rinse, lather, repeat...

"As soon as you sit down to a cup of hot coffee, your boss will ask you to do something which will last until the coffee is cold."  ~Author Unknown

I spent four hours today talking with my boss about why our ERP project is going so slowly (it's more than 3 months behind schedule).  I'm one of the two people working on it more than 2 hours a week.  We are the only two people who know how to clean up the data to make the conversion function the way it's intended.  There are no other real resources and I have a rather time-consuming 'regular' job at the company that cannot be ignored or supported by anyone else with any real sense of consistency.

Think about that for a second...I spent four hours in a meeting-NOT working on the project.  This happens three to four times a week.  Of course the project is not going to get done.  70% of the time is spent navigating the minefield of politics and mood-swings to get things accomplished by our 'shared services' group.  Cut the bullshit and get to the tasks so we can all move on...but no, it's somehow more 'effective' to load up the tape gun with red tape and plaster it all over the place...and then bitch about why we can't get to anything (you know, after it's taped shut) that we might need later.

The justification for the shared services group is that they're ISO certified and we're not.  Okay-big fucking deal.  You've documented AND practice your inefficiency?  Congratufuckinglations!  It's bad enough that the practice sucks-but you've somehow managed to document it and NOT find the inefficiencies?  That takes a serious commitment to the blinders...and then to pass it off as 'efficient' simply because it's documented?  I feel like an atheist explaining the bible to a Christian.  Somehow, working for a company that's not ISO certified has made me more aware of what it aims to accomplish than one that's actually gone through the certification process.  How the hell did that happen? This pretty much confirms that I care too much...about all of it.

Ever stare at something so long that you forgot why you were looking at it?  

Ever know that your efforts would go nowhere-regardless of their worth-because they're being spent on people who could get hit square in the head with a brick and not even realize it?


How do people do this shit every day?

/rant