Aw, Jeez!

In case I don't say it, thanks for a GREAT post!

I was also a soldier.

No, I had no chance to go to war and defend my country. But I DID work for a large corporation that has grown even larger since I left. I was a corporate soldier.

My job was long range planning for information systems.

Now, that company promoted from within, and it kind of didn't matter whether you knew what you were about or not. They had "training" programs that would equip you to be whatever they needed.

(accept that automation was new, computers were these esoteric "thingys" that somebody surely knew about - your report showed up magically every month - and somebody realized that things were changing faster than the company was keeping up with them, ok?)

So here comes me. Long Range Planning. Find out what "they" are going to need, in time to give "us" a chance to be ready to provide it.

[Comes now, the major flaw in the premise that nobody cared about.]

"We (latter half of the sentence) didn't really give a rat's behind about what they (former part) needed. But more than that, we all knew what "they" needed, and "they'd" know it too, if they weren't so dumb!

Five years. I learned a lot. I'm dumb enough to understand that no matter what I know, there's more to BE known. So I checked out books, bought books, talked with people on the internet (actually, in newsgroups) and anybody else I could find to try to grasp what was required in my position.

[Revelation: I was paid an obscene amount of money to do what amounted to idiot work. I'd been a teacher. The most important thing anybody can teach (facilitate, actually) is thinking and learning. Learning how to learn. Contrast that to what seemed to thrill people who got paid a lot more than I . . . Apologies all 'round if that seems arrogant, but there's a back story that hasn't been told.]

Anyway, my study led me to understand that strategy had to do with an ULTIMATE OUTCOME that was desired to be achieved. The GOAL, if you will.

Objectives, on the other hand, were the steps you could check off when accomplished, and thereby gain some measure of how well you were progressing toward the goal. A measure of whether or not your strategy was viable.

In the corporate world, they signaled when and what should be changed to continue implementation of the strategy.

Stupid me.

"Of COURSE this is a RIGHT action! We, in the center of the USA (Missouri) are going to New York (east)! It makes perfect sense to go to California (wa-a-a-ay west) and get a plane to Honolulu (even way-er west). From there we can . . ."

It was hard. Then one day, in utter frustration, I decided to change my frame of reference.

Suppose, for a minute, that I might be right. Just for a minute . . . let's pretend, I imagined, that I'm not just a couple of "boxes to be checked off in compliance" on an "equal opportunity" form, I'm not "culturally deprived," and that somebody actually gave an ounce of credence to my demonstrated capabilities. Let's stretch it a bit: Maybe I ain't stupid!

[Sidebar: My division manager once asked me to write a letter to another division. He told me all I needed to know, but then he proceeded to write the letter to show me how! [I have a Master's degree, and a teaching certificate that is good for life in my state - english is one of the areas . . . ] Dude got kinda P.O.ed when I asked him why he didn't just do it himself, given that he was writing it all down anyway. . .]

Let's just suppose I got it right.

What would I think about the people above me? Next to me? Below me, even?

I came up with a lot of stuff, and I'm going to move to pencil and tape recorder to get it all down.

And the relationship of the stuff I've written so far to the topic at hand is that I learned that people - untrained corporate people - generally believe that "putting out fires" more slowly constitutes the strategy. And when that doesn't work, REORGANIZE!

Further, I think that people believe that when they're doing something, ANYTHING! it is good activity. Thinking long term might lead them into thinking about an end - to themselves.

Can't have that, now can we?

It's as if they're all "up to their ears in alligators"

I'll quit writing now. Or, I will right after I tell you that I had one boss who was so "mentally deprived" that I actually said to him "God didn't really see fit to give you a brain, and I ain't gon' let you use mine no mo'.
(gimme my ghetto. cultural deprivation, collard greens
n cornbread, anyday!)

I thought (hoped and prayed) he'd fire me.

I was in the company another 12 years.

[When "birds of a feather" wanted to get rid of birds that didn't "flock together" too 'pretty good,' and they (the flockers) couldn't find a good reason to fire them, said non-flocking birds got promoted, as did I.]

Sigh.

Marye