Our project is headed by a small oligarchy known as the 3-headed monster. It's composed of; The Beaver, Evel Knievel and El Presidente.
The Beaver-is the top man, he works behind the scenes, we don't see him much, but we know he's the person manning the controls. I don't have much information about him, except that I know that he's from Belgium and he's in charge. I've seen him a couple times, he always wears a black sweater and black pants. He has a big gut, wears glasses and has gray hair. usually he's in one of the meeting rooms having a conference call of some kind. Although, when Evel Knievel was celebrating his birthday some months ago, he was kind enough to invite us all to wish him a happy birthday.
Evel Knievel-is the 2nd most powerful person we deal with, we see more of him than we do of The Beaver. He's usually in Prague once, or, twice every month. Once he's in the office, he retreats to one of the meeting rooms and works on his laptop, stopping only for lunch and to have meetings with the supervisors. Evel's from Ireland, and seems like a friendly guy. I talked to him a couple times on the telephone, and once in Dublin. He oversees the project, makes sure everything is running smoothly, and if it isn't he instructs El Presidente to fix it...in fact, he makes El Presidente do all the dirty work, so that he seems like the nice guy.
El Presidente-Our fearless and strong leader. A graduate of the Josef Stalin School of Business Management. Merciful to those who respect his authority, vengeful towards those who question it. The only input he accepts is his own, and that of others that agree with this input. What he says is right, if you disagree you're wrong. It's that simple. Dissent is not tolerated, all opposition must be CRUSHED.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Saturday, July 19, 2008
The Red Headed Stepchild
It's not the first time that my Saturday morning has started like this. After straggling back home on the border between late night and early morning, I slept for several hours and woke up with a headache and a strong desire to stay in bed the whole day. Thankfully, I did finally gather the strength to get my ass up, take a shower and make a strong pot of coffee. The desired effects of caffeine have finally kicked in now and I'm ready to do some ranting and raving.
Most health and psychological professionals wouldn't recommend a person to deal with their professional problems by going to a bar with co-workers, vent their frustrations about their other co-workers and the job in general and get shitfaced. But after a frustrating day at work, I really needed to let off some steam and get a bit wankered...and now for some background before getting to the meat and potatoes of the matter:
Outsourcing companies really are white-collar sweatshops. Multi-nationals use outsourcing companies to keep costs low, and profits high. This is a major reason why they're hosted by developing countries with a high number of educated people, where salaries are lower than developed countries. Client companies aren't proud of using outsourcing companies, but they view them as a necessary evil. The result being that employees from the client company view us outsourced workers with a measure of disdain. One mistake will drown out many 100's of positive things that we do from a day to day basis, bringing us to the main point of my post today.
Yesterday started out well enough, I arrived at the office at around the usual time of 8:50. The necessary early morning checks and reports running smoothly, and the weekend around the corner. I opened my e-mail program and a message came into my inbox, the subject was :(. I felt a sick feeling developing in my stomach, My supervisor, Archie, went to company HQ and had a short meeting with some managers. Apparently they complained about me about 2 things that happened nearly 2 months ago, and another incident which was actually partly one of the manager's fault, but I'll come back to that later. I remember it well, it was just some procedural things that I had never really had to work with. Anyway, Archie and I thought we dealt with it effectively and...well, you live and learn, I suppose.
But no, she (we'll call her Alice Cooper) decided to bring these issues back up at the meeting with Archie. Apparently it was serious enough to where Archie asked me if I could get some positive client feedback that he could show the 2 managers...it was at this point that I felt my job security slip a bit. I don't understand why had to wait 2 months to bring this up? This could've been worked out at the time of the incident.
The 3rd incident, the one that REALLY galls me, had more to do with an inventory setup in the computer system, which I have no control over, but Alice does. One of the salesmen raised this issue, and wasn't sure why his customer wasn't receiving the products on time, he was pissed off. I then commenced on the first steps to have the products delivered ASAP to the customer. But credit to Alice, she at this point took control of the situation and arranged for the products to get delivered early next morning. This was the point where the salesman blamed Alice for the hold-up, I was in the copy of the e-mail he sent her, so I replied to him and decided to take responsibility for what went wrong. This really was the biggest error on my part. Alice seized on the opportunity and it was there in print that I took the blame for what happened and showed Archie.
You think you try to help out your colleague, only to have yourself get bitten in the ass by it. I'm still naive when it comes to office politics. Most people are just out there protecting their own backside, who cares if some low level outsourced worker is at risk of losing their job over it. I feel like I have to do the work of 2 people, and I have absolutely no margin for error. I came here to prove myself, to work my ass off, and to show that I'm dependable. Instead it seems I could've just slacked off, not given a fuck about anything and be just as far along in my career development. I feel absolutely betrayed, and nothing pisses me off more than 2 faced people. They meet you, they smile, they shake your hand and you have a conversation. But their cowardice shows on days like Fridays, when they are far away, they can fuck you over. When it comes to negative things, these types of companies have long memories and I most likely don't have any shot at any promotion any time soon because of this.
I realize I have to develop thick skin, because this won't be the only time. But I never EVER want to be like them I don't want to compromise my morals, just so I can lay the blame on my colleagues, I don't understand how they can do this?
Most health and psychological professionals wouldn't recommend a person to deal with their professional problems by going to a bar with co-workers, vent their frustrations about their other co-workers and the job in general and get shitfaced. But after a frustrating day at work, I really needed to let off some steam and get a bit wankered...and now for some background before getting to the meat and potatoes of the matter:
Outsourcing companies really are white-collar sweatshops. Multi-nationals use outsourcing companies to keep costs low, and profits high. This is a major reason why they're hosted by developing countries with a high number of educated people, where salaries are lower than developed countries. Client companies aren't proud of using outsourcing companies, but they view them as a necessary evil. The result being that employees from the client company view us outsourced workers with a measure of disdain. One mistake will drown out many 100's of positive things that we do from a day to day basis, bringing us to the main point of my post today.
Yesterday started out well enough, I arrived at the office at around the usual time of 8:50. The necessary early morning checks and reports running smoothly, and the weekend around the corner. I opened my e-mail program and a message came into my inbox, the subject was :(. I felt a sick feeling developing in my stomach, My supervisor, Archie, went to company HQ and had a short meeting with some managers. Apparently they complained about me about 2 things that happened nearly 2 months ago, and another incident which was actually partly one of the manager's fault, but I'll come back to that later. I remember it well, it was just some procedural things that I had never really had to work with. Anyway, Archie and I thought we dealt with it effectively and...well, you live and learn, I suppose.
But no, she (we'll call her Alice Cooper) decided to bring these issues back up at the meeting with Archie. Apparently it was serious enough to where Archie asked me if I could get some positive client feedback that he could show the 2 managers...it was at this point that I felt my job security slip a bit. I don't understand why had to wait 2 months to bring this up? This could've been worked out at the time of the incident.
The 3rd incident, the one that REALLY galls me, had more to do with an inventory setup in the computer system, which I have no control over, but Alice does. One of the salesmen raised this issue, and wasn't sure why his customer wasn't receiving the products on time, he was pissed off. I then commenced on the first steps to have the products delivered ASAP to the customer. But credit to Alice, she at this point took control of the situation and arranged for the products to get delivered early next morning. This was the point where the salesman blamed Alice for the hold-up, I was in the copy of the e-mail he sent her, so I replied to him and decided to take responsibility for what went wrong. This really was the biggest error on my part. Alice seized on the opportunity and it was there in print that I took the blame for what happened and showed Archie.
You think you try to help out your colleague, only to have yourself get bitten in the ass by it. I'm still naive when it comes to office politics. Most people are just out there protecting their own backside, who cares if some low level outsourced worker is at risk of losing their job over it. I feel like I have to do the work of 2 people, and I have absolutely no margin for error. I came here to prove myself, to work my ass off, and to show that I'm dependable. Instead it seems I could've just slacked off, not given a fuck about anything and be just as far along in my career development. I feel absolutely betrayed, and nothing pisses me off more than 2 faced people. They meet you, they smile, they shake your hand and you have a conversation. But their cowardice shows on days like Fridays, when they are far away, they can fuck you over. When it comes to negative things, these types of companies have long memories and I most likely don't have any shot at any promotion any time soon because of this.
I realize I have to develop thick skin, because this won't be the only time. But I never EVER want to be like them I don't want to compromise my morals, just so I can lay the blame on my colleagues, I don't understand how they can do this?
Sunday, July 13, 2008
bloggers are better than writers
cause we don't waste paper.
so many writers aren't worth the paper they write on. bloggers are always worth the paper they write on.
so many writers aren't worth the paper they write on. bloggers are always worth the paper they write on.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Co-worker profiles
Our office is like a revolving door. It's rare for most people to work for longer than 2 years. The same is true for most of the workers in my team. Out of the 10 people in the group, only 2 of them have stayed longer than 2 years. Anyway, here's a list of the people that I work with the most, so not the whole team. These are just (very) short profiles, as you will notice I gave them all nicknames:
Archie: Archie's my boss. I get along quite well with him, although we never hang out or anything. He's worked there for about a year and a half now. I get around 20+ e-mails a day from him, and the question he most often asks me is, "didn't you read my e-mail about this??!!"
Clouseau: A Walloon from Brussels. He loves to talk and can't say anything without having a complete conversation about it. He's worked for our team for 3 months, and he really ought to know most of the stuff already, but sometimes it's like his first week. He's an intelligent guy, but his mental compas is all over the place and he can't really concentrate for very long. He gets on my nerves most of the time, but I realize he's a decent enough guy and he tries his best.
Mrs. Dracula: I give her this name because she's from Transylvania and she loves horror movies. She's nice enough, but is very cynical and sarcastic. She complains a lot about Clouseau and Snowball, they sit in the cubicles on the right and left of her, respectively. She's competent and knows what she does at work. She joined a month before I was hired.
Snowball: He's from Poland. He has a small family, is studying for his masters degree and works full-time. He's often quickly stressed at work, and I get the impression he's not a big fan of work in general and gets in trouble a lot with Archie. He loves anything chocolate. He's an alright guy but he's very insecure and gets confused often.
There are also other people in my team, but I don't really work with them much. However, these are the people that I rely on, and that I interact with the most in regards to the work I do. I'll write another post about some of the other people in my office in a while.
Archie: Archie's my boss. I get along quite well with him, although we never hang out or anything. He's worked there for about a year and a half now. I get around 20+ e-mails a day from him, and the question he most often asks me is, "didn't you read my e-mail about this??!!"
Clouseau: A Walloon from Brussels. He loves to talk and can't say anything without having a complete conversation about it. He's worked for our team for 3 months, and he really ought to know most of the stuff already, but sometimes it's like his first week. He's an intelligent guy, but his mental compas is all over the place and he can't really concentrate for very long. He gets on my nerves most of the time, but I realize he's a decent enough guy and he tries his best.
Mrs. Dracula: I give her this name because she's from Transylvania and she loves horror movies. She's nice enough, but is very cynical and sarcastic. She complains a lot about Clouseau and Snowball, they sit in the cubicles on the right and left of her, respectively. She's competent and knows what she does at work. She joined a month before I was hired.
Snowball: He's from Poland. He has a small family, is studying for his masters degree and works full-time. He's often quickly stressed at work, and I get the impression he's not a big fan of work in general and gets in trouble a lot with Archie. He loves anything chocolate. He's an alright guy but he's very insecure and gets confused often.
There are also other people in my team, but I don't really work with them much. However, these are the people that I rely on, and that I interact with the most in regards to the work I do. I'll write another post about some of the other people in my office in a while.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
cubicles are all the rage these days
office: (n.) pronunciation: \ˈä-fəs, ˈȯ-\ : definition: a place where they keep the living dead.
like my kindly co-bloggers, i shall give a brief introduction for those few who care. i never expected to be working in an office doing near robotic work. but after studying for many years time came to get a job and experience remains experience and i was drawn by the mysteries of central europe. which i may add are not entirely without grounds.
despite the overall cynisism with which i approach working in an office, it is not that bad. the thing is that large outsourcing companies are full of potential if you're willing to work hard and get noticed. and since i work directly with a small team of foreigners, i'd say we're pretty close knit. in a foreign environment its almost like you form little families and tribes. perhaps that sounds quite primitive and anarchistic, but in fact considering the situation we find ourselves in it's hardly surprising.
now that i've lost my blogging virginity, i'm curious as to how the style of the blog will develop. so dobry noc and naschledanou (please excuse any spelling errors, these are completely unintentional and any resemblance to words other than goodnight and goodbye are completely coincidential (assuming of course that you believe in coincidences)).
like my kindly co-bloggers, i shall give a brief introduction for those few who care. i never expected to be working in an office doing near robotic work. but after studying for many years time came to get a job and experience remains experience and i was drawn by the mysteries of central europe. which i may add are not entirely without grounds.
despite the overall cynisism with which i approach working in an office, it is not that bad. the thing is that large outsourcing companies are full of potential if you're willing to work hard and get noticed. and since i work directly with a small team of foreigners, i'd say we're pretty close knit. in a foreign environment its almost like you form little families and tribes. perhaps that sounds quite primitive and anarchistic, but in fact considering the situation we find ourselves in it's hardly surprising.
now that i've lost my blogging virginity, i'm curious as to how the style of the blog will develop. so dobry noc and naschledanou (please excuse any spelling errors, these are completely unintentional and any resemblance to words other than goodnight and goodbye are completely coincidential (assuming of course that you believe in coincidences)).
Monday, July 7, 2008
Even a monkey can do this job!
With this post, I'm continuing a little more with the background theme. I won't go much into the details of how our office looks, it's a pretty standard looking office, identical to any you'll find in western Europe or the USA. Just imagine a large square shaped area with rows of cubicles, several meeting rooms and a small kitchen. I'm not sure of the number of people that work there, but I heard it's around 70 people or so. The majority of the people who work there are either Czech or Slovak. Although the demographics have changed a bit since I started work here 10 months ago.
Most of us are divided into teams. There are 10 different teams, 8 of which are divided into geographical regions and 2 data entry support teams. Within these teams are supervisors and team leads, who make sure we do our work like we're supposed to, and seem to spend half their working days in meetings. Additionally we have 2 IT guys, 2 people (TF included) with an operations position that will soon be transferred to company HQ, 2 people in charge of "continuous improvement," someone that makes our Excel macros, an office administrator and a cranky looking middle-aged woman whose job is a mystery to me. Although I believe she also helps with the continuous improvement.
We have 3 bosses. 2 Czech bosses, a man and a woman, and a man in Ireland who comes over every couple of weeks. The Czech man is our unquestioned leader in Prague, and we call him El Presidente. He was hired recently, and in a short period of time has established his unquestioned authority. The woman, even though she has spent longer in this company, reports to him. She's #2.
I work with Dutch clients, and I'm a member of the second smallest team. I don't deal much with the other teams, except for the 2 data entry support teams. I work with 2 other people within my team, a Belgian and a Dutch speaking Czech who is my team lead. I don't have a very difficult job but it definitely requires organization, stress management and an ability to work with several software systems at once. Basically what my job entails, is that I am a point of contact in the supply chain between the multi-national corporation and it's clients in northwestern Europe.
I tolerate my job, I don't like it much, but I don't mind going to work. What helps is that I know I won't spend the rest of my professional life in this position. But like any other job, it does become frustrating at times. There are people at work that are friends, others that I get along with, just a couple I don't like, and several I don't even know. Even though our office is located in Prague, many of the same typical western office dynamics are in play here. People complain about salary, holidays, promotions, etc. There are office romances, affairs, fights and rivals. But, more or less, one day is the same as the next...
Most of us are divided into teams. There are 10 different teams, 8 of which are divided into geographical regions and 2 data entry support teams. Within these teams are supervisors and team leads, who make sure we do our work like we're supposed to, and seem to spend half their working days in meetings. Additionally we have 2 IT guys, 2 people (TF included) with an operations position that will soon be transferred to company HQ, 2 people in charge of "continuous improvement," someone that makes our Excel macros, an office administrator and a cranky looking middle-aged woman whose job is a mystery to me. Although I believe she also helps with the continuous improvement.
We have 3 bosses. 2 Czech bosses, a man and a woman, and a man in Ireland who comes over every couple of weeks. The Czech man is our unquestioned leader in Prague, and we call him El Presidente. He was hired recently, and in a short period of time has established his unquestioned authority. The woman, even though she has spent longer in this company, reports to him. She's #2.
I work with Dutch clients, and I'm a member of the second smallest team. I don't deal much with the other teams, except for the 2 data entry support teams. I work with 2 other people within my team, a Belgian and a Dutch speaking Czech who is my team lead. I don't have a very difficult job but it definitely requires organization, stress management and an ability to work with several software systems at once. Basically what my job entails, is that I am a point of contact in the supply chain between the multi-national corporation and it's clients in northwestern Europe.
I tolerate my job, I don't like it much, but I don't mind going to work. What helps is that I know I won't spend the rest of my professional life in this position. But like any other job, it does become frustrating at times. There are people at work that are friends, others that I get along with, just a couple I don't like, and several I don't even know. Even though our office is located in Prague, many of the same typical western office dynamics are in play here. People complain about salary, holidays, promotions, etc. There are office romances, affairs, fights and rivals. But, more or less, one day is the same as the next...
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Just a short intro
I was at a crossroads in the summer of 2007. I had just been getting some of the pre-requisites out of the way at a local college before embarking on my MBA studies. But at the time I wasn't sure whether I really wanted to go back to school. I was still in debt from my undergraduate studies, and I wasn't looking forward to going deeper in debt while going to graduate school.
It had been 4 years since conferring my bachelors degree, I had a job, but nothing that offered a real future for myself. I had decided in 2007, that if I didn't find another job before the autumn, I would concentrate 100% on studying for an MBA. Until that time, I would enroll in some business, and accounting courses so that I would be ready. So, during the summer, time was running short. One night in August I was looking for local jobs on Monster.com, I applied for some, and after I had applied for the positions, I searched for jobs in Europe. There I found a corporate job with a major outsourcing company in Prague for which I had all the right qualifications. The prospect of living in a city that I've never been to, but heard so much about intrigued me. So, I sent my CV and the very next day I received an e-mail from the HR person. They were interested in having an interview with me!
After having been interviewed by HR and the team lead of the department that I wanted to work for, I felt very good about my chances. It turned out, I had good reason to be optimistic, I received an offer letter in my inbox the next day and I accepted. A couple weeks later, I was on my way to a new life in central Europe.
The preceding scenario is more common than many would think, and this blog is meant for those that have experienced similar things. The title of this blog is called The Daily Outsource, because TF and I work for an outsourcing company that's contracted by a major American multi-national to take care of their logistics and supply chain management. So our main demographic is for the expatriate white-collar workers with similar occupations. With this blog we intend to share our experiences living and working in a foreign environment, with the hope that our readers will be entertained and at the same time identify with us. We intend to write the truth as we see it, and that truth is positive, negative, and everything in between. Thank you for visiting our blog!
It had been 4 years since conferring my bachelors degree, I had a job, but nothing that offered a real future for myself. I had decided in 2007, that if I didn't find another job before the autumn, I would concentrate 100% on studying for an MBA. Until that time, I would enroll in some business, and accounting courses so that I would be ready. So, during the summer, time was running short. One night in August I was looking for local jobs on Monster.com, I applied for some, and after I had applied for the positions, I searched for jobs in Europe. There I found a corporate job with a major outsourcing company in Prague for which I had all the right qualifications. The prospect of living in a city that I've never been to, but heard so much about intrigued me. So, I sent my CV and the very next day I received an e-mail from the HR person. They were interested in having an interview with me!
After having been interviewed by HR and the team lead of the department that I wanted to work for, I felt very good about my chances. It turned out, I had good reason to be optimistic, I received an offer letter in my inbox the next day and I accepted. A couple weeks later, I was on my way to a new life in central Europe.
The preceding scenario is more common than many would think, and this blog is meant for those that have experienced similar things. The title of this blog is called The Daily Outsource, because TF and I work for an outsourcing company that's contracted by a major American multi-national to take care of their logistics and supply chain management. So our main demographic is for the expatriate white-collar workers with similar occupations. With this blog we intend to share our experiences living and working in a foreign environment, with the hope that our readers will be entertained and at the same time identify with us. We intend to write the truth as we see it, and that truth is positive, negative, and everything in between. Thank you for visiting our blog!
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