responsibility

He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it. - Martin Luther King, Jr. 

I really need to be working on Paper 3 (due Monday...after Paper 2 was due last night - ack!) but had to get out my...annoyance over the drama that went on at work yesterday. It was such a complete fiasco - to the point of being a farce if it weren't for the people being affected by it. Knowing that I am on the way out helps give me some detachment but I am conflicted as to the best way to help. I feel that I have a responsibility to do something, but what?

It really has been ridiculous. First M. has been "training" the new guy, A.,  for the last few weeks. She apparently decided early on that he was not going to be able to get it, making it obvious from the get go in the way she talked down to him. It bothered everyone in our area because it was just so horrible to have to watch & hear the way she would publicly humiliate him all the time (Great training technique, btw).  So that had been building over the last few weeks and then yesterday it all blew up. Apparently she & D. were working to prove to HR that it was not going to work out so they were collecting data every time he didn't get something. Then they apparently staged a set up yesterday which culminated in M. running down the hall screaming  that she was going to HR because A. was a liar.  Exit M for her weekend mini-vacation. He (A.) then comes back to his desk and proceeds to tell us his side of the story, also getting visibly upset and practically shouting by the end of the story. Apparently emotions run high in the world of writing code.

He sat there a while and then announced that he was going to HR, saying goodbye to everyone. Exit A., apparently for good. It was so absurd all of it and so extremely unprofessional. I think the part that upset me most (on top of really screwing up that guy's life, at least temporarily) was finding out how gleefully M. had viewed her part in it all. She apparently had done the same thing with Joe, recounting to someone else in the office how she had gotten rid of Joe by scouring his code for errors and documenting every little thing. It's so messed up - esp. considering how she always talked him up to me and pretended like it was all out of her control.

I said as much to Joe and he was, of course, not really surprised. I honestly can't believe he held out for as long as he did, considering the way she treated him. He said his primary goal those last few weeks was to avoid doing anything, even by way of a facial expression, that would trigger her b/c she would explode at him at the slightest provocation. At least he did talk to HR in his exit interview. One would hope that eventually the mounting evidence will compel them to do something about this mess because surely this cannot be what they want to have happening.


So why then do they keep letting this kind of thing go on? This is just one example of the kind of unprofessional behavior that seems to run amok there, at least in our department.  It's extremely detrimental to everyone's work and I know that several of the newer people have been completely disillusioned by the events of the past few weeks and are already considering other job opportunities. People keep telling me that this is just the way things are in the cut-throat corporate environment but it makes no sense to me.  How can that really be more effective than an environment where people are enthusiastic about their work and working together on projects, instead of spending all their time focused on survival. 


So back to my dilemma: what can and should I be doing? I was planning, certainly, on saying something at my exit interview but in the meantime it seems as though something should be done now. We have a "focus group" on why employee morale in our area has been declining on Tuesday; however, it will be somewhat difficult to address there as two of the primary problems are part of that group. But then isn't that what we criticize people living under the Third Reich for doing? If I know the problem exists and that the people who have a responsibility to address it may not be aware, isn't it my responsibility to say something -- even if I don't think it will affect anything?

School Days

I have spent the last two days back in school and it has made it all much more real. The sensations of being on a campus – denuded as it is during the summer term, the buzz of activity, class discussions, and even the hassles of getting my student ID all contributed to the feeling of happiness that pervaded my being. Perhaps I should have pursued a career in teaching college – not because I enjoy teaching but just because I do love school.

Boy has school changed though! I was amazed to find I did not need my laptop at all: every desk (in both the classroom and the library) comes complete with a workstation. I found that I could access everything I have at home including my notes on OneNote.  (If only I had known before lugging the 200lb laptop – I swear the thing was adding pounds by the second – around with me on the aforesaid student ID quest!) Online access made it easy to work along with the professor when she explained how to research certain concepts. I am finding it hard to imagine how they taught the class prior to the advent of ubiquitous computing. It is so much easier to learn when you can do it for yourself.

It was nice though to be able to get the in-class experiences of class discussion, making new friends and interacting with the professor. I was a little concerned that the past few years experience would have made me shy to speak up in class but I am, apparently, still as opinionated and vocal as ever.