Members Column: Sandboxing your sanity

Dear Mike, I’ve been working on this government project for CGI for a couple of years and I’m surrounded by a bunch of foot-dragging narrow-thinking could-not-care-less public servants whose sole objective in life is to retire. They hire us to do their work yet they despise us and do everything to undermine our work. Why is it so? Signed: Joey Going Postal

JGP here has a very good question but the client-consultant dynamic is so taboo that I hesitate to fully disclose my thoughts. Oh, what the hell.

First, you need to understand the back story that is leading to this mess. When a guy accepts a job as a public servant, he accepts to spend his professional life in a dimly lit rat cage marred with political disputes. Any IT project is just a mean to give an uppercut to a moronic opponent, gain more power, brownnose upper management and make the other team more miserable.

People working in government are not there for the fun, the money, the perks or the prestige. I mean, if you had to do a sales pitch to first-graders about why they should choose a government career, you might fall short of arguments after 6 seconds. People work there because it’s a secure position and they have big unions to protect them. So it’s no wonder that complete bozos blossom there and contaminate the few decent people who are trying to make a difference.

After a few years living in this harsh environment, people naturally drift to a constant state of mild depression with no short or long term expectations. The only real requirement is to show up in the morning and leave at 5. If you’re lucky, the project you’re in is not too messy and nobody bothers you. In fact, the only exit from the rat cage is retirement or death, although the former is less painful and may involve golf.

So what happen when government hires a prestigious consulting firm like CGI? There is this clash of culture where energetic goal-oriented positive-minded consultants have to accomplish a task managed by depressed government drones. Let's just say success is not within the scope of work.

If government would allow its employees to facebook all day long and download porn, they would stop having long faces and they would show up highly motivated. The output would be the same – that is, zilch – but they’d be so busy watching flicks in their office that would not show up at meetings and the project would be solely managed and executed by consultants.

Therefore ensuring its success.