CGI client bounds to space – you’re bound to your desk

As you may already know, the CEO of one of our clients has been strapped into a Soyuz rocket and is by now orbiting the Earth to celebrate his 50^th birthday. Laliberté is supposed to make some kind of social statement from space and will talk with Bono, Al Gore and Peter Gabriel about typical wishful thinking that characterizes these people. Like the world needs water when it really needs is to outsource its IT systems.

To tell you the truth, I was a bit disappointed about not being invited to take part to this event. CGI is the outsourcing partner of the Cirque du Soleil, and I of course met with Laliberté a few times over the years. I was secretly hoping that he would make some kind of cool statement in orbit about CGI – you know, something about the sustained leadership of our mutual founders; commitment to quality and excellence; loyalty toward all stakeholders; and dedication to enriching our local and global communities.

And that Dell/Perot Systems was none of that and Xerox/Affiliated Computer was just a dump for copier technicians. This would have put CGI above the fray and give us some visibility that I desperately need these days. Sigh.

As for you, the closer you’ll ever get to space is a wallpaper of the Moon on your laptop. Now get back to work and bring me new revenues.

Our annual tour is about to begin

Our annual tour is about to begin on October 8th, I can't tell how excited I am to visit our business units worldwide, spend time in budget motels (yeah, right) and give a corporate wedgie to those that do not return at least 15% of their revenues to the headquarter.

This is how CGI operates, each unit is a separate P&L and they must return a fair portion of their money to Montreal in order to survive. When they don't, I fly the location to discuss with the BU leader and I do my best to understand why this supposedly good middle manager cannot do his/her job. In some cases, the market has been very bad - shit happens sometimes - so I spare the life of the BU leader but I increase my expectations for the next year by 10%. Bad times do not go on forever, don't they?

The clip above is something I had a mind for the shameful units. We could launch bombers from space and nuke them, or build giant Terminator-like robots (like the one at 1:26) who could toast unprofitable employees at the CGI office.

My board advised against this scenario, as it could impact our share price - which is pretty high these days ($11.90 at closing time yesterday). Not because killing people is bad per se, but nuking a BU could spread harmful substances into the atmosphere and that would make us look bad - we could be dropped from the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. Sound advice, I say.

Lowering your expectations for your own good

CGI Group was founded by 2 young guys who were 26 and 29, and now it’s the largest IT company in Canada. We’re like Apple and Google in a sense, except we’re not cool, we wear suits and people under 25 don’t know us - and if they do they think we’re specialized in “CGI-BIN” development.

Friends, the economy is tough nowadays and we will live through harsh times for several years. Don’t even think of taking risks and starting a company, nobody will give you a dime. Our fearless founder Serge was one of a kind, he’s much smarter than you and they’re no way you can even walk in his footsteps.

The reason I’m such a downer is that we badly need to hire people, and I get extremely angry when I hear that one smart employee leaves for a gaming company or Microsoft or any other company cooler than us. Why would you work for a company where you get free drinks and food, casual dress code and co-workers who look like Kramer or The Dude? At first, you’ll get all excited, the company will throw free t-shirts, golf hats and Hawaiian parties, but as the reality sinks in and you work 90 hours a week, you’ll realize you’re just a pawn in a giant chess game controlled by people who’ll never meet. Your contribution will be insignificant, the entertainment and freebies that your company provide will just a mask to hide the truth. And the single truth is, a company has to make money in order to survive.

Here at CGI we don’t do this double talk. What you see is literally what you get, it is the stark reality without a costly varnish of make-believe. Yes, our projects are boring. Yes, our customers are government offices frozen in time. Yes, our organization is made of dozens of middle management layers each with no power or budget. Yes, you’ll feel like a number from day one (and we’ll actually give you a number). Yes, you’ll work 37.5 hours a week (I mean 40). But that’s the beauty of it - we could not be more transparent.

So save yourself years of unfulfilled promises and unrealistic expectations. The whole notion of starting a company and changing the world is just an invitation to get your expectations crushed. Accept reality at face value and come work with us. You’ll never be a millionaire, you’ll end up at 65 pretty much like anyone else (bald, bitter and heavily in debt), your professional life will be pretty much uneventful, so dull actually that you’ll never talk about your job is social gatherings.

If you accept this reality as your wildest expectations, you will never be disappointed and you may actually feel pretty good. I’m awaiting your resume.

One less competitor?

Says here that I told the press that Dell buying Perot was a good thing because it eliminates a competitor. Serge kindly reminded me after the event that our competitor still exists, Dell will not convert Perot into a laptop manufacturing business. Oops. Maybe I got too carried away. I mean, I hope the Dell/Perot alliance will bear as much fruits as AOL/Time Warner and General Motors/Saab if you know what I mean.

Xerox buys a company three times the size of CGI

I know what you guys are thinking: Mike, what the heck are you doing? Are you sitting on your hands watching a beautiful Canadian sunset wondering what could possibly please a CGI shareholder these days?

Xerox planning to buy ACS for $6.4B is yet another frenzy going on the market these days, it feels like the 90’s when everyone in the office was buying the same overpriced stock because they heard about it in the men’s room. What’s next, you ask, what hardware company will buy an IT integrator? Dewalt? John Deere? I’m hearing your thoughts, CGI is a prime target because it also has a 3-letter company name, it gets two third of its revenues from outsourcing deals, much of its money come from government clients, and so on.

Never fear, Roach is here. We’re executing our strategic plan, we won’t rush into ill-advised merger because it’s what analysts expects us to do.

Having said that, I wouldn’t want to be an ACS consultant coming into a project when the merger will be completed. Let’s picture the conversation:

Consultant: I’m John, I’m a consultant with Xerox.

Client: We’ve been expecting you John, the copier is having a paper jam every time we’re using the legal paper tray.

Consultant: No, you’re making a mistake, I’m not a copier repairman, I’m with Xerox and I do consulting services. We're a new company now. I was told to report here this morning on a managed services project.

Client: The copier also says the drum needs to be serviced, which I don’t understand because it was serviced 6 months ago. You’ll notice that the glass is cracked, we’ll pay for this because it’s Jennifer’s fault – we told her no to sit on the copier during the last party and…

Proof is, ACS expects to sell copiers. Money quote from ACS CEO Lynn Blodgett: “With this combination, our tool box just got a lot bigger”. Yes, Lynn your toolbox now includes screwdrivers, toner boxes and cleaning cloth. Welcome to the Document Company.

Another visit to my therapist

Had another appointment with Paul my therapist this Sunday, as you may remember last week I did an exposé on how to use middle managers efficiently and my therapist thought my perspective was just a mask for some hidden personal issues. He said I’m controlling people more than I can admit, and this attitude might be caused by the fact that I don’t trust anyone else but me. I was like, am I totally insecure, is that what you’re trying to insinuate? Do I look like a control freak?

I then explained why middle managers need to be tightly controlled and why such attitude is actually a good one. CGI has 100+ offices in 16 countries and we’re 26,000 employees total. So let’s say that for a large BU with 2600 employees, there would be at least 20 VPs and 200 directors, around 10% middle management. So total we might have around 2500 middle managers total at CGI.

If every middle manager is given the liberty of spending $100 on something – anything – this amounts to a quarter million dollars.

That’s a lot of money, said Paul. That’s right I said, you give each individual a tiny budget, and quickly it explodes into a massive expense that blasts a gaping hole into your bottom line and the next financial quarter. Then the CEO – that’s me – gets toasted by Wall Street analysts.

Paul seemed thoughtful again, and asked, but what if this $250 000 is actually an investment that could generate more revenues, you know, like training your people to better perform without having to ask middle managers for permission at every step of the process?

I knew this one, as I heard it thousands of time. “Give us a penny, we’ll transform it into a 20 dollar bill”. The world doesn’t work this way. Any internal investment is a major risk, and you need to manage this risk to make sure it returns something. And frankly, this is too much work because people tend to spend it on long term investments and the employee turnover rate is too significant to do anything long term. People will train themselves, only to go work for a competitor after 3 years. I mean, I spent 25 years at Bell Canada, I never knocked on a competitor’s door for another job, because.. well.. Bell had no competition as you know. Bottom line is, you can’t trust people to be at your service tomorrow morning, so a result I manage like there’s no tomorrow.

So you don’t invest anything in your middle managers, asked Paul, not a penny? Well, we do actually invest in them, military-type training to make sure time sheets are approved by Monday morning at 7 am. I like to come into my office at 8, open my laptop, and monitor billable time for each of our office. If a director does not approve the time sheets of its subordinate, he or she is severely humiliated by a local VP. I’ll spare you the details, but that usually does the job.

Our session was over, and Paul scheduled another appointment next week. I got the feeling that I said something wrong again during the session…

Welcome to Troy, Alabama

We just announced the opening of a New Center of Excellence in Troy, Alabama. I've always been uncomfortable with the term "center of excellence", as if "periphery of mediocrity" was something that we were up against. Anyway, I'm still exhausted by the flight, we had a few bumps along the way and they served fried chicken at the ceremony. Needless to say, I will take some rest and Tums this week-end. Roach out, see you next week.

You can't please everyone

Another nugget of management wisdom: whenever someone drops into your office and starts the conversation by saying that they disagree with you, first put both hands on your ears and start singing “I CAN’T HEAR YOU”.

Fact is, you cannot please everyone inside your company, yet everyone at the C-level. When you’re the king, you must act like one and politely crush anyone who disagrees. If you lack inspiration, read about Henri VIII – this dude would be a top CEO in today’s world.

My assistant came over this morning saying that I get a 37% approval rate on Glassdoor.com, yet another Web site for whiners who have issues with their employer and who look forward to disclose their confidential salaries. Natalie, I said, I don’t give a shiitake about my popularity down the ranks, but I’ll look into it. And please order another batch of bumper stickers that say “Stop Global Whining”, we’ll distribute them at the next shareholder meetings – that’ll set the tone.

So I spent half an hour during lunchtime reading what my lazy employees are complaining about. Let’s entertain ourselves, shall we? Let's read Whiner #1:

Compensation is not high as expected. Not much importance given to growth of the members

Dude, you didn’t understand the sheer genius behind our “profitable growth” theme. Growth is about adding dollars and pennies to our float. $272.408M, and I check this number every morning to get a good start. If you want to grow, take a yoga class or something. Next in line:

I was shocked to learn that once my project ends, I will be "on the bench" and I have 2-3 weeks to find a new project within the company, or I lose my job

You were shocked? That’s right, sucker, if you don’t bring revenue to your business unit, why should we pay you to watch YouTube while you pretend to find a new project. Bench time must be use in a productive fashion, like learning fashionable skills such as COBOL so we can tag you on a project with a high mark up. If no one wants you on their project, maybe you should start to doubt your own personal value on the market, don’t you think? Self-doubt works like magic, and next thing you know you’ll be flipping patties at MickeyD.

Executive hold out possibility of bonus if business unit meet profit margin, then sets unrealistic margin (is 13% after tax profit realistic in this economy?).

C’mon, if a CEO doesn’t raise the bar who will? Work your ass off, try to squeeze more money from your customers, and make an effort to please your king – I mean your CEO. If your internal costs are too high, hire a stubborn accountant with an inferiority complex and let the guy loose in your spreadsheets. He’ll trim the fat, and by the end of the year you’ll reach your margin objectives, and you’ll say “That was easy”.

Give people options, but just one

I once read in the Reader’s Digest that when you’re raising kids, the best way to coerce them to make a decision is to provide only 2 options. When you present them with 3 options, kids are slightly confused. More than that, their brain freezes in the decision-making process like a deer on a highway and you can’t get an answer from them.

I say this concept is complete BS, that’s not how I manage my company.

When you’re managing any group of people, the most efficient way to lead them is to provide people with a single option and emphasize that they are pretty lucky to get this one and only option. Politicians are also very good at this, and let me expand on my idea.

When I was working at Bell Canada back in the early 90’s, it was the Garden of Eden combined with free buffet and unlimited chicks. For those of you who live outside this great country, Bell had a total monopoly over the Canadian market. If you wanted a land line, you’d call Bell and that was your only option to speak to the outside world. Whenever you needed long distance, Bell was also there to rip you but we did it with a smile. Competition was a sin. Obviously we at Bell charged obscene rates for our service and we had the blessing from the Canadian government for reasons I cannot disclose here.

Things went south when it was obvious to the average Joe that the Canadian telecom industry was going nowhere thanks to its totalitarian regime. Then politicians got elected by promising taxpayers that they would open the market to competitors, and Bell started a long descent to hell. It was around that time that Serge called me and offered me a position that I couldn’t refuse, and I left the freaking boat before it got submerged.

My point is that, when you can enforce such policy, giving only one option is highly preferable from a management standpoint. Offer two options, and people will start asking for a third, and then a fourth, and the train will never end.

If you’re a CEO, you don’t want to manage a kindergarten where liberty of choice rules, you want to manage something closer to a Soviet work camp. By doing so, employees follow strict rules, your company runs literally by itself and you stop managing humans and emotions. And then and only then you can focus your attention to bigger issues, like how to fuck your board into believing that you’re on the right track when obviously you don’t even have a clue where you are and where you want to go.

Steve Ballmer called me

Ever since Perot Systems was eaten by Dell, the phone is ringing all the time with potential buyers for CGI. I mean, this is flattering but it takes lots of my time.

The legendary Microsoft CEO called me this morning, at first I thought we had forget to pay for our Gold certification, but no Stevie wanted to talk business. So you want to sell the barn, huh? We at Microsoft could be the best fit you know, we sell software to large corporations, and you rent slaves to the same customers, so you know maybe CGI and Microsoft could merge, of course you’d be renamed Microsoft Professional Services and we’d give you 3 times your salary and you’d report to me directly.

I must admit I was seriously tempted by the offer, I could picture Ballmer and myself touring our BUs with a classic monkey dance, daring our offices to raise their contribution to 20%. Microsoft/CGI would be a perfect alliance.

Ballmer reminded me that we shall consume our mutual love very fast, not wait for months like Jerry Yang did, because he’s now mowing lawn in Mountain View and Yahoo is the next Netscape so to speak. Microsoft Professional Service, Ballmer said, could be the flagship division that will push Windows 7 into all corporations. It’s so fucking complex to install, he said, we’ll make a bundle by selling hundreds of IT guys along with a single “Entreprise Edition” box. Software is just an excuse to shove high priced consultants down the customer throat, it was not Bill’s vision but I’m running the Death Star now. Then Ballmer exploded with a Mwahahahahaha laugh that sent chills to my spine.

Think about it Roach boy, he said, Redmond will be a nice place for you. And he promised he would call back in a week.

Great, now we're a shopping spree target

Great, this is again just great. Now that Perot Systems has been integrated into the soulless Dell Corporation, all analysts are now saying that CGI is a prime target for acquisition. Hello? Anybody home, this is other way around, we're actually trying to BUY someone. Truth is, our shares jumped 5.7% thanks to this news, and what makes our shareholder happy makes us happy. GIB has pretty much flatlined since Y2K, so we welcome any rumours that could push our stock upward.

The analyst said CGI could be valued at $20 to $30 based on Dell's offer for Perot, representing a very attractive upside of 65% or even more.

$30? Sweet smokin' Judas, my options will finally be worth something! Quick, let me call the Porsche dealership to put a cash down on a new Panamera.

You! Stop reading this blog and get back to work! We need more revenues to increase our market value. Do anything but do something! Offer customers to wax their car, CGI will send them a bill with a 10% discount. Check out trash cans for empty bottles, and bring them to your business unit! Maybe we could spin this as a green initiative and make a press release! Holy cow, I'm getting goose bumps! Quick, back to work!

Great, Dell is now a competitor

The world has gone upside down, I'm telling ya. This kid from Texas who built cheap PCs in his dorm room has bought Perot Systems for $3.9 billion.

Earlier I said that CGI could buy something in the range of 1 to 2 billion, and I was hoping those guys at Perot would give me a discount cause I knew they were selling. No, man, they preferred to sell to another Texan, I take no offence and it makes perfect sense. But next time Michael and I have a discussion about renewing our contract to buy laptops for all our BUs, I will tell him that his freaking Latitude model is so heavy that my back hurts. And I will ask Serge to teach me to swear in French Canadian, that will impress Mr. Dell. Tabarnac. I will even go ballistic and threaten him to switch to Apple, that should scare the bejesus out of him.

Saw my therapist this week-end

Saw my therapist on Sunday, just so you know. I know what you guys are thinking. Mike, you're the CEO of large corporation, why do you need to have your head examined? Should we worry about the stock price? Rest assured, yours truly is perfectly fine and my head is superb.

Serge says it's a Sarbanes-Oxley requirement to make sure the CEO is not living a psychosis while making strategic decisions. So I went to this guy, his name is Paul and I gotta say he's a very smart man.

Our sessions are pretty informal, I talk about CGI and our core values, why profitable growth is leading us to the future, why outsourcing is the right decision for a Fortune 500 company. Then I talked about why decisions need to be taken by a small core of people, and why delegating power is the straight road to perdition. Paul seemed amused by this nugget of management wisdom. Mike, he said, do you trust your lieutenants, I mean the hundreds of VPs and thousands of directors scattered in your business units? Of course I trust them, I said, I trust them to approve time sheets and maintain a tight grip on expenses so that each BU can return a huge share of their revenues to the HQ. Paul seemed thoughtful. You manage people Mike, he said, and yes while generating revenues is an essential part of your business, you should also consider that they are human beings.

Hold on buddy, I said, my middle managers are doing one thing - that is managing the middle. And the middle is just a conduit between our clients wallet and our company bank accounts. That's it. Of course once a year I hop into a plane and tour some of our less profitable BUs to kick their ass and spread the CGI gospel. But middle managers have too much expectations, they all think they will rule the kingdom one day. Truth is, they are the layer that we enjoy squeezing the most because they rarely complain. People at the bottom of the food chain have no expectations except a job. But those who venture past the lowest floor want to work triple hard and maybe one day have a shot at becoming a lazy ass in a corner office.

So we beat them with unrealistic expectations, tons of paperwork, no real power, and guess what - I always get a warm round of applause whenever we pack them in a room. What CEO could ask for anything more?

Paul didn't say much, but he said we should continue the therapy for a while. Shit, did I say something wrong?

About The Dow Jones Sustainability Index

There's nothing I like better than issuing a press release about sustainability and social responsibility, because it's a boatload of crap aimed at pleasing tree huggers and socialists. CGI is committed to giving back to the communities in which we live and work. Rest assured dear shareholder, we're not throwing bags of money in neighbourhoods where our employees live. We keep it to ourselves.

The Dow Jones Sustainability Index tracks best practices in sustainability leadership including corporate, economic, environmental and social performance.

Social performance, huh? Can you tell me what the heck that is? You can't? Being the CEO of a responsible company, I have a Society Performance Meter device in my office. It's kind of bulky, but when you turn it on and point it through the window at aim at the street, the device tells you if society performs from a range of 0 to 10. Frankly, I never got a reading above 1 and that might be a calibration error. People are so dumb, it's a miracle that a society can exist by itself. But then, if people weren't in a complete state of bozosity our sales numbers would not rank very high. Stupid people need constant advice, this is why your shriek makes 3 times your salary and drives a brand new BMW.

This morning I read that Wiki says that sustainability is able to be maintained at a certain rate or level. Are they talking about our stock price?

I am the observer

I've been doing this for a year now and nobody - even the SEC bean counters - have ever noticed. Did ya? Well, with season 2 starting tomorrow it was obvious to me that I should disclose to my board that I have a sideline job. Serge fell out of his chair when I told him this morning, he was a show regular but never noticed the resemblance.

Yes folks, I was cast as "The Observer" in Fringe, and you'll see my face and shining skull all through season 2. Why me? To be honest, I was bored to death about 2 years ago and I needed something to spice up by tedious CEO life. A friend of mine who works in Hollywood called me one day, saying they were looking for a bald guy for a new sci-fi drama on Fox, and he thought I would be the perfect dude. Hold on, I said, I'm the CEO of an international IT company, I am extremely busy, I've got people to meet, places to go and...

... and then my secretary came into my office, carrying about 500 expense reports I had to approve. This is regular CEO duty at CGI, trust me. When you spend a dime, it goes through me. I check everything. So I looked at the pile of paper, and said to my friend: Sure, I can fly over to L.A. this afternoon.

And the rest is history. Frankly, I was expecting to play a more active role during the first season. my character doesn't talk much. Filming the scene where I ate the jalapeno sandwich was kind of fun too, although it took a few shots before I could do it without showing any expression on my face. My gums are still sensitive. So anyway, between the shots, I tried to lure the some of the cast members into taking an active role at CGI since we have a high turnover rate. I saw John Noble as a PM somewhere in a government project (one that has derailed multiple times, those are the best). Nah, he said. Too much fun working on TV. Plus, he said, cinnamon buns are never served fresh in a government building.

I think he was joking.

A bright future in a dimly lit office

Being a CEO means finding astute ways to lure clueless college students into the glorious path of IT. A few years ago in 1998 when I came to this company, hiring was a piece of cake. Everyone was so fascinated by the Internet, Marc Andreessen was making the cover of Time and every retard in town was just giddy to send their first e-mail. To top that, we had the Y2K issue on our side. This, my friends, was even better than the H1N1 flu in term of panic. People were freaking out and building themselves bunkers in the desert to isolate themselves from the imaginary disaster. So in the middle of this perfect storm, we were able to hire almost every living creature with a diploma, tag them on an IT project and rack the money. Being an IT CEO in those days was so easy, I was almost ashamed to cash my paycheck.

Fast forward to 2009, the economy is crashing hard and the IT world is 20 times more complex and - truth to be told - people are not 20 times smarter. If you doubt my word, go spend an hour on FaceBook. So we're doing our very best to attract those Gen Y youths into our company. And it's not easy, believe me. The other day one of my director was interviewing a young guy in his early 20's for a job as a .NET programmer. I popped into the meeting just the fun of making my director uncomfortable, and I took a hard look at the young guy.

White shorts, black t-shirt with some kind of a slogan on it, greasy long hair, a goatee and an earring. I cut through the interview. Listen, I said to the young guy, this job involves meeting with customers to assess their needs, draft some diagrams, code something, you know, so it's important to look good. And looking good means wearing a freaking suit and shaving.

The guy fought back and said: listen, bald dude, I'm the top programmer in my class and I know more about .NET than anyone else, so chill out okay? Then he tried to negotiate a salary way above what my VPs are doing, he wanted a mountain bike as a signing bonus and one Xbox 360 station in his office to "unwind after a day's work". I said, listen punk, this company is not a dorm room and you've gotta get serious if you want to work here. This is Montreal okay, you're not in Mountain View and the Google circus. The guy looked at me, said I was so totally uncool, my company sucked because there were no espresso machines, and got out of the room.

Where is our world heading?

My yearly evaluation was yesterday

No one escapes ISO 9001, Serge once said to me when we were hunting ducks, once you implement this standard inside your company, it becomes part of you. So he called this morning, reminding me that my yearly evaluation was overdue and that he had reserved a table in a bistro on Crescent Street.

So Serge and I had lunch, and he brought the same standard form that every director uses to evaluate its soldiers. This is kind of lame, you would assume that being a CEO puts you above the bureaucratic process, but not here.

We went through the objectives that we had discussed last year, put some new realistic objectives for the upcoming year (like, increasing our bottom line by 10% without any new revenue), you know - the usual stuff. Then Serge asked me how well I was integrating the company values into my daily work, especially the "intrapreneurship" value.

Now folks, most of you think intrapreneurship within a fat corporation is some kind of "special" project under the radar that is so cool and sexy that management puts you in a separate building to work on it secretly. For a top CEO like me, intrapreneurship is really about putting non-paid hours into a project, a project so mundane and dull that we have to put extra effort to attract people on it. That's it.

Sure, the intrapreneurship buzzword is sometimes enough to attract a few people, but we need to do more than that. If you really want your employees to put unpaid time on something, you gotta do a few things. Like, tell them it's "normal" for an employee to do this, this behavior is "expected" when you're part of an organization. Psychology 101. If the employee resists and start talking BS about this personal obligations, family and whatnots, then you use the second argument. You say, if you contribute unpaid time on this project, we might maybe consider giving you possibly a slightly higher profit-sharing bonus by the end of the year, restrictions may apply and it is subject to your Business Unit approval. People are so cash-strapped that they'll do anything to get another buck from the company, and that usually closes the discussion.

So I gave Serge a long spiel on how I wanted to put micro-management to a new level, remove some decision power from our BUs, give them ludicrous sales objectives in their stale markets, and all those efforts I would do on week-ends.

He seemed happy with my attitude, and then we discussed salary and bonuses. I won't go into the specifics, but let's say I got a much bigger raise than anyone in our company combined. But keep this to yourself, it's a secret.

Stop whining and start billing

My assistant Natalie had lunch with me today and told me that some employees are voicing their concerns over the Internet. Yeah, right, I told her, who is complaining now? Those lazy asses whose work week was raised from 37.5 to 40 hours a week? C'mon, those guys are home by 6 every day and they watch their huge plasma TV paid with MY MONEY, what could they possibly whine about? My father was clocking 90 hours in a steel mill filled with asbestos, rats and unionized workers, and he was happy as a clam. Not exactly true, but you see my point.

Natalie pointed me this site, which is filled with rants from disgruntled IT workers apparently from my company. Criminy, why can't people just do their job and get a sense of accomplishment from this? I give them stellar raises of 2-3%, I give them several layers of management, and they still want more? This bozo here says we're treating employees like animals. Yeah right, when you're old and tired we take you behind the barn with a rifle. Boom. This other one here says he worked for us 10 years with no raise. We gave you 2% a year buddy, stop whining and start making sales call to impress your business unit VP. Secure a billion dollar outsourcing contract, and then MAYBE you'll get the recognition you deserve. Raises have been topped at 5% anyway, so we're fair with everyone.

What should I buy?

My friends, I'm a CEO (a fake one, but a CEO nonetheless), and I talk. This is what I do folks, I talk a lot. Check here. I am announcing that I plan to go a shopping binge with a two billion dollar bill in my wallet. Money quote: “We have the

What company should I buy in order to push my company forward, to boldly go where no outsourcing company has gone before? Serge says there are plenty of generic soulless IT companies outthere that could be bought for a song. What should be the criteria, I asked him? Well, one thing is for sure he said, target companies whose name is a 3 or 4 letter acronym at most. Trendy names are bad, he said, they mean people actually think - and that's a bad start when you're negotiating.

Check out for poorly done logo, cheap company font, non descript Web site. Those should be the target. Favor public company, because you can check out the face of management team, and that says a lot. Generic faces and hairstyle, people who actually look like they've been cast for a management clipart CD. Being bald (and proudly so), I said to Serge, but wait, should we disregard a potential takeover by considering a CEO hairstyle? Serge just nodded, running a hand through his impeccable greying hair. Mike, he said, we want to integrate people who will never question our authority, we want them to be part of the "collective" (I wonder where this expression comes from).

I need your suggestions, folks, what company should we buy? If it was for me, I would buy a movie studio because they are so cool and I could make a great action movie instead of negotiating endless details in an outsourcing contract, but Serge won't let me. Sigh.