This entry was posted on Saturday, November 6th, 2021 at 08:00 and is filed under Think about it..
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OMG, how true this is. Somehow it was always a shock to find out that this was how a project really worked, even though it happened 1000 times to me.
A friend shared with me a slide that got him permanently demoted. He was the manager of Planning and was tasked with evaluating a potential project. He had a Powerpoint slide that showed that the project would initially lose money, then make a little bit, and then lose more money progressively every year. The VP who came up with the project demoted him the next day, and his successor made a new slide that showed the project to make more and more money every year. The project was built, the VP got a better job with another company (on the basis of his success with developing new business projects), and the project exactly followed my friend’s projection of losing money. Eventually it was sold off as a loss.
I was in a completely different company and a VP was giving a presentation. He said that if all the capital projects they had funded over the last 10 years had worked out as projected, the company revenues should have doubled. Instead, revenues were flat or maybe down slightly. He went on to say that management was really struggling to figure out why it had not worked out. I was SO VERY tempted to stand up and say, “BECAUSE THE ONLY WAY ANYBODY CAN GET CAPITAL FUNDING IS TO LIE TO YOU ABOUT HOW MUCH MONEY YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE. YOU PEOPLE ARE F***ING IDIOTS!” I didn’t do that because if I discovered anything in 40+ years of working in industry, these jackasses don’t like for anybody to break their rose-colored glasses. They believe they are smarter than anybody and incapable of making a mistake. Peons, on the other hand, are well known for making mistakes and can be trampled out of existence just to make management feel better about life.
I used to tell young people starting out in industry to ignore all those books on business, marketing, and being successful. They’re all BS. Just read Dilbert. That’s the real world.
November 7th, 2021 at 03:13
OMG, how true this is. Somehow it was always a shock to find out that this was how a project really worked, even though it happened 1000 times to me.
A friend shared with me a slide that got him permanently demoted. He was the manager of Planning and was tasked with evaluating a potential project. He had a Powerpoint slide that showed that the project would initially lose money, then make a little bit, and then lose more money progressively every year. The VP who came up with the project demoted him the next day, and his successor made a new slide that showed the project to make more and more money every year. The project was built, the VP got a better job with another company (on the basis of his success with developing new business projects), and the project exactly followed my friend’s projection of losing money. Eventually it was sold off as a loss.
I was in a completely different company and a VP was giving a presentation. He said that if all the capital projects they had funded over the last 10 years had worked out as projected, the company revenues should have doubled. Instead, revenues were flat or maybe down slightly. He went on to say that management was really struggling to figure out why it had not worked out. I was SO VERY tempted to stand up and say, “BECAUSE THE ONLY WAY ANYBODY CAN GET CAPITAL FUNDING IS TO LIE TO YOU ABOUT HOW MUCH MONEY YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE. YOU PEOPLE ARE F***ING IDIOTS!” I didn’t do that because if I discovered anything in 40+ years of working in industry, these jackasses don’t like for anybody to break their rose-colored glasses. They believe they are smarter than anybody and incapable of making a mistake. Peons, on the other hand, are well known for making mistakes and can be trampled out of existence just to make management feel better about life.
I used to tell young people starting out in industry to ignore all those books on business, marketing, and being successful. They’re all BS. Just read Dilbert. That’s the real world.