Managing Synergies to Reduce Backward Overflow

Three months into my new job I was forced to attend an orientation conference this morning that last for four hours. 30 people were supposed to attend and I was about one out of 12 that actually showed up. Maritz is a large company that handles services for several other large companies, and while getting to know what each department does give me a better idea of what they actually do, it does nothing that helps me do my job. Or anybody else in the technology department, for that matter, since hearing the details about Maritz Incentives deals with Chase bank does not help people managing SQL servers or .NET programmers. This was all done alongside a PowerPoint presentation that had tons of useless clip art and effects. Holy shit, look at that icon spin!

I was also ready to kill everyone in the room and then myself when one of the speakers said they were looking to have a "paradigm shift."

Taking a tour of the Maritz Data Center, which handles all the data from the offices around the world, was kind of interesting -- For the first twenty minutes. When the head of the area started talking about new color copiers and showed us air filters made with horse hair he started to lose me.

I could've spent that time doing something much more worthwhile back at my desk, like reading web comics and watching last night's ball game. I'll go do that now.

-K.