoff last November. That was a special situation, apparently.) So, hurrah for five weeks of unused vacation hours.

And unemployment? "We won't oppose that." 

Well, at least she closed the door to the room for the meeting. Which was more than my manager did last week when she delivered the news.

If you can believe, while we were waiting for the operations person from my department to show up, HR brightly asked me if I had any plans for the summer. Yes, she did. I told her I’d be looking for a job. Which seemed to surprise her. She repeated many times that was so sorry she was meeting me under these circumstances.

And she offered me chocolates on my way out. Because, yeah, that'll help.

You know—so much of my experience with this organization has been amateur hour. It has to be a good thing that I’m getting out of the place. And at least now I know how long I have.

Digging a hole

A while ago I looked out of my Metro window and saw some of the construction going on in McLean:

I can never see excavators like these without thinking of Mike Mulligan and his steam shovel, Mary Anne. I always loved the children’s story of their partnership, and how they managed to adapt to new circumstances. (These guys have left a ramp, though.) Here’s a film that HBO produced of the tale about 30 years ago.

You’re welcome.

Gratitude Monday: next steps

Well, well, well. Life’s a funny old thing, innit?

Last Thursday—the 75^th anniversary of D-Day—the head of the program I’m working on came into my office (only the fourth time in the past six months this has occurred) and asked how I was doing. I replied the usual and inquired after herself.

“Not very well,” she said. And the short version is that the program has burned through the several hundred thousand dollars we’ve got in grants, and she’s letting me go.

This is actually not unusual in startup organizations: they’re underfunded and don’t manage what funds they do have, so everything goes to hell and they can’t figure out how to turn it around. We were partly screwed by having a grant proposal in seven figures to the National Science Foundation, which was to have been made late last year, but the government shutdown put it on hold for months. We still haven’t received it. And even if it should show up tomorrow, my manager (whom I’ll call SM) said the best she could do for me was part-time, because she’s “mortgaged” that money, spending it on other things in advance of receiving it, like a wastrel viscount in a Regency novel living riotously on his expectations.

(It’s telling that, while this initiative is truly a worthwhile endeavor, and we are uniquely positioned to make systemic changes in STEM diversity and inclusion, our overall organization has declined to fund it. The few million in startup costs would have been an investment in not only a bold new program that would be self-sustaining in five years, but would also have added immeasurable prestige to the organization. However, this company is nothing if not risk averse, so that’s that.)

I’ve been struggling with my colleagues ever since I was transferred in—while SM specifically asked for me because of my business skills—the two program directors have been nothing but dismissive and disrespectful and uncollegial. (This is not me being super sensitive; others have commented on it as well.) They completely fail to recognize that if this program is not a sustainable business, it will fail. And that I’m the only person who can frame the business strategy, build a revenue model, develop a marketing plan and product manage the complex IT platform that is critical to business operations.

Critical inasmuch as: you cannot launch this program and ask institutions to pay annual subscription fees in five figures without it.

I won’t go into detail, but even on this element—an area in which they have zero expertise and I have more than a decade as a product manager—they hared off to run the buildout themselves. I spoke with SM a couple of times about my concerns in this regard; she nodded and said, “We should have a huddle.” And nothing changed.

So, I just started taking it over. As it stands now, four companies have submitted proposals for the work of documenting the software requirements so we can issue an RFP to build the platform. (I included the colleague I’ll refer to a LW on scoping calls as the programmatic SME. During them he pished endlessly about things that are irrelevant to the discussion, and he waxed expansive on how much money we have in hand—high six figures—to spend on the project. Yes—he told the vendor how much money we have to spend; you heard me hitting my head on my desk at that moment. And he sent the clear message that he was running the show.

Well, I guess he will be…if they ever get the money.

Okay, well, back to D-Day. I asked SM what the timeline was—was I to clear out my desk right then? No, she’d need to work it out with my other colleague, who is (get this) my “acting supervisor”; SM was moved out of managerial responsibilities while I was in Ireland. And the chick who is widely viewed throughout the organization as a loose screw and who actively disrespects my contributions now holds my immediate future in her hands. And she’s currently partly out on some kind of medical leave (which I only knew about because of her out of office email response). SM said she wanted to be “humane”, although I don’t know what her definition of that term is.

For a renowned scientist, SM was remarkably vague, and was clearly more concerned about the program than me. (Fair enough. But without me, they’ll end up having to hire a business strategist, a marketing director and a product manager…if they ever get the money and if my two colleagues haven’t driven the train off the rails by then. They have no pricing strategy and no expertise to build one. Also, without the IT, they have only one of four services to offer, which lowers the retail value considerably. But no longer my problem.) How unconcerned? She didn’t close the door to my office while telling me this.

So why is this sad tale my Gratitude Monday post?

Back in December 2017, when my then-manager announced that the board of directors had decided to defund the innovations program, I’d just got back from my first mini-vacation since I joined the company—a long weekend in Québec City. My first though (before he told me that SM wanted me to work on her program) was, “Oh, no—I’m sorry I spent the money on that trip!” My first feeling was fear.

This time—just having returned from a longer, and more expensive, trip to Ireland—I’m glad I took the trip. I’m not sorry at all that I busted out and invested in my happiness. Because that’s what that journey was: a leap of faith that I can be happy again.

On my Metro ride home Thursday, I thought about all the financial terrors that could lie ahead, and then I remembered I have 401(k) savings. I have a place to live. My car’s locks stopped recognizing the electronic signal on my fob, but the key works fine. I should have made the appointment with the dermatologist, but my insurance will cover me till the end of the month, when COBRA kicks in.

And then I turned my attention to finding my next career stage. A friend I met through infosec Twitter, who’s been helping me all along, kicked into high gear when I told him my situation. I spent Friday sending résumés and skills matrices to connections he gave me in five companies for internal referrals. I’ve set up a meeting for today with a couple of colleagues just to let them know and to ask them to be on the lookout. Even though they aren’t probably connected to the kinds of companies I’m interested in, you never know. I put in for vacation on Thursday and Friday because I’m over the limit of how much I can get paid for when I leave. And I have a video call with a recruiter on Thursday for a product marketing opening.

And I’m reaching out to former colleagues to get the word out, and get introductions. Product marketing and management, preferably infosec, if you're asking.

Look—I have no idea what’s going to happen. And it is scary; not lying to myself or to you about that. But today, oddly, I’m grateful for the opportunity to set out on the pioneer trail again, to find a place that will value me and my contributions. And I’m grateful I took that trip to Ireland and reminded myself of possibilities.

And that’s my Gratitude Monday.