Virge's blog

What do you do when you work for a director who won't describe his glass as half full but instead tells you that since it isn't full it might as well be completely empty? In reality his grail is well over half full and the waiter is heading towards us with an amphora of the best, but there is absolutely no way he will raise his glass to celebrate.

If we, the minions, raise our glasses now it is to drown our unrecognised sorrows rather than to toast a year of record sales and orders. We can drink to the memories of the talented colleagues who have left for more optimistic climates. We can marinate ourselves in the bitter knowledge of failure - failure to reach an unreachable goal.

I can look back on that project now with the benefit of panoramic hindsight. There were more problems to solve than most of the engineers expected, so even had the engineers' original estimates been used to set the goal it would have been difficult to meet. As it was, the director's insistance that the goal be 6 months earlier than any reasonable prediction was a ludicrous call. His visions of flying pigs wasn't a shared vision. Maybe he drank the first half of his glass too quickly.

How is my glass? It's half full at the moment. This business unit has been successful for a lot longer than the current managing director's span of management. The gears of administration are turning and the software engineering manager production line is producing a replacement. Soon I shall be a redundant manager but a functional engineer again.

Cheers!

People with refinement and taste should read no further. Just go somewhere else for a few minutes - take a little walk outside while I allow the dark side of Virge off its leash.

There is humour in seeing how bad poetry can get. Something Awful often exposes this branch of humour when it collects examples of how dumb people can be. It can be fun to try to write extremely bad poetry, but I just can't compete with these outstanding examples of angsty ineptitude. So, damn the missspeellings and mindless meanderings of misanthropic morons. I'll achieve dissonance by eschewal of consonants [sic].

I now present the work of Vowel-mouthed Virge - the Virtuoso of Vile Vulgar Verse.

I ache after angels,
entice and ensnare
each one in an amorous
unholy affair.

Abhorrent appetites
and impulses emerge
eventually exposing
an abominable urge.

I eagerly amputate,
attack and impale,
orgasmically eating
each ounce of entrail.

Engaged in avulsion,
amorally allured,
evisceration's immersive
entertainment's assured.

You can't say I didn't warn you.

A tricky picture to play with your senses. Enjoy:

This isn't one of mine, but it is a limerick and it is piratey so I simply have to post it. It was posted by one of Harmony's friends in her journal.

There once was a pirate named Yates
Who ventured to rumba on skates.
He slipped on his cutlas,
And made himself nutless,
And now he's quite useless on dates.

I'd like to give credit for this,
since it gave me a moment of bliss.
I just had to quote it -
I can't find who wrote it
so I hope you don't think me remiss.

View More Limericks

Today I told my boss that I no longer want to be the software engineering manager.

In the past we have had our discussions about my technical orientation and my lack of desire to be a "manager". The request didn't come as a complete surprise. Today I made it clear that my disenchantment with the managing director's philosophy made it impossible for me to remain in the chain of command. Over the last few years the MD's leadership has turned my work-place into enough material for 10 years of Scott Adams' Dilbert comics. (Well, maybe I exaggerate a teensy bit there.)

My boss offered to present my decision to the MD as a technical career decision, rather than expose me to risk by talking about my opposition to his leadership. I felt I owe it to the people I work with to make some statement. (If the MD had shown any ability to listen and understand his people I wouldn't need to say anything to make it clear. But then, if he'd been able to listen I probably would have stayed a technically oriented but reluctant manager.)

I'll trust my boss to couch my decision in terms that convey the message gently but firmly. Despite the irrational decisions the MD has made in the past, I don't think he's going to fly off the handle and shout "If he disagrees with my management style he can go find a job elsewhere!" I'm reasonably sure he won't.

My title will become Principal Software Engineer. I'll report to whoever is the new software engineering manager. Each of the likely internal candidates for this position have my utmost respect, so there's no trauma expected on that account. The change will take some time, since they (see how easily I can refer to the management as "they") need to decide who should take my place. If they decide to advertise externally it could take a month or two. In the meantime, I have a new outlook on my job. I feel liberated.

Here are some excerpts from The Top Five List:

From the Top 25 Things to Say at Work on Talk Like a Pirate Day:

"Hop to it, dogs: Thar be leftover catering booty in the break room for plunderin'."

"Arrr, matey, have your parrot call my parrot and we'll one day partake of noontime grub together."

"Be that a peg leg, or arrr ye just happy to cast yer eyes upon me?"

"Ye bent my ear with yer lubberly questions WITHOUT tryin' a reboot first? Arrr! It's the plank for you, ye mangy cur... and thank ye for calling Microsoft Tech Support!"

"Aye, if it's a large treasure chest and amazin' booty ye seek, fix yer gaze upon the receptionist."

"Avast, ye demon copy machine! Taste the wrath of my arse!"

From the Top 20 Little-Known Terrorist Organizations:

Ku Klutz Klan -- clumsy cross-burning rednecks 

El McPherson -- band of crazed-from-hunger Supermodels 

The Moulin Rouge -- French Communist song and dance troupe 

The Talibananarama -- spreading the message of bad British '80s dance music 

Hamina-hamina-hamas -- freedom fighters for Jackie Gleason 

Balsamic Jihad -- fundamentalist food critics 

"Weird Al" Qaeda -- attacking the capitalist, American government by spreading their revolutionary message in the form of a rousing polka medley 

Falun Bong -- Uhm... hey, man, what are we fighting again? 

Pujafudin-Pujafudout -- spreading the terror that is the Hokey Pokey

Today I am the navel fluff of man -
no pain, no comfort, nothing valued here -
a small blue-greyness nestled in a beer
gut swelled by bitter quaffed from life's chilled can.

- web site.

My short story is finally published on the Monash Library web site. I had to wait a while since the pfd version of the file that they put up had sections of . I guess converting word format to pdf has a few hiccups with the freeware tool they said they were using.

I got pissed off this morning.

My boss tried to get his boss to agree to allowing non-managers to salary-sacrifice in order to purchase notebook computers. The tax laws here make it very profitable to purchase a notebook that way - i.e. about A$2000 better than buying a notebook privately.

The crux of the issue is that the boss's boss wants to keep these deals as a privilege for managers. He wants to prevent the non-managers from having the possible tax benefits of salary sacrificing in order to be able to have us managers feel special. Well, I sure do feel soooo special. I now have one very annoyed engineer who can see no logical reason why he shouldn't be allowed to salary sacrifice. It is a trifling cost to the company - less than half an hour of administrative work to fill in the forms. How can I defend what I see as an illogical decision?

If management wants to offer privileges, they should be privileges that actually cost something to the company. To deny any employee access to perks that are cost neutral to the company is counter-intuitive. I always thought that to keep our good employees we wanted them to be happy. Any reward that we can provide for free and doesn't impact our productivity should be given.

Now we stand to lose one of our most talented engineers. He was already pissed off at the salary levels, but he can understand the logic behind keeping salaries lower when the company profitability targets are struggling.

This is the sort of issue that pushes me towards dropping out of management. I shall think about it. I may have already mentioned how much I dislike administrative work and people management. I think I'd continue to cope with this annoyance if I could see that the organisational head was leading the company with vision rather than just managing a power structure.

I just booked tickets to a couple of shows. The Melbourne International Arts Festival is coming up later this month. First:

"acrobat avoids bells and whistles to create dangerous, raw and hard-edged theatre. Highly strung and subversive, it is a circus ensemble like no other."

Then a cabaret act at the Famous Spiegeltent:

"GUD - Paul McDermott, Cameron Bruce & Mick Moriarty
Hot on the heels of a critically acclaimed and sold out Edinburgh Fringe season GUD are back in Melbourne for two shows only! GUD always sells fast so get in quick to experience this unique blend of hilarious mayhem and music.
‘A brilliantly anarchic trio clever songs and dazzling wit very funny, and simply superb musicians’ The Scotsman, UK, Aug 03"

This should be fun.