Word of the day: "iatrogenic"

Today's tale of corporate chicanery as I went through the motions of what increasingly feels like a diminshed life:

There used to be this manager in my department that the department head ("HEAD") hated, but couldn't kill off because he's been in the bank for years and he has links right to the top - in fact he was in our department because he fucked up bigtime somewhere else and he was cold storaged with us. Let's call him Ernie.

So anyway, after a whole year, HEAD finally managed to get Ernie shoved off to somewhere else - with quite a bit of behind-the-scenes ugliness involved as well i heard.

And now, our department is undergoing this massive super project that's sucking up a lot of time and resources. HEAD has driven the consultants from BCG, and one of our managers put in charge of the project, crazy because HEAD is fucking picky and stubborn about a lot of things. Stuck at the design and conceptual planning stage for months.

Anyway, just last friday, they had managed to start moving ahead, and all of a sudden, Ernie was assigned to the project by the CEO as the CEO's personal representative. FUCKING BACK TO SQUARE ONE. And HEAD can't touch him now but has to put up with his incompetent crap. (I'll give credit to HEAD here, he knows his stuff and puts in the work, even if he has less than sterling people skills)

The manager in charge of the project said to me while smoking: "it's like fucking highlander - you stab also cannot kill."

My own direct manager (who doesn't smoke but was passing by): "HEAD didn't handle that bastard well. This kind of people, if you don't drive a stake through their heart, they will come back stronger than ever."

Not that I'm complaining too much about "The Ernie Strikes Back". Because as a corporate grunt, I'll be handling implementation, and if they keep arguing about the groundwork long enough, I will hopefully be gone by the time implementation gets around:)

On the Power 98 NS Idol:

Friend: "one of the judges, shareen, is the saf whore. they get her and some guy to do this 'commander's night' in BMT, to entertain the troops with every batch."

Me: "define entertain"

Friend: "please...this is singapore....don't use your imagination and you'll have a good idea."

Me: "cheh. thought it was some camp follower thing"