my letter of resignation (sent)

Hi Guys,

I'm writing to you today to officially give two weeks notice of my resignation from IBM Canada, effective Friday February 23.

As you are well aware, my personal goals and those of IBM have been diverging for quite some time. I could go on for pages explaining my points of view, but in short I subscribe to Gandhi's philosophy of "non-participation in anything you believe to be evil." I believe most large corporations to be inherently evil. Their sole purpose (their sole legally-sanctioned purpose, in fact) is to increase their own profits, the rest of the world (humans, the environment, other 'externalities') be damned. I never intended to work for one, will never work for one again, and look forward to the day when this flawed system of ownership is corrected, for all of our sakes.

All of that said, I would like to thank both of you personally; N___, for giving me a chance way-back-when; and G_____, for putting up with me for the past four years ... I realize that it hasn't always been easy. I hope that you wish me the best of luck in my future endeavors, as I wish each of you.

The rest of my life will be dedicated to varied pursuits, including living up to my own standards each and every day and trying to make the world a better place. My first step will be a trip to Africa next month, where I'll be volunteering at a teaching hospital and trying to rid myself of some of my materialist tendencies. I've been accused of being naive .... we shall see.

Please let me know if there are any administrative hoops I need to jump through to make this official; it's certainly indicative of our company (and my diminished interest in it) that I have no idea who the appropriate HR person is to contact.

Kind regards,
T_____

dearest future me,

there may come a moment when you look back at your time as an SAP consultant and think "you know, it was an easy life ... it was easy money, really ... why on earth did you leave?"

let me remind you of today, which is like so many other days you’ve experienced over the past nine years. you are dreadfully bored. you were extended at this client for an extra two weeks to write a report which took you only two hours to compile this morning. also note that this report will either be blindly accepted or unreasonably rejected in just under an hour; the client will not have read the report before taking either action.

and now you sit here, trying to fill your time by surfing internet news sites, writing e-mails and the like, while nervously glancing over your shoulder every few seconds to make sure that no one from the client sees how bored you are or how little you are accomplishing for the $200 an hour they are paying for you. the last meeting your were in, the words "i don’t care, i don’t care ..." repeated themselves in your head as you listened to ... well, you weren’t really listening and it didn’t really matter.

and these office chairs are uncomfortable ... and they make you wear silly clothing to work ... and, oh, the boss is approaching ....

papal advice

... many jobs lead to the 'hardening of the heart', as well as 'suffering of the spirit'

~ Pope Benedict XVI, quoting Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

glacial ...

i am quite certain that my coworker here would describe my situation as ‘skating on thin ice.’ ... little does he know, i have been jumping up and down on said ice for years now with little to no affect!

print out, rip off

i am currently working in an Mexican factory that configures Chinese-produced printers to sell in the North American market. this configuration is quite interesting:

the same 'base printer' is actually used to make dozens of different models, which are sold to the consumer at different prices. the difference between the models? well, first, software is loaded into the printer to determine it's speed ... yes, that's right: you might pay double the price for a printer which prints more pages per minute, when in fact the slow printers are exactly the same, they've just been programmed to work more slowly!

other differences that affect the price: how nice a box the printer comes in, the colour of it's plastic casing, and the size of it's paper trays!

and the real money is made on the ink cartridges, of course ...

FAQs about my job ...

people always ask me what i do for a living; that is, for money. i hate this question for a few reasons, but the main one is that it is very difficult to explain what i do. if i tell the long version, i am greeted with blank looks and boredom; if i tell the short version, it sounds like i install Microsoft Office for a living. so, here are some frequently asked questions about my job; to clarify for my friends, and to defer the question to my blog the next time i am asked!

who do you work for?

IBM. out of university i started with a company called OmniLogic, we were purchased by PriceWaterhouseCoopers Consulting, and they were purchased by IBM. my job did not change with any of these acquisitions.

but didn’t you work for Nestle?

i am a consultant. this means that i work for one company (see above), and they loan me out to help other companies, my “clients”. so when you hear that i have a “new job”, i actually have the same job, but at a new client.

what do you do for these clients?

i am an SAP consultant (pronounced like an acronym, not like “sap” from a tree.) SAP is a huge german company that produces software for big business. most of the large corporations in the world use this software (something like 90% of the Fortune 500.) The main piece of software produced by SAP is called “R/3”, but most people just call it “SAP”.

what is SAP?

SAP is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. behind the scenes it is a huge database that collects information and helps everyone in the company share this information. attached to the database are transaction screens that employees from the different parts of the company use to do their jobs.

SAP is split up into different “modules”. They are called modules because SAP is very modular ... you can choose to use only one part of it, or dozens of parts, depending on which business processes you want the system to handle. The main modules are Finance, Controlling, Sales & Distribution, Materials Management, and Production Planning.

An example of a typical series of integrated transactions in SAP [this section is kinda long ... skip it if you're bored]:

a customer service representative receives an order for 10 widgets. she opens the “sales order” screen in SAP and types in the details of what her customer is ordering. the system immediately checks the company inventory to see if there are 10 widgets in the warehouse. if there are no widgets in the warehouse ...

a production planner opens his session of SAP and it tells him that he will be short 10 widgets if he doesn’t produce them this week. he schedules a production order in SAP to produce the widgets on Friday. the system immediately checks if the components required to make 10 widgets are in stock. if the components are not in stock ...

a purchasing manager opens his session of SAP and it tells him that he must order components for 10 widgets. he creates a purchase order for the parts with his preferred vendor, and the system automatically faxes that purchase order to the vendor ...

a truck arrives at the company loading dock with a bunch of parts. the receiving department opens a session of SAP and confirms receipt of the parts. the purchase order for the parts is automatically closed. the inventory of the parts in automatically updated in the system, as is the “asset” account in the financial books. the accounts payable department is automatically sent a request to pay the vendor for the parts.

10 widgets are produced and this fact is entered into SAP by the production foreman. the parts used are automatically depleted from inventory, the inventory of widgets is increased, the labour used in producing them is automatically posted as a labour expense in the financial books, and the shipping department is notified that the 10 widgets are ready to send to the customer who ordered them. the widgets are shipped, and the books are updated again accordingly (decrease inventory account, increase revenue account, etc.)

That was a long example ... but what the hell do YOU do?!

i work with the production planning module. when a client decides that they want to implement this module (usually along with others), we begin a project with the client. we create a project team, comprised of SAP consultants and people from their business. i sit with people from their business and try to ascertain how their production planning process works and what they want the new system to do. i then work with them to create prototype after prototype, getting more and more detailed until we have correctly modeled their business process into the system. when we’re done, we test the system for bugs, train the employees on how to use it, and eventually turn the system on for everyone to use. this is called the “go-live”. a typical project lasts between 6 and 18 months.

So you’re a programmer?

no. most companies have very similar business processes. for example, most manufacturing companies use sales orders, production orders, and purchase orders like in the example above. SAP comes ready to work for any type of business, but needs to be “configured” (by me) to the specific needs of the client. sometimes the system can’t do exactly what the client wants, so we have to create custom programs to help out. i don’t write these, but i help design them.

Don’t you teach courses as well?

yes, sometimes i give training to clients who have just chosen to implement SAP, but whose employees don’t really know how it works. in this case i go in and provide “intro to SAP” courses, where the people can get into the system directly and learn the basics of how it works. i usually teach these courses when i am between clients.

When you are “between clients” do you still get paid? (sorry, i get asked this a lot)

i am a salaried employee of IBM. my pay does not fluctuate with how much of my time IBM can bill to clients ... however if i was ever sitting in the office for too long without a client to work for, i would be fired pretty quickly.


see why i don’t like the question “what do you do for a living?” ;)

i love my weekly four hour drive ...

• music from my iPod playing over the stereo
• singing along at the top of my lungs (...playing "air bass" against the steering wheel)
• a large Tim Horton’s coffee; two cream, three sugar
• mary, jane
• cruise control set to 129 (... cruisin’)
• the open sky
• the open road
• beautiful rural ontario rolling past me
• listening
• thinking
• the point-of-focus meditation (...the road)
• recording my thoughts and ideas (...by leaving voicemail messages for myself and my friends)

i know not what i do

what i do at work: i charge ridiculous fees for my time .... and during this time i read novels that i've pasted into MS Word, surf the net, watch downloaded episodes of my favourite tv shows ... and occasionally work hard and change how multinational corporations do business ...

to many of you this sounds like a dream job ... and i even feel ridiculous complaining about it ... but it's just so surreal! ... this isn't life ... killing time is not living! ... i walk around like a zombie because i spend the entire day immersed in distractions ... and by the end of the day i've forgotten who i am ...

it's amazes me how adaptable human beings are, and how the grass always looks greener on the other side of the valley ... some of you would look at me and think "wow, i would love to have your job and get to fool around on a computer all day", and i look at you and think "wow, i would love to have a job where i get to do some honest work" ...

but what is "honest" work ...

i need to BELIEVE in what i'm doing ... i need to help others ... or at least help myself ...

Then a ploughman said, "Speak to us of Work."
And he answered, saying:
You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth.
For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life's procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.
Which of you would be a reed, dumb and silent, when all else sings together in unison?
Always you have been told that work is a curse and labour a misfortune.
But I say to you that when you work you fulfil a part of earth's furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,
And in keeping yourself with labour you are in truth loving life,
And to love life through labour is to be intimate with life's inmost secret.
But if you in your pain call birth an affliction and the support of the flesh a curse written upon your brow, then I answer that naught but the sweat of your brow shall wash away that which is written.
You have been told also life is darkness, and in your weariness you echo what was said by the weary.
And I say that life is indeed darkness save when there is urge,
And all urge is blind save when there is knowledge,
And all knowledge is vain save when there is work,
And all work is empty save when there is love;
And when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.
And what is it to work with love?
It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.
It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.
It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.
It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,
And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.
Often have I heard you say, as if speaking in sleep, "he who works in marble, and finds the shape of his own soul in the stone, is nobler than he who ploughs the soil.
And he who seizes the rainbow to lay it on a cloth in the likeness of man, is more than he who makes the sandals for our feet."
But I say, not in sleep but in the over-wakefulness of noontide, that the wind speaks not more sweetly to the giant oaks than to the least of all the blades of grass;
And he alone is great who turns the voice of the wind into a song made sweeter by his own loving.
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.
~Kahlil Gibran, "The Prophet"