Weaselese!

A change in co-ordinates brings about a definite change in an individual's life, as I have experienced over the past 4 months or so. I have seen myself change from a care-free bachelor tenant to a still bachelor ( thankfully ) but responsible male; from a 9 AM -6 PM pretension of work to a 8 AM - 10 PM detention to work; from an aspiring entreprenuer to a so called "strategy" consultant ; from a regular exerciser to a lazy alarm-snoozer, from a infrequent blogger to a non-blogger ALMOST until I finally sat down to pen this "piece" and as you will find it later, "piece" has assumed a new meaning in my life.

With a new assignment comes new challenges, new environs, new colleagues and new bosses with their new ways to communicate.Ever since I have landed here, I have been barraged with a new set of weaselese,(Weasel Defined). You must be wondering what a carnivore who kills more than it can eat has any semblance with professionals? Well, in the corporate world, we are all weasels! to know more, I suggest you go and read a bit of Scott Adams' Dilbert!

So, this management speak is something that descends to India's booming technopolis from the "Land of Opportunities" ( henceforth referred to as the LOO).

Gladstone is a typical fire-in-the-valley IBCA (Indian Born Confused American) who is back in the homeland to serve an outsourcing dream of his revered employers in the LOO! So I am Dilbert and is Dibert's Boss and we are all in it for the passion of insulting that we share!

So what business are we in? We are in the business of manufacturing slides . The proficiency of an insultant is measure by how quick and how well can he churn out slides to serve the insatiable hunger of "pardoners half way across the globe!! They are called pardoners because they are like Gods, you committ a sin and they grant reprieve! Gladstone pays allegiance to to pardoners, and so do we!

"We"!!!!!

So how much productive time have we spent on this project?
I think we should challenge ourselves to wrap it up coming monday!
I would almost want us to own this piece end-to-end??
I think we have all the content, but the flow is something that we need to work on!

So when Gladstone says we, it always means a big fat YOU. So just replace all the we by you and see how magic happens in insulting.

This following piece of weaselese has almost become a school anthem for Dilbert, his day does not start until he listens to the WoW ( Words of Wisdom) from Gladstone!

"Every insulting assignment is more ambiguous than the previous!! One has to go painstakingly collect nuggets of information and then connect the dots to create a compelling story! We are in the business of generating actionable infights ( ooops, insights ) that makes the client stand up and take notice"!

In Insulting create smorgasboards which from Dibert's standpoint, is nothing but an effort to jazzify and complexify a simple task of rearranging slides on a presentation. Smorgasboarding is a core insulting skill and Dilbert as an insultant is expected to quickly move up the learning curve so that he can come up to speed!

Once on a client call, Gladstone owns the piece called "VoIP Phone" and brings the pardoner on the same page thus: " I think we are now beginning to "wet our feet" on some XYZeeee topic ( say Sensor Neworks ) and have started pulling together a few preliminary WIP slides. While you review this piece, my team here will sink its teeth into the data and come up with a draft version of the story! We are shooting for a deadline of monday morning your time".

Gladstone IMs ( instant messages) Dilbert ," Can you stop by for a minute??". Dilbert obliges!

Gladstone: "We have got this three-day turn-around request from Pardoner. This is a very high visibility project and we have been building relationships with Goofy ( the pardoner of course) as he is an S pardoner ( and not a O or a T pardoner ). We have gained a lot of traction with goofy on our previous project , and that has raised the bar from his expectation standpoint. I think we should crack the code on this one and do a slam dunk job!! ( Of course they do it all the time in the LOO !!! ). I don't want us to work on weekends, but we cannot afford to push back on this request. Let's target monday morning for the first draft, but don't kill youself".

Come Monday and Gladstone walks by Dilbert's Desk. "How is the deck shaping up??". Dilbert "walks him through" the deck and handsover a printout to Gladstone. He provides management oversight and inputs on arbitraging. Dilbert incorporates the suggested changes and turns in the final deck.

Gladstone sends out the deliverable and the pardoner retorts with a Wow!!!!!!!!!! Dilbert has overdelivered. The India practice continues to create a lot of positive buzz in the LOO and they are now well positioned to integrate with the insultants in the LOO!

Gladstone is my mentor for life. I hate his golf swings!