Some names and terms are changed and edited to keep this as anonymous as possible. Companies generally do not like their staff blogging about their work and dissing their own bosses.

Botak started off asking me to read the comments on the Appraisal. Here’s how he graded me with regards to the objectives set last year.

• Policies, Standards, Guidelines, Compliance, Security and Audit
  be compliant & follow processes : 2
• DRC – Windows Installation Server, Windows Un-attended Install
  participation : 2
• Network – Remote Access, Blackberry
  responsive support : 3
• Audit/Video – Phone system, Video conference
  responsive support : 3
• Windows – W2K/XP Un-attended Install, Server Data Backup, MDS (Reuters, Bloomberg, EBS)
  participation : 3
• Helpdesk – IT Helpdesk Support daily tasks, Application access
  responsive support : 2

Note: 1 being very good, 2 being on track. Therefore, anything more than 2 is not good enough.

Overall: Lower end of peers at *company name deleted* (i.e. I not as good as the other guys.)

I am already fed up when I read how I was graded. I never imagined I would be even madder when I hear the reasons behind some of them.

Anyway, the Botak kicked off the session with the comment that I am capable of delivering the service but that I never package it nicely. (e.g. pull a long face, body language that indicates unhappiness etc. And of course, my temper.) I have no objection regarding these things since he didn’t said that I failed to deliver the service. Had he done so, I would have given him a piece of my mind there and then.

Personally speaking, I don’t really give much of a damn anyway. Whether people liked me or not is pretty irrelevant, and the fact is most people won’t remember you for the good things you do, but they will only remember the times you faltered gave me no incentive to put on a smiling face at all.

The people who worked with me know I have never given much consideration about the cosmetic aspects. You certainly won’t find that “Yes sir? How can I help you sir? I think I have to reboot your PC sir. And yes sir, there is no solution other than reboot sir. Yes, kill me sir. I am here to take all this, sir.” from me. Sadly, such ‘good packaging’ is what people calls good service. It doesn’t matter that in the example I cited above, the ‘good service’ person hasn’t really given a solution or provided any real service. * sigh *

And Botak continued saying that I should take up more in the unattended rollouts since ‘Dr. T’ is one man and too many things to do. (Tell us something we don’t already know already?) Frankly, among ourselves we have always informed one another to help out when necessary. I wonder if Botak knows at all we do make internal arrangements to settle these things? I really can’t be bothered to tell him the details and I do hope ‘Dr. T’ to do his part in f@#$ing the Botak should this be brought when his turn comes.

After this, everything started going down hill. Here are some of the things:

1. Not ‘taking ownership’ of Remote Access

   I was really puzzled about this. First of all, account creation and token assignment is done by London. While the Botak submits the requests using an online form, he has never shown us how that is done. And once that is done, all we need to do is ensure that the information of when the token will expire, who the token is being assigned to, is updated in an Excel spreadsheet, before we pass the token to the user with the respective instructions.

   So I asked the Botak what ‘ownership’ is he talking about here and he cited the example of me not replying to his two silly mails about how many tokens are expiring and how many needs to be purchased.

   I find that really silly and I replied, “That data is on the file.”

   Botak insisted that this is an example of me ‘not taking ownership’

   I was really mad and I reiterated, “The information is on the file. Why am I asked to go and look at the information and tabulate them for you when you can look at them yourself?”

   He said, “You don’t understand ownership.”

   I retorted, “What ownership? I am told to update the file. Did I not update the file? If you need info, the info is IN THE FILE.”

   He then asked me, “Why is the file there?”

   I replied, “It was you who told me to update it.”

   He then say, “What is the point of it being there then if you don’t ‘take ownership’?”

   I said “I have no use of this file. You told me and ‘Dr. L’ to update it.”

   He said “If you have no use of it then how to know when token expire and how many to buy? We would have no idea. We would be blind.”

   In my head I was wondering who is the ‘we’ he’s referring to. And I said, “I ain’t the one who is buying these things. You are the one asking about the quantity to buy.”

   He then repeated this, “You still don’t understand what is ownership.”

   My reply? – “Duh!”

   I suppose, in his mind, ‘taking ownership’ of something is simply as easily as right clicking on a file, select ‘Properties’, click on the ‘Security’ tab, then the ‘Take ownership’ tab, and then add my NT account to it and click on ‘Apply’.

   Anyway, it remains a puzzle what this ‘take ownership’ crap is all about. If ‘taking ownership’ simply means we should take all the shit jobs he didn’t like to do, he can jolly well dream on. No one is going to do redundant tasks.

2. Task Monitoring

   This was the next thing he mentioned. He said that if I read his last mail on this matter I would know that the big boss wanted to see statistics on the tasks we have performed. He also said something about this being global directive.

   Well? Who among us will know if it isn’t global directives anyway?

   He said I should look into updating the tasks completed into that silly webpage from start of next year in which I replied, “Actually, YOU should look into why we have stopped updating into the webpage.”

   He asked me for the reason and I told him that this stupid thing generates too many emails and he said he knows because he is in the mail group which receives them. Then he goes on to say that all we need to do is just update it and close the tasks quickly. “Just update then quickly close the case.”

   Obviously, he is asking me to stick my head in the ground and ignore the problem! Gee, I wonder if he’s even listening to what I am saying at all!! And so I repeated my view that this doesn’t mean that problem has gone away.

   And at this point he threw me the question, “So what do you want? Go back to using the Excel file? Is that what you wanted?”

   Bah! What a wonderful display of lea-duhship and management qualities! Just which school of management did this guy graduated from anyway? Either way, I ain’t the one who wants these cosmetic shits to ‘zo ho kwa’, you know?

   I kept silent as these goes on in my head and after a uneasy moment of silence he repeated his question in which I told him, “Speak with ‘Dr Y’ and get his opinion on this matter first before we proceed.”

3. Blackberry Enterprise Server

   After this, he moved on to the topic of ‘taking ownership of Blackberry Enterprise Server’ so to free ‘Dr L’.

   “I want you to be more involved,” he said. “I don’t want ‘Dr L’ to be a bottleneck with all these Blackberry related tasks stuck with him”.

   He then asked me what I will need and I said all I need is access to the offsite International BES since some of the accounts are there.

   He said he will removed the access originally given to ‘Dr T’ give it to me instead.

   Well, I suppose ‘Dr L’ should ask the Botak if he also meant I should take over also the vendor relation part – e.g. getting replacements for lost sets, upgrading, applying for new users et. al.

   I’ll sort this out with ‘Dr L’ when I come back from leave.

4. Data Backup

   I am sincerely hoping that we can wrap up this session soon at this point, but then at this point he saw the part on Data Backup in the objectives set for this year and said he wants to speak to ‘Dr L’ about this.

   I told him that I do not wish to touch this, and I had arranged with ‘Dr L’ to get myself briefed with solving some of the simple and common issues of systems which our back office is using.

   He objected sayign that he doesn’t want me to do those and said those are more server related. * Duh? Data backup not server related? See me no up think I cannot handle? *

   Again, I clash again with him here in which I said, “You said ‘Dr L’ is doing too much helpdesk stuff. Why is it that when I offered to help him, you now object to it?”

   He then went on to say that he would prefer these to be under the purview of applications support or management and I said, “Look, calling a vendor to resolve a connection issue or looking at whether a fault is related to downed service causing the error isn’t so much an application support issue. All I need to know is who to call and escalate so ‘Dr L’ can be freed of these.” (Basically, if it is a matter of restarting a service, that’s about the same as us restarting the spooling service on an NT print server. Furthermore, there are operators which monitors these back office systems. Why the heck do we need ‘Application Management or Support’ as another level of escalation over such simple matters? Someone ought to send this Botak for recourse in management.)

   And since he’s on the topic of this application management crap, I told him, “I think it is pointless to have this overlooked by application support. Also, have you seen the mails from the ‘Mussel’ before? Mails in which he just push all the things back to desktop support? I mean what’s the point of having these guys when I escalated to them and then they push back to me?”

   He asked me, “What mail?” and I am surprised that he hasn’t read those mails sent to our general helpdesk mailbox and went on to remind him.

   He said he didn’t read them because he receives many mails (Well, but he’s got time forwarding to us redundant junk!) and asked me what is so wrong with those mails?

   “Is it that you don’t have the skills to do what they asked? Tell me more about it and I’ll see the matter needs to be escalated to the Appleman and our department head.”

   I thought: ‘What’s the damned point? Read the damned mails and you’ll know what I meant. And department head sides with the Appleman so why waste time at all?’
   So I replied, “Just forget about it. Nevermind.”

At this point of time, I am really wishing to be out of the room soon. I decided that if I continue to raise more issues, it will only prolong the agony. Whatever further information I provide to him is a waste of saliva and effort. So, I basically answered “NO.” and gave non-committal replies to his other questions.

Basically, this session is merely just a formality. A formality to confirmed what I have always decided a long time ago – Botak is irrelevant.