Hard Times and Advice

[Tom Droege <tdroege@veriomail.com>]

The list has been quiet lately and I think I know why.  These are hard 
times in the tech world and many of you have not seen this before.  I 
have.  There may be useful advice at the end of this.  At least one of you 
has told me that he has to work now.  ;^)

In the late 60's we all thought that something called "Time Sharing" was 
the future of computing.  Some of us set out to do it.  The idea was that 
there would be central computing facilities like power plants.  Computers 
then were as expensive as power plants (almost) are today.  I was one of 
four that started a company called "Applied Logic" that built a 15,000 sq. 
foot computer room on the north side of Princeton airport.  We had TTY 
lines coming to it from all parts of the country.  I was "Director of 
Operations" and had 99 people working for me.  I remember 17 systems 
programmers, 25 or so electronics maintenance techs, a security group, a 
quality control group, a communications group, etc..  At any one time we 
had $50,000.00 ($500,000.00 today) in disputed phone bills with the 
telephone company.  Sound familiar to any of you?

We were trying to becoming a computing utility.  Had we instead thought of 
ourselves as an information utility, we would still be here.  In fact we 
came very close.  We could have had an exclusive contract for the Dow Jones 
data base.  One of our early customers was John Reed who went on to become 
the president of CityCorp.  We had all the right connections to grab 
power.  We did not figure out what to grab.  Whatever you say about Bill 
Gates, when the power grabbing opportunity came along, he made a world 
class grab.

I once set out to determine what my security staff actually did.  I quickly 
gave up.  I then turned to trying to understand what one of my staff did, 
and to get control of one project.  That is I wanted to understand what the 
project did, what a successful conclusion would be, and how long it would 
take.  After a year and a half, I had made no progress.

As we burned through our initial public offering (late 1970), I had the 
"pleasure" of laying off about a third of my staff.  If any of you has this 
thankless job, I can give you advice on how to do it.  At this level the 
net result of the layoff was that I had less mail in my in basket to 
read.  It was an exciting day.  I had to take the security guy off and get 
him to cooperate in the layoff so that the computers would keep running - 
all this having no idea of what he did or how he did it.  He just did not 
know about power, or he could have had my job.

Now advice to you all.  Hard times will pass.  All my worker friends stayed 
employed.  In fact even the BS artists got good jobs.  I don't know any 
that were out of work any significant amount of time.  Most of those that I 
laid off had jobs within a week or two.  Many just went of to the next job.

Another piece of advice.  Think about what it is that you do.  Possibly you 
have it wrong.  We though of ourselves as a computing utility.  Had we 
thought of ourselves as an information utility, I would still be counting 
my money like Bill is.  I notice he just cashed in a triffel of 150Million 
last month.

Remember that your managers would use any power instantly if they had it to 
get more goodies for themselves.  If you study Dilbert, you will notice 
that Dilbert's boss has no idea of what he does.  He also does not know 
what Alice or Wally do or how to differentiate their work.  This is why 
Dilbert's boss is not able to give Dilbert support or a compliment.  He 
just does not know enough.  Remember that your boss (probably) has no idea 
of what you do.  I was a pretty competent technical guy and I was helpless 
when it came to the software staff.

Your boss probably imagines that something terrible will happen if he gets 
rid of you.  He is paying you a lot of money and he equates that with you 
being valuable.  Do not abuse him of this idea.  He will not hesitate for a 
second to lay you off if he understands that you are not vital to the 
successful operation of the project/software/system/staying/up or 
whatever.  These are times to hold on to your power.  Most of you do not 
think of grasping power like Bill Gates does.  So you must hold on to your 
power until the day you decide to leave.  These are not times to give long 
notice of departure.  Expect to have your stuff in a cardboard box 10 
minutes after you voice intention of leaving.

You may notice your boss showing increased interest in what you do.  It is 
not in your interest to clarify the situation.  Make sure he leaves such an 
attempt completely confused.  It is not a bad time for some disaster to 
occur that only you can fix.  If you are presented with such an 
opportunity, do not make it very clear how you repaired the situation.  You 
are a great technical wizard, and only you have the necessary knowledge to 
prevent a recurrence of the problem.  This may sound immoral, and at least 
to my mind it is.  Your boss made a big mistake when he allowed you to 
become indispensable.  However he has given you the power to protect your 
job.  Do not give it back to him at this time.  That is, unless you want a 
pink slip.  I come from the school that says "If you have an indispensable 
man, fire him."  So I always trained my staff in such a way that there were 
several people that understood every job.  I also trained someone that knew 
my job.  You can't be promoted unless you have someone that can take over 
your job.  But Applied Logic was not set up that way and I inherited the 99 
people when I left my job at Princeton to try to rescue the situation.  I 
bet many of the companies that you work for are not structured so that no 
man is indispensable either.  So hold on to your power.

Whatever your view of the morality of grasping power, keep it to 
yourself.  Your boss will use any power you give him in a second to secure 
his position at the expense of you.  Sorry, that is the way it is.

Tom Droege