Subject: Technicalities Resent-From: staff.newyork@agency.com Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000 09:34:23 -0400 From: "Mitch Golden" To: nystaff@agency.com Technicalities April 24, 2000 *) Just Watch Out! I don't know if people are quite aware of the indignities the author of this newsletter braves in order to keep its readership informed. Last week, shortly after I sent the letter out, Anna, the "owner" of Tiger Style (who's my boss, right?) came over to tell me to stop writing so bloody much about Scotland. I have a sense she thinks that Australia is under-covered. Then, wandering around the office one afternoon, I ran into some people talking to Thor Johnson, the new regional president. (Wait - is it Thor who's my boss?) I was introduced to him as "the wiseguy who writes Technicalities". Great way to be known to the new head honcho. This is the usual stuff, and I'm used to it. It pales in comparison to the incident in which a certain member of the opposite sex told me that if I didn't want to write one of these every week, it was because I "wasn't man enough". Wow. As you can imagine, this really hit a nerve, what with me virtually a geezer in an office filled with virile young men. Sometimes I think that people expect to see me in a commercial with Bob Dole. (No - I don't mean the one for credit cards.) I think it's time for some chest thumping: look, as far as I can tell, there's no one around here who can get aroused to perform the act of writing a newsletter as often as I do! Not man enough? We'll see about that, baby! *) Over The Edge I'm sure that people have noticed how all the long hours on The Bank Account have started to take their toll on the team. Dina Juliano smiles less than she used to, and Jamie Corl more. Most severely affected, I think, is Ritesh. (Could it be that Ritesh is my boss? Am I the only one confused about this?) Have people seen him wandering the halls, wearing that paper mask? You'll hear him mumbling something about "We'll just go around the corner and pull over at 48th Street." Evidently when he's under stress, Ritesh tends to channel for a dead cabbie. So last week, Aaron gave Ritesh several days off, so he could "look for a house". I think Ritesh is expected back this week. Hopefully the rest will have done him good. *) Traff Leads 5-3 Joe Fusion is not a physicist, but with his name he should have been. Joe is our newest member, joining the ranks of us jaded east coasters, moving here from Ann Arbor, land of his bright college days (and a couple of years of work). Joe is joining the BA team, and Andy Traff has been assigned the task of making him welcome. Look for them playing video games in their cube. Stop by and join them. *) Serving Two Masters Last year Eugenia Antipas made a transition from sitebuilding in the creative department to working as a programmer. She has been in that role for some months now, reporting to me. Recently, she bemoaned the fact that during the reorg her reporting structure didn't get any more complicated. So we came up with a solution: Eugenia is now spending 2/3 of her time managing the site builder/manager group. She has responsibility for hiring, morale, career guidance, and all those other fun things. I have no doubt she'll be great at it. The other 1/3 of her time, she's going to continue to work as a programmer. See how clever? She spends 2/3 of her time working for the creative department, but I still write her review. Now she's in with the spirit. *) Never Hurry Your Brushing The Colgate group seemed surprisingly blase last week. Whenever I'd come by, Yuju was leaning back in her chair, with her hands clasped behind her head. Not the usual posture of a tech lead on the week the site was supposed to launch. It didn't. It seems that we had to print the site out (!) so it could get some necessary internal approvals. Yuju will be returning to her regularly scheduled stress after this brief word from her sponsor. *) Jamil Ellis Comes Of Age Most of the time I've mentioned Jamil in these notes it has been part of the running gag about his youth. (Our supervisor / employee relationship reached a low point one evening last winter, when a bunch of us were out at a bar. Jamil was chatting up the attractive barkeep, when I sauntered up to the bar and asked her "Have you carded this guy?") This time, I want everyone to know what a great job Jamil has been doing for the Colgate project. Everybody on the team has been telling me what a pleasure he is to work with. Here's what one of them wrote to me: "jamil has been coming in on weekends, working late, popping in on his lunch break when on a course, juggling a lot of responsibilities..., been in the thick of pretty much everything that has been going on ...filled in on any problem when required... and never has a word of complaint or failed to lose his smile. he is a total diamond and performs way out of the realm..." (I think he never fails to _keep_ his smile, but that's only my observation. I'm his supervisor, after all.) Jamil is also fast becoming the office expert on WAP, and is working with the ACL on projects for putting our work onto cell phones. He does this _without_ much extra allotment of time - he just wants to learn this stuff. All this before he reached the age of 16. *) Corrections: **) Deb Ronsvalle points out that it isn't the Java API poster that has everyone in the tech department all hot and bothered. It's "World of Protocols 1999-2000". Personally, I think they're both attractive. **) Barry Goldberg noted that since Sundar has to go both to and _from_ the office, and since his home is one hour and 15 minutes closer to Woodbridge than New York, Sundar's commute is actually 2 1/2 hours shorter. Now you know why Barry gets the big bucks as a Senior Project Manager. *) Legal Notice Recently it came to my attention that George Eid told the story of The Promise Of The Gucci Brand to the new employees during their orientation. George was in fact leading Gucci brainstorming when the event, humorously reported in one of these missives, occurred. So if George wants to use my comedic material, I suppose in this case he has the right. In general, however, I feel I have been sloppy about protecting my intellectual property. Thus I remind everyone that Technicalities is Copyright (c) 2000, Mitchell Golden. All rights reserved, dammit.