I don't have a lot to write this week, but I did have another run-in with "the man". My company is in the midst of a large-scale overhaul of our quality system. These types of initiatives are always interesting studies in corporate culture. I mean, let's be serious: if a company needs to install a new quality program, that's a sure sign that quality was never really important before that. At my last company, the executives made everyone start wearing "Q" buttons at all times to show how committed they were to the new quality program. Shortly after that policy went into effect, a low level employee happened to be sharing the up elevator with the CEO one day. After a cordial greeting, the CEO examined the employee's attire, and asked "where's your "Q" pin?". With a quick glance to his lapel, the employee replied "Damn - I left it on my pajamas AGAIN".

In my company, the quality program mostly consists of an online training tool which requires me to study pointless minutiae like standard agenda items on the monthly quality audit. Then, the quality folks confirm that I have actually read through the tedious documents by giving me a "quiz". Until recently, there were ways to game the quiz, but the quality department stopped sending emails with the list of questions you missed after you failed the quiz. This change in policy led my boss to despair that he would never finish the dozen or so training modules that he had just been assigned. I decided to tackle my unfinished modules on Friday afternoon, and soon was stuck on an 8 question quiz that included a lot of "check all that apply" questions. After scouring the relevant documents for the answers and taking the quiz 15 or 16 times, I still couldn't get a passing score (80%). However, I accidentally discovered that you can "submit" your quiz answers without giving an answer for each question. Needless to say, the quizzes went much faster then, as I just answered the questions one at a time, submitted the quiz, and wrote down the answer to each question if in fact it was right. Not only did I dispatch 4 quizzes in 45 minutes, but I ended up with a crib sheet with all the answers on it. I gave the sheet to my boss, who appeared to have flashbacks to our corporation's ethics video, but took the sheet all the same and said he was grateful. He also mentioned something about plastic spoons. Last year when we moved to our new building, "the man" stopped stocking the coffee room with plastic utensils. I was frustrated by this, so I went to our cafeteria, and commandeered a large case of soup spoons, which I put into the cupboard of our coffee room. Anyway, my boss (who saw me make off with the box) has ribbed me about it for some time, especially after the cafeteria started stocking the plastic utensils next to the cash registers and charging $.25 per spoon. After I gave him the answers to the quality quizzes, he admitted that he had 2 choices: spend 6 hours completing quality training modules, or throw his lot in with the spoon thieves.

Another video this week - Quinn is starting to smile. For some reason the sound isn't lined up with the video, and it's playing in slow motion - don't know why that's happening but you can still kind of tell what's going on.

See below for a video of Kai. He is being entertained by my buddy from b-school, who was in San Diego for business, and dropped by for dinner with his sister and nephew (who happen to live here).

Part II of the career-limiting email I sent last week: I actually got no response on Monday, and felt fine about it. On Tuesday, I happened to be in a meeting with the SVP dude who I sent the letter to. He pulled me aside and said "I got your email on (insert name of hated competitor here), and I loved it - we just need to figure out what to do next". So a positive reaction. One bit I kind of glossed over last week. Our flagship product is the responsibility of a VP that reports to that SVP. I don't report to said VP (whom I will call "Floyd"), but both he and my boss report to the SVP. I sent the email to both the SVP and Floyd, since it would have been poor form to go over Floyd's head when most of the content related to his product line (which just happens to be the lifeblood of the company). The interesting thing about Floyd's reaction was ... nothing - he didn't mention it to me at all. To be clear, the email made one extremely helpful point (more funding for his product line is critical) and also an unflattering one (as things stand, we are enduring death by a thousand cuts). You'd assume that either way, he'd have an opinion and want to discuss it. The fact that he's said nothing makes it clear he's ticked off about the email. When I first joined the company, Floyd seemed like a affable, quick-witted leader who was equally comfortable talking with salespeople or corporate executives. Over time, it's slowly become apparent that his true skills lie in putting out fires and navigating the byzantine network of political connections that sit underneath our corporate structure. While valuable for self-preservation, this approach isn't useful in the long run. I know he will understand the best way to "deal" with my email, but the problems I listed would still remain unresolved.

Ok, that's it - we'll see what happens this week.