Mr. Nemus approves
It is amazing how many people that I don't know tell me what a great job I am doing and how much they appreciate my work. This evening was typical. I was told by my Human Relations contact that I had to go to a meeting today at 6pm.
There were four speakers. The first one (good manager) spent her entire time complimenting us. What great work we are doing, how much we are appreciated and how many great things they have heard about us. Now, mind you I have never met any of the 50 people that were in the room before. And everyone in the room had dramatically different jobs, from building inspector to engineer to planner. None the less she had heard great things about us. Our only connection was that we were all hired under the same contract, the National Infrastructure Assistance Contract. It is possible that the word on the street is that those National Infrastructure Assistance Contract people are the bomb, but I kind of doubt it. So, good manager finishes and up comes bad manager.
She affirmed that we are all doing a great job, but says there have been problems. She says people have been doing "things they are not supposed to do" and consequently were sent home. "I mean really inappropriate stuff. Bad stuff. Stuff you would not believe." And when people do this "bad stuff" it makes all of us National Infrastrucure Assistance Contract (NIAC) workers look bad. So don't do "bad" stuff she reiterated. Furthermore, she said, people were saying things they should not say. For instance, a NIAC person was working with an official from the local government to put in a funding request to FEMA, and FEMA denied the request. The NIAC person disagreed and wrote an email saying they disagreed and also said, "some others things they should not have said." Well, the person was sent home and it is going to take months to undo the damage. So, don't say things that you are not supposed to say, we were urged. I almost laughed because it was all so nonspecific, but I am sure laughing would have gotten me yelled at, and then all the future groups would have been cautioned not to make auditory commotions at inappropriate times.
Then a third manager came on and again complimented us for doing such great work. He then spent 45 minutes urging the PAs to fill out their PWs and get them in to Nemus ASAP. This seemed to be the main point of the meeting. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I am not a PA. While his initial speech had a ratio of two words to one acronym, it quickly deteriorated. Evidently Nemus would not accept the PWs until QC or at least QA signed off on them. This caused a minor breakdown which resulted in three people pulling out their Blackberries and reading various emails instructing them on how to get their PWs into Nemus. It was at this point that I realized Nemus was not a person, but a computer system. The confusion eventually subsided, the Blackberries were sheathed and the meeting continued. Clarity would come in the form of an email, we were promised.
Finally the fourth manager got up, thanked us for our hard work and told us he would stick around in case we had NIAC problems we needed help with. Evidently, everyone else lives in a different world where they have many burning National Infrastructure Assistance Contract questions and had a good chuckle about where the line to talk with him would start. I however, headed for the door.
There were four speakers. The first one (good manager) spent her entire time complimenting us. What great work we are doing, how much we are appreciated and how many great things they have heard about us. Now, mind you I have never met any of the 50 people that were in the room before. And everyone in the room had dramatically different jobs, from building inspector to engineer to planner. None the less she had heard great things about us. Our only connection was that we were all hired under the same contract, the National Infrastructure Assistance Contract. It is possible that the word on the street is that those National Infrastructure Assistance Contract people are the bomb, but I kind of doubt it. So, good manager finishes and up comes bad manager.
She affirmed that we are all doing a great job, but says there have been problems. She says people have been doing "things they are not supposed to do" and consequently were sent home. "I mean really inappropriate stuff. Bad stuff. Stuff you would not believe." And when people do this "bad stuff" it makes all of us National Infrastrucure Assistance Contract (NIAC) workers look bad. So don't do "bad" stuff she reiterated. Furthermore, she said, people were saying things they should not say. For instance, a NIAC person was working with an official from the local government to put in a funding request to FEMA, and FEMA denied the request. The NIAC person disagreed and wrote an email saying they disagreed and also said, "some others things they should not have said." Well, the person was sent home and it is going to take months to undo the damage. So, don't say things that you are not supposed to say, we were urged. I almost laughed because it was all so nonspecific, but I am sure laughing would have gotten me yelled at, and then all the future groups would have been cautioned not to make auditory commotions at inappropriate times.
Then a third manager came on and again complimented us for doing such great work. He then spent 45 minutes urging the PAs to fill out their PWs and get them in to Nemus ASAP. This seemed to be the main point of the meeting. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I am not a PA. While his initial speech had a ratio of two words to one acronym, it quickly deteriorated. Evidently Nemus would not accept the PWs until QC or at least QA signed off on them. This caused a minor breakdown which resulted in three people pulling out their Blackberries and reading various emails instructing them on how to get their PWs into Nemus. It was at this point that I realized Nemus was not a person, but a computer system. The confusion eventually subsided, the Blackberries were sheathed and the meeting continued. Clarity would come in the form of an email, we were promised.
Finally the fourth manager got up, thanked us for our hard work and told us he would stick around in case we had NIAC problems we needed help with. Evidently, everyone else lives in a different world where they have many burning National Infrastructure Assistance Contract questions and had a good chuckle about where the line to talk with him would start. I however, headed for the door.
posted by JNA | 7:27 PM
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