A day at the office

Now, I need to explain that yesterday I went to the office.  Nothing strange in that.  However, this week, that is the only day I will not be working at home.  The reason is that my normal office is being visited by a large bunch of off-shore folks, whose job is to learn how the on-shore folks do their jobs, and via some knowledge transfer - KT as it is known in the trade - equip themselves with the capability to do the on-shore person's job.  These off-shore folks need desks, and with the now limited hot desks made available to Starfleet troopers, a bunch of us have been politely asked to work elsewhere.  So I have.

Now, I as much as the next chap know that progress is inevitable, and that we are moving in to the era of Automation, Abundance and Asia, and even I, as sick as I am can see that that is a bit of a bum rap.  In the whole world of motivational speaking, I have never heard anyone quote the "tell someone how to do your job so you can be made redundant" method as a way to instill team spirit and cooperation, and so it is not without some inevitability that some of the chaps on the ground are not that happy right now.

Broadly, they will fall in to three camps:

• they are going to do it anyway, why should I care, I am just going to build up my store of company paper-clips and take the money and run when the time comes
• be one of the minority who like their job, like their new employer and stick doing what they were doing prior to the contract starting
• can't wait to take the opportunity that working for a large and diverse organisation offers them, and find themselves another job.

Now, I went through this, perhaps in a slightly gentler era where the redundancies did not happen so fast and so decisively, however I did experience most of what these folks are going through, and it is pretty grim.  The paradigm shift required to turn from poacher to gamekeeper takes some time to happen, and it requires a fair degree of positive thinking to achieve.  For me, I took the third option, and for better or worse, here I am still.

I wish them all good luck with getting through this process, and with whatever choices they make, or choices that are forced on them.  I also look forward to greeting those that remain when they emerge out the other side of the process.