POLITICS: BUSH AND DRED SCOTT

Dred not

One of the most interesting bits of debate trivia still bouncing around is President Bush's almost-gratuitous mention of the Dred Scott decision.

October 22, 2004 | 3:17 a.m. | New York, New York
Permanent link: http://www.offoffoff.com/opinion/offofftopic/20041017.php#e54

SCIENCE/TECHNOLOGY: MICROSOFT REALITY

Wow, I didn't know you could do that

I'm quitting Microsoft Word after some kind of ridiculous error, and for the second time ever, I get the following message:

Do you want to replace the existing Normal? (No) (Yes)

Which is cool because I would really like to replace the existing Normal. When I install the new Normal, I'll let you know what it is.

October 21, 2004 | 1:43 p.m. | New York, New York
Permanent link: http://www.offoffoff.com/opinion/offofftopic/20041017.php#e52

WORK: DON'T MEET THE NEW BOSS

Don't meet the new boss, part 2

Well, I thought my streak of being ignored by the new boss was going to end today at 161 days, but it didn't. Ms. Rebello (it would be premature to call her "Kathy" since we haven't actually met) apparently had a question for me, so she stopped in front of my desk, looked right at me, and rather than saying something to me, asked one of my co-workers to say it instead. Whew! The streak lives!

MEET THE NEW BOSS Wherein we see how long it takes for the new boss to figure out that I exist - More in this series -

At least she now knows my name, although she was standing right in front of the nameplate for my set of cubicles, so she may just have been reading it for the first time. She's had time to forget it by now.

In fact, she has ignored me long enough that I'm not sure whether she's technically my boss anymore. Earlier this year, I was told by the head of IT that at some point there was going to be a reorganization and I would be working for him. Last week, Rebello's assistant — the only person who seems to know how things are supposed to work — told me I'd better check who my supervisor was on the company intranet. That's how I discovered that I have a whole different supervisor — a very good guy, which is heartening, but it's less heartening that nobody bothered to tell me, "Oh, by the way, you now work for this guy." I had to read it on the intranet. The new guy still hasn't talked to me since whenever this happened.

And maybe he's not going to, either, because I'm being moved to a different part of the office. (That's what the boss delegated my co-worker to tell me about while standing right in front of me.) The new part of the office has been vacated because of a decision to move the web site's editors to a different floor, separating them from the reporters whose copy they edit. In 20-plus years in journalism, I've never heard of such a thing. These people need to talk to each other on an hour-by-hour basis, often in person, which makes it crucial for them to be at most a 30-second walk apart. So it's just weird that the great minds at the top thought this move made any kind of sense. Communication is clearly not a priority on any level.

(Incidentally, moving the employees is a management pastime at Business Week Online. We do it once or twice a year. Some of the people who just got moved upstairs have moved from the 46th floor to Penn Plaza back to 46 then to 45 and now back to 46, and that's not counting at least two moves within floors. It would be interesting to know how many salaries we've spent playing musical cubicles.)

I understand that a number of other bad decisions have been made behind the scenes during the new boss's tenure, and I can't imagine anything good is going to follow. Maybe I should be alarmed, but, as before, I'm more amused at the overarching absurdity. It's a very novel way to run a railroad.

October 19, 2004 | 3:53 a.m. | New York, New York
Permanent link: http://www.offoffoff.com/opinion/offofftopic/20041017.php#e49