The Truthful Apprentice

The new series started today. It is relevant again. So here, in its unedited entirety, is my final post from the days when I used to update myspace:

I don't like liars, I don't like schmoozers, I don't like bullsh*tters

So said Sir Alan Sugar. Quite inspirational. Enough to prompt my first post here in many months. I've decided that my personal life doesn't belong on the net, and my political opinions are replicated elsewhere in the ether. But there is a tiny chance that someone I work with could read this, so a subject tangential to work...

So back to those three statements. Admirable philosophy. And the core brand image of the Amstrad boss. But the last few weeks of the Apprentice have shown that those statements were nothing more than fluff - in fact depending on how polite we are to "Sir Alan", we could say those statements were either just schmooze, just bullshit, or just lies.

Last week there was a young lady who deliberately lied to hide a genuine mistake instead of admitting it. Yet this was glossed over and she was kept on, while another young lady who simply told the truth was fired. The fired lady had other failings, but how could he trust the other one? The same week, another young man deliberately tried to defraud the VAT office while negotiating a price. Again he was kept on, and his banter was justified as schmooze; this week his incessant bullshit was praised again.

I like many aspects of the program. But there is a difference between selling toot for a pound a time to customers whom you know that you will not deal with again (so spouting bullshit is rewarded) compared to selling multi-million-dollar long-term contracts where trust and quality are integral (so bullshit is punished). It is the difference between a cowboy trader and a genuine entrepreneur.

Now I have some influence in recruitment. Perhaps some enterprising candidate will know that I am interviewing, will look here, and will get an "unfair" advantage. But I'd say those opinions are hardly radical. And unlike Sir Alan, I mean it.

Another Knight's Tale

A couple of days ago I mentioned a splendid film. Apart from the great soundtrack, there was something else that ties that movie to this blog...

Totally unjustified in real history but somehow perfectly fit within that fictional story was the character of Geoffrey Chaucer. I had mentioned him before in my first note about language. And that was not even the first time that I mentioned A Knight's Tale...

Back one March many years ago, I went on a little day trip to Canterbury with a couple of friends from school days. At the time I was employed by a large management consultancy company, but I was contemplating an offer from a senior client to leave the corporation and do some independent consulting work.

A few days later I handed in my resignation letter to the company. This was the letter.

The Project Triangle

As mentioned earlier, managing a project means balancing resources, and though somewhat interchangeable, the main resources are people, money and time.

It's usually great to get more people.
But people cost money, and it takes time before they are really effective.

It's usually great to get more time.
But that may well increase costs too, and a tight deadline can actually help the team to focus.

It's usually great to get more money.
But fat chance.

Re-source

We are struggling with resource issues. Every project manager needs to juggle people, money, and time.

I've been there before. I've been on projects where the shortage of skilled people meant that the whole team had to work until ten every night. And every weekend. I've been on projects where the physical shortage of equipment (basically just PCs and desks within a secure environment) meant that the entire project had to operate in shifts, some people starting before sunrise and handing over to the second batch in the afternoon. I've worked all night to meet deadlines.

But that was with previous clients, those were big infrastructure projects, the teams were large, and everybody seemed to be fully in it together. The whole team worked those stupid hours. Teams split up. Times change. Demographics change. Interests change. Remuneration changes. So it doesn't happen any more.

But the budgets and deadlines just keep coming.

Ce soir

I advise on European marketing. We are always dealing with customers, prospects, suspects, in fact consumers of every variety and nationality. Sometimes messages can be confused in translations.

In French, a consumer is a consommateur and to consume is consommer. However the same verb can have another meaning.

We work with the London office of an international marketing agency. Leaving the agency today is a young lady from France, and her leaving drinks are this evening. In the note she sent out yesterday inviting us to them, she mentioned the alcohol and encouraged us all to "consummate" in moderation … hmmmm.

This is a mad way to leave

My company exists, in the words of its own slogan, to help companies change to be even more successful. It is what I do.

I was working in a leased building, an old factory recently converted to offices. The advice that I gave inside that building must remain confidential - the client paid for it! But I also gave them some advice outside the building, and it is far too obvious to be confidential.

On leaving the car park, security insisted that we drive all the way around the building to exit. Presumably they blindly followed the dictum that one way streets are safer than two way streets. But driving round the back, you were forced to drive through a giant lorry park and right past the entrance to a very busy warehouse. This immediately struck me as madness. I wrote to the building supervisor with a diagram proposing a new route out, and a couple of weeks later new markings and signs went up instructing traffic to go exactly as I had suggested.

Is it only a few odd people who always look to make things better? Who knows how long workers had put up with a ridiculous system simply because "that is just the way things are"?

To HR dept, managers and colleagues

The Prologue

Whan that cliente, with hise offeres soote,
The droghte of cashe hath perced to the roote
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

At nyght al come to that hostelrye
Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye
Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle
In felaweshipe, an droydes were we alle,


The Captain's Logue

A knyght ther was, and that a worthy man,
That fro the tyme that he first bigan
To riden out, followed chivalrie,
Trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisie.

Ful worthy was he in partneres werre,
And therto hadde he riden, no man ferre
And tho his port not meeke as a mayde
He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde.


The Epilogue

For by my trouthe, if that I shal nat lye,
I saugh nat this yeer so myrie a compaignye
The sothe is this: the cut fil to this knyght,
Of which ful blithe and glad was every wyght.

So lat me wend, and herkneth what I seye.
And with that word I ryde forth aweye,
As we bigan with right a myrie cheere
Our tale anon, and seyde in this manere.

How to leave

It's not easy to know what to say when leaving somewhere after being employed there for the best part of a decade.

If leaving voluntarily, you are likely to have been offered more money elsewhere, but it's not easy to say that in a subtle manner which would not sever any ties. Perhaps you could also briefly describe the things that you have liked and disliked about your job. You should probably also welcome everybody for a few leaving drinks.

It might even be possible to place into your leaving note the precise trigger that made you depart, and maybe even refer to the actual time and place where you made your decision.

And all this should ideally be said within about three short paragraphs, my self-imposed "haiku" note ideal. Oh, I've past my limit now, will have to give an example tomorrow…