bitching about doing work is sometimes harder than doing work

by mg at 05:30 PM on May 08, 2001

Argh. I've managed to survive another day. Hooray for me!

My employers are extremely paranoid. They think they've got a brillant idea and they don't want anyone to steal it.

I, of course, signed the standard non-disclosure agreement, giving up posession of my left nut and both pinkie toes if I were to ever divulge confidential information to one of their (non-existant) competitors. When I was interviewing I wasn't told anything about what the company actually did or produced until after I started working, which should explain why I was so blind-sided when I found out how far (or rather, not far) they had gotten in the process of putting this stupid thing together.

I've also not been given a digital version of any document. There are no documents stored on the company intranet. Everything is kept on the intranet, but there is no place for shared files, and every time I've suggested that it would make it easier to ensure everyone was working on the latest version of the specifications, I was given a dirty look. It is an intranet for chrissakes, what the hell else do you do with it but store company files that you want to share (hence, "intra")?!

So, nothing is digital at this dot.com (which they like to say isn't a dot.com). Everything is printed and handed to me. And then, after things are printed, everything gets shredded. The damn shredder runs for 6 hours a day. I think they then take the shredded paper out back and feed it to homeless people, which, I guess, is kind of nice of them.

The public website, once it is created (also a job fallen to me), will not actually contain any specific information about the products and services the company offers. You'll have to request a password to another site where the company explains, well, still not everything.

So, with all this security, you'd think they had a brillant idea, right?

Right?

Well, their idea is so brilliant that every feature and bit of functionality begins with the letter "e." It isn't "Communication" it is "eCommunication."

Isn't that fucking brilliant? We've got another Gates and Jobs on out hands, kids. I bet no one has ever come up with that idea before. Though, I bet if they had, they would have been brilliantly successful.

Oh lord, someone please make it stop.