all hands to the poop deck

[rone]

On Tuesday morning, i got my ass out of bed at 05:45 so i could attend our lovely corporate all-hands.  I managed to lower my expectations to a degree where i actually managed to enjoy the meeting (then again, i've found our all-hands to be rather unpainful, in general).  It boiled down in two phases: our CEO yammered about the news, then their CEO and COO yammered about the news; then the usual suspects (the execs) came out and talked about how well we're doing and how much our upcoming stuff rocks (tritone starred in one of the thrown-together-at-the-last-minute movies about the S00PAR SEKRIT project his team is working on), which naturally made the rest of us wonder, "Why are we putting ourselves over a barrel for Adobe if things are going so well?"

At least we got to see one of the SVPs being given a badly butchered mohawk on stage.

Comments

[littleamerica.livejournal.com]

Chilling.

I dread, and I mean dread, the day that happens to our little company.

Hope your job survives the inevitable efficiency-improving changes.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I thought this was amusing. (http://daringfireball.net/2005/04/adobe_translation)

A company I used to work for kept being bought by slightly larger companies, which would then get sick and wither away except for my little profitable division, then the cycle would repeat.

The last time, the new masters came and showed their promotional video about the happy corporate family when I already pretty much knew I was quitting (but before I'd told anyone). At one point, they showed a clip from one of the overseas offices of some company cabaret with executives in spangly sequin-covered pantsuits dancing and singing. Up to that point I'd been having the usual jitters about whether I was making the right decision. I stopped wondering so much just then.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I saw that. Definitely amusing.

That bit about the cabaret and the sequins... FWEET FWEET FWEET ABANDON SHIP THIS IS NOT A DRILL

[arafel2.livejournal.com]

Don't suppose you've still got a copy? I think that needs to be kept as a benchmark kind of thing - "if your company is doing this, you need to have started looking around".

[merde.livejournal.com]

apparently, execs promising to have their heads shaved at all-hands meetings under some circumstance or other is the new black.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Yeah, apparently one of the old Macromedia execs (old == last millennium) made this very promise under the very same terms. Spooky.