Oh, They're Focused Now, All Right
New corporate CIO sends a memo around the divisional IT group. "It said the development and support group was being reviewed for possible offshore outsourcing," says a pilot fish there. "The process was intended to be 'open,' and employees were urged to remain focused." Four weeks later, one of the IT staffers notices a managers' meeting scheduled on a shared calendar. Topic of the meeting: "Managing offshore resources." Result: "Resume-polishing is now in overdrive," fish says. "The previous period of uncertainty mentioned in CIO's e-mail has been replaced by widespread certainty that offshore outsourcing isn't being 'considered' -- it's the plan."
Just Catching Up
User calls pilot fish to complain that while she's accessing her e-mail via the Web, she's getting prompted with a meeting reminder every five minutes for the same meeting. "I investigated," says fish, "only to find that the department manager sent out a meeting request with a two-week recurrence. Unfortunately, the manager made the effective date 2004, not 2007, so the user was clicking through 69 reminders -- one every five minutes -- of meetings that never took place."
