| The following bit of humor came to be by way of HP. It had been
traveling around their mail system but I do not know who to credit.
I took the liberty of making a few modifications to it to read DEC
instead of HP but other than that it is as I saw it. I guess that
HP is suffering from some of the same problems we are.
A little more humor...
Bob
[450 lines to follow]
This takes place in the year 2041. Jim Harrison, a recent engineering
graduate is scheduled to interview with Digital Equipment Corporation
for an engineering job. We enter the story .....
As Jim Harrison pulled into the visitors' section of the Digital lot, he
noticed the weather looked somewhat ominous. Dark green clouds
periodically covered the sun, which had caused his solar powered
scooter to stutter along on the expressway. Last year, in 2040, they
had predicted better weather today. "At least some things never
change, you just can't trust these weather forcasts" mused Jim.
Jim secured his scooter to the scooter rack and adjusted his clothes.
He wasn't used to dressing this formal, and had to pull his best
leisure suit out of the closet. This was an important interview,
however, and he wanted to take no chances. After all, it was hard to
find an engineering job these days.
Walking through the main entrance, Jim was greeted by a pleasant
secretary. She asked for his name, social security number, citizen
identification number, and 30-digit zip code, then told him to have a
seat. While he was waiting he thumbed through an old issue of "Mars
Today." Every now and then he glanced up at the secretary, who was
busy securing a Sony patch-man behind her ear. "Probably the new
Rolling Stones album," Jim thought.
In a few minutes, a short squat fellow wandered into the lobby towards
him. "James Harrison?" he asked in a slightly nasal voice.
"That's me," Jim stammered.
The two shook hands. "I'm Keeton from Personnel. Welcome to Digital. You
don't mind if I call you 'Harrison,' do you?" Jim noticed that Mr.
Keeton sported a name tag that read, simply, "Keeton."
"Un, no," Jim stammered.
"Good, Henryson, good. I trust your trip here was pleasant. Let's go
to a conference room and talk."
Jim and Mr. Keeton wandered down a long hallway. On either side were
small cubicles, 2 feet by 2 feet, made of Kevlar. In some of the
cubicles stood employees, staring at holographic displays and clicking
methodically at keypads. There was no room for chairs in the cubicles.
"My, these cubicles are somewhat small!" said Jim, trying to make
conversation.
"Oh yes, but there is plenty of room to do one's work. We used to have
larger offices, but as a cost-cutting measure we decided to trim them
down somewhat. Why, do you know that we could fit 100 employees in the
original shed where Digital began?" he beamed.
"You mean mill," corrected Jim.
"Pardon?"
"I thought Digital was begun in an old woolen mill. At least, that's
was my grandfather told me. He used to work for DEC late in the last
century."
"Yeah, well, whatever ..."mumbled Keeton, obviously annoyed at having
been found in error. Jim decided it was probably best not to say
anything else contrary.
They got to the conference room. There was a small table in the center
of the room, and the walls were covered with video screens. Tiny
cameras were mounted in the ceiling, covering every facet of the room.
Jim and Mr. Keeton sat down at the table.
"Well, Barrison, I'd like to start by discussing some of the benefits
we have here at DEC. We have always tried to remain competitive in our
benefits offerings, striving not to be the best or the worst, but just
average. This applies not only to your salary, but to our numerous
other benefit features."
"I am sure you have many benefits, sir, but the name is Harrison, and
..."
"Yeah, whatever. We consider people our prime resource, and are always
interested in their welfare. Take the matter of vacation, for example.
While other companies normally offer 3 weeks of vacation, we at DEC give
the employee 4 weeks of FTO."
"FTO?" Queried Jim, although a few choice phrases came to his mind
which fit the acronym.
"Yes. Flexible Time Off. This time can be used for any reason, such
as sickness, vacation, etc."
"Wow, that sounds pretty good. So I can take this FTO whenever I
want?" Jim asked excitedly.
"Well, not exactly, Morrison. We sort of require that you take 5 days
surrounding Christmas off. Oh yes, and the 5 days surrounding th 4th
of July. They there's Labor Day, Memorial Day, 3 days at Thanksgiving,
Arbor Day, President's Day, New Year's Day, and your Personal Holiday,
which is always February 23rd. We ask that you take all those off."
An incredulous raise of eyebrows. "You mean I have to use FTO for
holidays?" Jim inquired.
"Yes, that was a cost-cutting measure from the late '90s. But don't
worry, you still have an FTO day left to take at your discretion. Of
course, we request that you give us 6 months notice before using it."
"But what if I get sick?"
"Well, that of course is an exception. You need only give one week
notice for sickness."
Keeton had taken out an elegant mahogany case from a drawer in the
table. He opened the case and took out a leather-bound booklet. The
booklet appeared to be of the highest quality, with gold-leaf trim on
the pages. The title of the book was "Your Benefits Book". Jim vaguely
remembered something his grandfather told him about that title --
something about the more elaborate the printing job, the smaller the
contents.
"Let's talk about some other benefits, shall we? First, there's
Digital Stock Plan. After 5 years of service you become eligible for
this plan. The idea is we take out some percentage of your salary,
currently 95%, and direct you to buy DEC stock with it. DEC will match
the stock purchased from your salary with its own contribution,
1-for-1."
"Wow, that's pretty generous," said Jim, eyes brightening. "And I can
sell this stock whenever I want?"
"Well, not exactly. There is a holding period for the stock of 80
years. If you try to sell the stock before then, you forfeit both the
company's shares and your own, not to memtion the 100% penalty."
"Eighty years! That's kind of long, isn't it?"
"Well, Thompson, the purpose of the stock plan is for employees to have
a personal long-term stake in the health of the company. It's also for
this reason that we collect dividends from you for each share of stock
you own if the price drops."
"You mean I am responsible for paying YOU if the company is doing
poorly?"
"Of course, Davidson. DEC respects its people, and believes that they
really want to be responsible for the health of their company. Which
brings me to the next benefit: Profit Sharing. Twice a year DEC looks
at its profit picture and calculates a percentage of each employee's
salary which is distributed as a Profit Sharing check."
"That sounds pretty good. What was the percentage last time?" asked
Jim.
"It was 10%. Hopefully, this next half year will be lower," answered
Keeton.
"Lower? Don't you want it to be higher?"
"Oh, no. You see, DEC hasn't made a profit in years. Actually, we've
lost money for the last 138 consecutive quarters. The 10% is what you,
as a loyal employee, get to contribute back to the company."
"You mean you have NEGATIVE profit sharing?"
"Well, it didn't alway used to be that way, but in the early part of
this century, Personnel instituted it as a cost-cutting measure. It's
been very popular."
"With whom?"
Keeton glared at Jim for a second, but then gathered his composure and
continued. "Of course, if you are interested in saving money for your
retirement, there's always the MaxTax program."
"What's that?"
"DEC allows you to take out up to .01% of your salary and matches 1
dollar for every 30 you put in. The total amount goes into a fund
which you can take out at retirement."
"But what if I need the money sooner?"
"Well, you always have the option of early withdrawal. Of course,
there are certain IRS penalties if you follow that course of action."
"Like what?"
"They take 99%, then tax the other 1% as income"
By this time Jim was rather numb all over, the enormity of DEC's
benefits package just awash over him. Keeton was not finished,
however.
"Like I was telling you, Johnson, DEC takes a real interest in its
people and what they have to say ..."
"It's Harrison, sir and, ..."
"Whatever. In keeping with that tradition, I shall now tell you about
DEC's medical benefits. First, we offer you the option of joining one
of 2000 HMO's."
"Gee, I heard those HMO's were pretty expensive these days. How much
does DEC contribute?"
"Well, we don't actually contribute anything, Jackson, but we do offer
a '1-800' number which you can call to find out all the HMO's available
in your area."
"I don't think I could afford to ..."
"The second option is to join the DEC Medical Plan. This is a plan
where most medical charges are covered 80%/20%."
"That's not too bad, these days. So you cover 80% of my medical
bills?"
Keeton emitted a shrill little cackle. "Ha, that's a good one. I like
your sense of humor! No, silly, you contribute 80%. We reimburse you
for the 20% of the covered charges up to a lifetime maximum of
$10,000."
"Why, $10,000 is only enough for a couple of office visits today ..."
"Well, that's true. Therefore, at no charge to you, DEC offers you the
service of a 'Sickness Consultant.' This person will help you manage
your medical benefits. Here at DEC we have long had the view that an
employee shoud take an active part in shopping for health care. After
all, the last thing that someone who is seriously sick wants is to have
to think about his sickness. Therefore, we offer our valued employees
the privilege of thinking about how they're going to PAY for their
sickness!"
By now Jim was a little pale. Luckily, Keeton was almost finished.
"Well, that about sums up our benefits package. After you leave here,
you will be interviewd by one of our managers, and then by the
engineer. If they like you, we will make you an offer, contingent, of
course, on our drug testing policy."
"What does that involve?" Jim asked as a reflex, although he had second
thoughts about asking immediately after the question blurted from his
mouth.
"Well, you realize by now that DEC takes great pride in its people. As
a case in point, we feel it is our responsibility that our employees
not harm themselves with any type of dangerous, non-socially acceptable
substances. We test for heroin, marijuana, crack, alchohol, nicotine,
nitrites, artificail coloring, hydrogenated vegetable oit,
polyunsaturated fats, and sodium benzoate, a preservative."
At this point, Keeton closed the booklet. "Any questions, Jameson?"
"Well, I do have one question. My grandfather once told me that when
he worked at DEC, everyone was on a first name basis. Yet now I see
even your name tags only contain last names. Why is that?"
"Oh, that was a cost-cutting measure instituted by Personnel in 2020.
DEC saved over $20,000 by reducing the size of its nameplates," Keeton
replied, full of pride. "Well, if that's all, I'll turn you over to
Cook, one of our managers." He looked over his shoulder at the nearest
camera. "Cook, could you come in here please?"
A second later the door opened and a rather tall woman entered. Her
name plate said "Cook."
"Cook is a middle level manager, somewhere between levels 87 and 103,"
explained Keeton. "Your interview will continue with her."
* * * * *
Jim stood at one end of a two foot by two foot cubicle. At the other
end stood Ms. Cook. Luckily, she was a manager, so her cubicle did
not contain the holographic displays and keypads. A manager shouldn't
know what to do with them anyway. As it were, though, Jim had to keep
his arms pinned at his sides.
"I'd like to tell you a little about the organization here," began
Cook. She pointed to the massive org chart which fully took up the wall
between them. "Up here on the top is the General Manager. Down here
at the bottom are the lowest level managers. Between them, you see,
there 167, no, 168 levels. I forgot we added one yesterday."
"But, where are all the bottom level people who report to the
managers?" asked Jim.
"Well, there was no room left on the chart for those two. As a matter
of fact, you will meet one of them, the engineer, later in the day.
Now, let me explain what it is we do here." Cook's eyes took on an
eerie quality, and she became visibly animated as she went on.
"The processes we use in our business are very important. This group
here is responsible for the Process of Management," she said, pointing
at the chart. "This group is responsible for the process of Being
Managed. These subgroups are responsible for the Process of
Micro-management, Macro-management, Functional Management,
Dysfunctional Management, and Mis-management. This group is
responsible for the Process of Design, this one for the Process of
Redesign, these for the processes of Test and Retest, this group deals
with the Process of Integration, this one with the Process of
Differentation, and this one with the Process Bureaucracy," she droned,
indicating a large section of the chart. "And this one at the top is
responsible for the Process of Processes."
"On this other branch of the org chart, we have groups responsible for
Continuous Process Improvement, Discontinous Process Improvement,
Discrete Process Improvement, The Process of Total Quality Commitment,
Partial Quality Commitment, and Putting on the Appearance of Total
Quality Commitment While Remaining Totally Uncommited."
Jim's eyes began to glaze over. "But, what do you use these processes
to create? What is your product here?"
"Product? Hmmmm. We don't really have a product. Personnel thought it
would be a cost cutting measure if we got rid of our products. After
all, that meant we could get rid of Marketing, Sales, R&D, and may
other groups, not to mention all that machinery. We do produce
something here, though, now that you mention it."
"What?"
"Buzzwords. We product Buzzwords for use by the rest of the
organization. Perhaps you have heard of some of our buzzwords. My
favorite is NQKWG."
"NQKWG? What does that stand for?" asked Jim, mechanically.
"Nothing Quick Kitchen Waste Gargantuan." replied Ms. Cook, proudly.
"But what does it mean?"
"Oh, well it was mistranslated from the Japanese. But it doesn't
matter, wveryone knows how important NQKWG is to our line of work
today!"
Cook noticed the puzzled look on Jim's face. "Question?"
"Well, it's just that my grandfather always used to mention something
called the 'The Digital Way.' What happened to that?"
"Hmmmmm, the Digital Way, the Digital Way, I seem to remember something..."
mumbled Ms. Cook "Oh yes, of course, you mean DEC-DO!"
"DEC-dough?" asked Jim.
"Yes, DEC-DO. The word 'do' in Japanese means a path or way. So in the
early part of this century the DEC Way was renamed to DEC-DO."
"But why?"
"Well, it all started in the late '80's. The Japanense were doing so
well withthe quality thing that DEC mamagement decided they were worth
emulating. Consequently, many DEC techniques were renamed with
Japanese words. You know, things like 'hoshin.' By using Japanese
words, it was felt the quality of our products would increate by 200%."
"I see. But what about some of the other qualities that make DEC
legendary as a place to work? For example, what about Management by
Wandering Around?"
Ms. Cook pointed to a small stool lying off to the side in the hallway.
She picked it up, brought it into her office, then stood on it.
"You see, ever since they made the offices smaller, MBWA has become
very easy!" She climbed up one step on the stool. Looking over her
partitions, she was face-to-face with everyone in her department. "As
a matter of fact, we've even renamed it to MBLOYS -- Management by
Looking Overs Your Shoulder." She addressed her colleagues. "Hey,
Jones, how's it going? What's happening Friedman? How's that project
coming, Barton?" Climbing down, she kicked the stool back into the
aisle. "Well, that's my quota of MBLOYS for this month."
"But you didn't even wait for their replies!"
"That's not part of DEC-DO."
Jim sadly shook his head. "Boy, this is sure a different company that
the one created by Ken."
"Who?"
"Ken Olson."
"Oh yes, of course. Well, don't forget, those were primitive times."
* * * * * *
Towards the end of the day, Jim was brought down to a dark and dusty
corner of the building. Here, secreted between the boiler and the
maintenance closet, was a single two-by-two cubicle. In this cubicle
sat the engineer, a wizened old man. He had no name tag.
"So, you want an engineering job here, eh? We really need someone,
since I'm about to retire. You realize I'll have to ask you some
technical questions, of course." Jim, who was mentally exhaused,
nodded lamely.
"OK. Take the following hypothetical situation. You work for a
company with an FTO policy. One day, you aren't feeling well, so you
go to your doctor. He diagnoses a slight case of smallpox, which of
course is highly contagious. The question is, do you go to work or
not?"
Jim thought for a moment, then said "No, I would take my FTO day."
The engineer's eyes narrowed to slits. "So, you enjoy spending your
vacation sick in bed?"
"Well, I don't know, uh, now that you put it that way ..." Jim
stammered.
"OK, OK. Obviously you're indecisive," he mumbled, scribbling
something on a notepad. "Here's another question. Suppose you worked
for a company offered you a stock program which allowd you to sell your
stock immediately, even including the portion the company matched from
their funds? What would you?"
Jim, who by now was wary, hesitated for a moment, then said "No.
Obviously the aim of the program was to let the employees invest in the
company, so I don't think I would sell out."
"Hmmmmm, gives up a raise." murmured the engineer, scratching away at
his pad. "OK, that will be all."
* * * * * *
After Jim left, Keeton, Cook, and the engineer sat in a conference room
discussing the interview.
"I didn't like him" said Keeton. "He seemed to think that 'benefits'
should be beneficial for the employee, not the company. What a
concept!"
"I though he was rather drab" piped in Ms Cook. "All he could talk
about was products. He didn't say a word about any of our processes!
His sense of priorities is askew. And those bizarre questions he kept
asking, the ones inspired by his senile grandfather! If his
grandfather ever did really work for DEC, I don't know how he got past
the standardized attitude test!"
"Well, the guy seemed kind of stupid to me" said the engineer. "He
opted to give up both his vacation and a raise in my hypothetical test
questions. I don't think this company can afford to hire anyone that
stupid."
"Well, I guess we'll have to continue looking" said Keeton. "I really
don't understand, though, why we're having so hard a time finding
people. After all, DEC is rated one of the top ten corporations to work
for by 'Machiavelli Magazine.' By the way, the Personnel department has
devised another policy to include in "Your Benefits Book". It's called
rigi-time. Everyone gets to come in a 7:00am and leave at 09:00pm,
each and every day."
"Great!"
"Fantastic!"
The three left the conference room and returned to their happy
cubicles.
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