It's not them....

I work in a company of 20,000 people. In that large company, I work in a department of about 1,200, and personally deal with about 200 of them. Of those 200, there might be a couple of real morons.

The remaining 198+ range in quality from really good to great to flat-out brilliant. They range from fun to really fun to just a blast to work with.

I like everyone I work with.

So, why do I feel like I work at Pacific Bell (one of Scott Adams' inspirations)?

Honestly, I work in a ridiculous environment, with unintelligible rules, and procedures guaranteed to drive Vogon nuts. (Let's don't discuss the fact that I wrote a whole slough of them just yet.) How did that happen?

Well, it's not the people. It's not them.... it's IT.

My company is alive, and IT has a mind of it's own.

I once had a sweet idea. It was cool. I was sure it was cool, because all the smart people I bounced it off agreed that it was totally cool. It would work! It was simple! It was cheap! Most of all, my whole command chain was behind it. How often does that happen!!!

It was paradise in the cube farm.

I'm not sure if I've blathered enough about this yet. After 3 years in the dungeons of cubeville, I understood exactly what kind of risks I was taking by having an idea, but this one was like a miracle. It glowed with a byte-ific beauty of its own, and even my leader's leader's leader was fully in support. It was the chosen proposal.

My idea was implemented. Yes. It was approved. It was funded. It was assigned its own oversight committee.

I watched it all the way from birth to death.

It's death, BTW, was probably about a week or so before our customers were forced to begin enduring it. My idea is still alive today, and my friends are being asked to use it.

I'm really sorry.

IT produced a list of committees that each had a little improvement to add to that poor little idea. The list was as long as my posts. Yeah, that long! And each committee made that little idea better.

Really.

I'm not being sarcastic here. The Disaster Recovery committee made it better. The communication group made it better. The architecture board made it better. The final product was so good, that no human would ever want to get close enough to it to throw it out with a pooper scooper while wearing a clothespin on their nose.

Unfortunately, IT would not allow anyone to discard such a great idea. Instead, they have to use it every day.

I'm sorry.

Any corporation has a life and a mind of its own.

Ick.

For the record, I think that the larger a church gets, the more it spawns an IT.