Wednesday, 10 November 2004

I don't mind. I have no mind.

I'm having a crappy week - by monday lunchtime I was sick of the working week.

I work in a big outsource IT department for a giant UK retailer, and I have the kind of job that seems to involve spending the maximum amount of time wrestling with byzantine processes.

An example:

A small piece of work hit my desk last week: person A wants to arrange for 200 printer cables to be sent out to the area offices to help the laptop users there connect to the printers in the stores. Here's what I have to do to make that happen.....

1. I talk to B. who looks after the IT budgets for this area. He tells me it's unbudgeted work, so I have to use the pot of money we have for just this kind of thing (the idea is that we would pay for the cables out of this pot of money, and then charge it back out to the areas seperately--- don't ask me why. I don't make the rules.)

2. To get access to this pot of cash, I have to talk to C. who is the finance person for the IT budgets.

3. There's a delay of a week.

4. I chase C. who emails me to tell me that we have to talk to the the regional finance managers (there are 34 areas in the company all governed by 4 regions, so the area managers are accountable to the regional managers) to make sure that they have the money to pay for the cables when they are recharged. If they agree to that, then C. will ask D. to talk to them again to confirm it, and then we can proceed.

5. I go back to A. and ask him to check with the regional finance managers that they can take the charge

6. A. confirms the budget is there.

7. I pass this back to C. who passes it on to D.

8. D. talks to the regional finance managers again to check the budget

9. It's still there

10. C. tells me I can use the pot of money

11. I go to my company's commerical office and arrange for the relevant commercial paperwork to be produced and the kit to be ordered.

12. the paperwork needs approval by B.

13. The printer cables are ordered.

This is for what? £200 worth of printer cable?

Ridiculous. Makes me feel really worthwhile.


To completely change the subject, I should just tell you that 'The Futureheads' is probably one of the best albums I have bought this year. I loved "Decent Days and Nights" when I heard it on 6 Music, but for some reason held off on buying the album. A couple of months later I was persuaded to do so by Serena Wombat and by Captain Damo, and I haven't looked back. It's just brilliant and I really, really want to see them live (they were on "later...." the other week, and were superb).

I've just bought the new Kings of Leon album and the Killers album (both of which are very good), but it's the Futureheads that have worked their way back onto my stereo...

Do yourself a favour and give them a go - you won't be sorry.

"Why do we say hello? It's just a fashion that we follow that we should be forgetting...."

No comments:

Post a comment