Dear J-
One thing I will say in favor of being busy and, in manager-speak, “engaged:” it does make the day go a whole lot faster than before. We’ve reached the point where the folks who couldn’t or wouldn’t do work are refusing to learn the new systems and, as a result, this may be the brush fire that clears out the tangled old growth. Yet it’s a fire nonetheless, and I keep seeing things slip further and further behind as I sit at my desk — now I understand the appeal of different schedules, as getting five uninterrupted minutes lately has been incredibly difficult.
There’s a lot to admire in the new system, but perhaps the most admirable thing has been the sales job they’ve done. Yes, the framework is quite extensible and customizeable to accomodate custom sorts, searches, and views, but at the same time, what could be a selling point also comes with a warning: don’t customize too much, or else we can’t guarantee that we can support it for you, or that your customizations are limited to you and you alone — you may end up building forms for everyone, here. Thus not only have they sold us a system that takes more work (“Hey, you don’t want to buy pre-made clothes; bolts of cloth are much more flexible — you can make your own patterns!”), they’ve discouraged us from doing that work (“Well, technically you could make your own clothes, but we recommend these patterns — which we happen to sell — so that you don’t look too funny.”) Amazing that no one’s noticed this emperor is lacking, sartorially speaking.
The upshot is this: despite all the lies and manager double-speak (“We’re going to have to accept change”) the new system is here to stay. We can wish for the old system, we can hope that the new system will get better (for me, it’s unacceptable to close a trouble ticket by repeating the problem statement back to me: I already know what that is; at least tell me what actions you’re taking to ameliorate the problem), but meanwhile, we’ve still got to live with it. Live easy, or die hard, is that right?
Mike
