Better Better Better Worse Worse Worse

After 10 hours abed we're feeling much better, thank you. Before the workday begins it seems I should put down some random thoughts for the day.

As proposals swirl around the company to reorganize the department in which I work I'm becoming increasingly interested to see how things will work out and in what perverse way I can get screwed over by it. My initial and unfounded optimism is starting to fade as I see the competing schemes.

The one proposal I know the most about I cannot make any reasonable objection to. It is the most inclusive of the four and seems to be the most compatible with my own. It stresses the need to dedicate a non-billable resource to maintaining our baseline products and at least hints at keeping our programmers from having to do many of the non-technical tasks they do today. If these two objectives are realized then I'll be happy (and a bit surprised).

The second proposal I've heard vague rumblings about scares me a bit. Its focus seems to be more concerned with realigning positions by their functions within the company. If this happens I'll be annoyed, perhaps terminally so. It will be an extreme disappointment if this theme leaks over into the others and our new product developers are moved into a department with schedule and other considerations totally unrelated to the part of the company they're supposed to be servicing.

The last person with a say is also the most influential and we've discussed strategic goals for the department for so long that I've long since lost a good sense for where his opinion ends and mine begins. We seem to agree on all the major points but differ only in the degree to which we're willing to do things. His view seems to be to blur the roles of positions in the department a bit more while I'm determined to let people focus on specific tasks. He's probably more closely aligned with reality but I'm determined that I'm more optimal.

So in summary, there actually isn't a whole lot of difference between any of the plans I've seen. Any one of them enacted as-is would be an improvement over what we have now. The pessimistic side of me though wonders how this can all come to naught. While I think it would be impossible to make things WORSE it's possible that the improvement will be so minor as to make it no longer worth the four years I've been waiting for things to change. It's also entirely possible that despite my somewhat selfish lobbying I could still get the short end of the stick and end up right where I am now. All this has pretty much rubbed the shiny optimism off my attitude at least for the moment.