The Negative Voice
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2001-08-09 - 2:28 a.m.

Whatever Happened to Esprit de Corps?

I can't tell right now whether I've come to take some of the responsibilities of my profession for granted, or I'm just working with total idiots.

We had an emergency this week that required cooperation between my group and some people in Atlanta. My main guy was all over the problem. As soon as it was clearly identified, he had the relevant information sent off in email. He sat on countless phone calls ready to provide additional information if needed. He ran audits to make sure everything he said matched the facts, not just the docs. In short, he was rock solid in the crunch.

You can, therefore, imagine my surprise when the guy in Atlanta not only failed to act promptly, but sat on the actions he needed to undertake until early afternoon. Come 5pm, he wanted to go home. After all, he'd put in his eight hours, right?

I was furious. Being in the operations group for an ISP isn't the Coast Guard, I admit. Lives are not lost when we disconnect a few people's PPP sessions. Still, people pay us money for service, and it's my group (and others like us) who make sure they get it. When we're not delivering on our commitments, we work until we have a solution. We play the full nine innings and then we go to OT.

Luckily I didn't hear about this in real time; I think I might well have burst out with "sit your ass down!" rather than something polite. After all, the slacker didn't work for me, and I can't actually order him to sit down. Luckily we got to his manager, who could and did. But I'm still in shock.

Esprit de corps comes from many places. It comes from knowing that we're all making money that would have been unthinkable for most people our age in 1990, even accounting for inflation. It comes from knowing that we get to play with some pretty expensive toys. But most of all, it comes from knowing that we're all in this together. A guy who wants to go home without solving the problem is like termites in the walls. You can't ignore it or make peace with it; it has to be exterminated.

But I wonder: At what point did I decide that we all owe the company all the OT it needs? Our contracts say we don't get OT pay, but they don't say we must work until the company says we can go home. Did I sign away my freedom somewhere and not notice?

Ultimately I guess my answer is 'maybe'. Ideally we maintain our own operational systems. If we do it well, they don't break and we work our chosen hours. If we do it poorly, we get to work until they're fixed. I have a good crew and I think we're sitting pretty nicely. But when I have to put in two nights a week, on top of my regular schedule, just to make up for someone else who can't get it done, I still feel the pinch.

Mission for tomorrow: Take over the systems this damn slacker used to run and bring them up to our specs. Then I'll be able to sleep again.

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