commemorate your cog

I am sure I know exactly what my employer wants to tell me by putting this into my cube over the weekend. Michel Foucault would have a field day. I refuse to internalize. I shall not be disciplined, nor punished.

you are nothing but a cog!

In recent month I have had the pleasure to like working where I am. I generally like what I do and the people that I work with. But in the end it was always just a job. Just as I am just a resource for my current employer – no hard feelings. But lately simple measures on the part of my employer have led to an emotion akin to gratitude. Surprising I know, but stranger things have happened, like the Suns coming back from the brink of elimination. We were treated to free fruit at the entrance, and if you knew where to look you found yourself some free snacks, coffee and soda as well. Now all that free stuff is official, and available in the cafeteria. Unfortunately, my employer has decided that this is also a good time to implement a little segregation. Contractors are now not welcome anymore to enjoy those benefits. Understand, as a contractor I am used to zero benefits, comes with the territory. But giving me free fruit, in essence telling me that you care about my health, and then taking it away again is, I don’t know, cruel and unusual punishment? Don’t toy with me, you are not the god, I refuse to believe in, who supposedly “giveth and taketh away”.

In this spirit I should be forgiven for taking the following memo seriously:

"Following the announcement that the free fruit will now be for blue badges only, it has been decided that all drinking fountains on the third and fourth floors will also be blue-badge exclusive. However, green badges who wish to drink during the day will not be restrained from bringing in their own water bottles. In order to apply a consistent policy throughout the building, elevators 2 and 3 will be off-limits to green badges. Since you are not getting any free fruit anymore, we thought that you should maintain your health by walking the stairs. Finally, all bathroom stalls will also be “BLUE ONLY”. Urinals will remain open to Green badges for sanitary purposes, but Green Badges wishing to defecate during work hours are encouraged to bring in their own port-a-potty. In order for this segregation to be clear to all there will be signs “BLUE ONLY” posted in all relevant areas. And we are not referring to your eye color here, that would be racist.”

There really are signs like that :(

die qual der wahl

Interesting things are happening at my current place of employment. It seems the new goal is to motivate the little cogs in the machine instead of just chaining us to a big ox cart whipping us into shape with a cat o’nine tails. I am sure it has nothing to do with Google hiring away the best and brightest, to luxuriate in free food and massages while working 15 hours a day (they are just not very efficient I think).

In my prison building the fourth floor has been remodeled. It now has an open friendly feel to it. The walls are painted some other, more colorful color than Navajo white (the ugly eggshell colored mix of left-over colors used in most cheap rentals), the cubes are lower and one can actually see his work mates (Why anyone would want to see the assholes they work with is beyond me though).

The best thing about the new zeal to please us little cogs are the free cog vending machines on only the fourth floor. It is a veritable snack, drink and coffee cornucopia. In the beginning it was a secret. Not everyone was initiated into the Free Snack Brotherhood by ritualistic means. A whisper, a wink, a knowing nod would pass in the hallways. All but the Swede, who from 30 feet away, in our unfriendly cube world on the third floor would happily intone at jumbo jet decibel levels, “Pete! I see you been to the fourth floor again!” would try to keep it on the down-low. Needless to say that by now all four floors go to get their sugar kick on the fourth floor, leaving the cafeteria manager wondering why his crap food and sodas are not selling anymore.

As your favorite closet sociologist I draw several conclusions from this:

• My employer must be tripping by now. You may rely on the fact that they have secret productivity measures in place to see if the fourth floor cogs are more happily churning out more stuff. Now that the whole building (and probably some expats from the rest of the campus as well) goes there, these metrics are completely unreliable.
• It is much better to openly grab the free stuff, instead of feeling guilty about the sneak snack snag.
• The line to that little kitchenette is getting ridiculous.
• When people have the opportunity to choose from 30 free snacks, 20 free sodas and 25 different coffee mixtures it takes them much longer to choose than when they have to pay. When you buy your snack you will only take what you really want. But when you can slowly work your way through the whole selection, you take your time and consult your mood before choosing that yogurt coated raisin snack.

In any case, I love that we are getting free fruit at the entrance to the prison now as well. Suddenly I find myself eating apples, pears and bananas all day long. This is a nice win-win for the cog and the machine.

Look! No Hands!

For months now, the expectations have been mounting, the proverbial drum roll has been rolling, the excitement about innovation returning to one of the grand old dames of the computer age has been nothing short of uncontainable. Coders acting like little kids, ok they do this all the time, managers gleefully going to the little room at the end of the hallway, sneaking a peak to check if the thingamajig has yet arrived over night. Yes, even the cleaning personnel is eagerly awaiting this symbol of the inexorable technological march forward. None of this strikes us as strange at all.

No, Tigerton it is not. No, not Crestline either. And if you thought I am talking about Bearlake you are sadly mistaken. No, it is something entirely unforeseen in the world of CPU development, the bleeding bleeping edge of raw processing power (You should see the Shabu that I get to play with here). The palpable excitement in the empty hallways of usually falling stock prices and fired managers (seriously, if you manage two people you do not count as one) is nothing short of intoxicating. I long to be a part of those heady days, when nerds where still cowboys, riding their steel mice into the sunset at 0.005 Mghz. But that’s neither here nor there, I am but an unlikely (I have hardly any pimples) part of the born again nerd herd who will wet their little panties when you say “9 Mghz – no FSB”.

CPU building is just not as much fun when your monopoly is being undermined by one whole competitor. So you can tell Intel Corp. has not been the happy cog-family that we are all accustomed to: little people making even littler chippies that make your little worker bees in your big multinational companies work even faster and harder and your pile of money even larger. No more toasting Moore’s law which has stealthily but unquestionably gone wrong – most of the time.

You understand when I tell you that these last few weeks have been mildly surprising to one of the little cogs (me) in the machine. Rarely have I seen this introverted bunch of people so emotional and yes, even talking to each other in the hallways between their cubes. I must admit that after seeing the informational posted over the urinal I found myself somewhat dumbfounded as well. Who woulda thunk it? Is it even possible? But what would be the use? Are you all completely bonkers? These are only some of the questions that came to mind.

Because in all its glory the internal Press Release stapled to the wall above the urinal (where do they put these in the girl’s room?) in no uncertain terms informed me that the amazing – wait, drum roll - the wonder of the modern world – yes, drum roll – The One, The Only “Hands-Free Soap Dispenser” would soon be available in this very bathroom. Before you start asking why Intel posts cleanliness advice and other safety conscious drivel in its bathrooms, ask yourself why you always find yourself face to boob with a half nekked girl advertising some crap nobody needs, when you are in the process of ridding yourself of the end product of your alcohol induced confidence. No really, ask.

But let us instead focus on this monster of an oxymoron. Yes, let it roll of your tongue one more time “Hands-Free Soap Dispenser”. Kinda musical, isn’t it. If oxymorons would be huge horned beasts this one would challenge the alpha male (intelligent president) and crush his puny little attempt at dick measuring. It would rip his head off, shit down his throat and then proceed to copulate copiously with all the girl-oxymorons till kingdom come, because there certainly will never be another worthy challenger (Author’s note 1. I do not believe in a coming kingdom, it’s a bleeping figure of speech; 2. MSFT might challenge). So for the last two months, and this was pretty tough as I was joyfully and innovatively intoxicated, I have been racking my nerdy brains as to why a guy who can not use a soap dispenser with his hands, would need soap dispensed to his hands. I don’t care if you think me mean to all those poor souls who have no hands, because for most jobs at Intel you bloody well need all your ten (some nerds insist on eleven) appendices for typing on a keyboard in order to make those little chippies clock faster. I welcome the thought that you think I am not politically correct enough for your puritan little mind because your puritan little mind does not conceive of wondering why there is a need for a glorious “Hands-Free Soap Dispenser”. You are too busy being happy that you do not have to touch a Soap Dispenser that another (yuk) person has just touched. While you mull over how to hide all your nasty human scents, remove all the unwanted hairs and appear to have flushed just before mating with your alpha fe/male consider this: The great mothership is not trying to do good by you, trying to protect you from the vagaries of the modern toilet, or even to provide two month of continuous entertainment for one easily amused nerd. They are trying to make you less sick so that you can be a more productive cog in their multinational machine.

Well, I would love to turn this into a rant against big corporations taking over my dear little green planet but I can’t. I like that Intel thinks so much about their bottom line that they come up with a way to prevent some bacteria to get on my hands, before I proceed to wash them anyway. I like that since I was here last they put a little nurse station in a little room that used to be the janitor’s. Yup, the nurse is cute, and she tells you about proper positioning (At your keyboard, you nerd!). Alas, no ranting about big business today. But please, can I get a little stronger response when I ask “What hands, and if I do have hands that I can not use, do I wash with soap from a Hands-Free Soap Dispenser?” then the blank rather disinterested look that a girl-oxymoron wears while patiently waiting for the crowning of the alpha-oxymoron?