Mill Update

I have had the opportunity today to fill in some of the blanks since my last update, which perhaps you can no longer tell was August 17th. Be sure to scroll down and read the in-betweens, which I have back dated because that is my prerogative.

But since I am sure that the readership is scrambling for news, I will start with this update, then upload my other meaningless musings about my daily life.

So. What's the latest at the Mill?

You will enjoy knowing that Labor Day Weekend was a full-on around the clock scramble to respond to what we shall call the...um.... recall of several million bolts of cloth. In an institution with no sense of its own irony, after laying people off to advance their lives, they celebrated the advances of Labor/management relations through mandatory unpaid overtime.

And a taco buffet. So that was nice.

Fortunately, I wasn't there. I was on a southbound plane, with Chained to the Desk tucked under one arm, without apology, and said "wish you well." Very grateful that I was not asked to change plans, because I don't know what I would have done.

Came back to find my team looking like this. I've mixed my metaphors. Sorry.

The end is not in sight. We are working to repair a lot of years of sloppy in a very short time, in a desparate and fairly disorganized way. It's like any previous day times ten. A standing item on our daily agenda has become "who is officially or unofficially on duty this weekend?"

Chained to the Desk offers 6 characteristics of "companies that promote work addiction."

1 - The mission of the organization is denied, ignored, or forgotten

(noble or otherwise)

2 - Corporate survival reigns supreme

(there is already battlefield folklore of an officer being fired on the spot for disagreeing with an approach. I have yet to get eyewitness proof of this story)

3 - Profit is the driving force of the company

(check)

4 - The environment is self-centered and has no boundaries or respect.

(number of co-workers I can see on IM right now, Sat 6:50pm = 7)

5 - Crisis management is the norm

(in spades)

6 - Intimacy does not exist.

I am not so sure about this one. Mostly because it rarely exists in me, so I don't always recognize it. But the environment down-the-mill is not in fact cold and impersonal, as the book describes. It is Band of Brothers bordering on Lord of the Flies with a hope of the Gdansk Shipyard. And you can look all those references up yourself.

see also the Stockholm Syndrome posting on the finishing school.

And that's what's new at the Mill.