Joining the Newspaper Division is certainly a tactic but it is not without its own risks. The pros: * For the Newspaper Division - had I been in the division, I suspect classifieds would have been developed at least a year earlier. Rather than debating issues of capital/expense, roles of PowerOne, etc, my salary would be a constant and it would have been merely a matter of strategy. Perhaps, instead of having to go through the entire Project overhead, we'd decide what to to do and do it. * For Operations and Engineering - they get a familiar, known quantity on the outside, whose demands and expectations may be a little more realistic and whose development properly leverages the infrastructure that SITOE provides. * For me - I get a situation where, just maybe, I don't have to wait for permission to improve things, to speak my mind, to help someone out. Consider: * If they had taken my original advice, the image feeds would havebeen where they are going now, two years earlier. They would have saved support costs and the costs of a contractor working on a CORBA solution that after a year was scrapped. ( Estimated savings $200,000 ) * They would have never allowed the code problems over which Gaul/Waltz and I had our falling out - the same code that has now been removed, a year later, saving them the cost of a second feed machine, licenses, etc. Also, the feeds did end up in the group I argued for from the begining, so we've come full circle on that issue too. ( Estimated savings $50,000 hardware + $30,000/year maint + $??,??? for contract labor) * They would have deployed an appropriate XML feed workflow based upon XSL/T which would improve debugging capabilities, encapsulated the translation logic in platform independant XSL, and helped migrate the feeds from schema to schema. I expect them to migrate to the architecture I suggested once Craig has had enough time to digest the full implications of what was done and what was proposed.( Estimated savings: hard to say. When all of your enterprise is married to a particlular schema, costs go up everywhere as it becomes obsolete ). But there are also cons: * For the newspaper division - I'm not cheap and they lose a SITOE insider. Also, I fear that I am sometimes a PainInTheAss. * For Operations and Engineering, they lose an asset that could have been leveraged across many customers. * For me - I expect I lose potential salary. I join a much more reactive division. I lose say in SITOE. I'd definitely not be able to help out any other division. 09/09/2002 - I spoke with Bob a bit. We're basically on the same page. He doesn't want to take over managing me. He does want a developer twin. I liked his turn of phrase when he said he wants "developers steeped in his realities". Odd - he wants say in my pay and bonuses. Can that be a good thing? I think the Newspaper side would like to penalize the tech side in a lot of cases and I would be a convenient whipping boy for that. Also, he's been drafting a proposal and discussing it with Bryan, Oscar and Ed. I really don't like people discussing my future without me present. Lets just hang a kick me/pawn sign on my back. I need to make it clear that I am not just a web developer, in fact, I am more interested in the back end of the web than the front end, and I am more interested in unix than windows architectures. Specifically, I am a director, and I want a say in our direction. So, having a dotted line to Bob while remaining in the syseng group keeps my hands in the systems and dev pots, but I don't know where my guidance is going to have the better audience. Implications: * What does being in ND mean to Craig and the Feeds? * I will be for the first time, a Newspaper Division employee. I guess I'll loose holidays, training, bonus, etc? * Is this position really just a code janitor? ''Exit Strategy'' Bryan has indicated that if is doesn't work out, then he'll have no problem bringing me back into SITOE. We'll have to work out an exit strategy - who determines if it isn't working? Where will I be brought back to? All of this is to get me involved with his projects nearly full time without worrying about crossing some boundaries. Clearly the easiest solution is to relax the boundaries. All of this militaristic posturing isn't helping in this case. Remember, the military isn't built for efficiency - it is built to maintain 100% control over the use of force. Personnel, equipment and even policies and memos are weapons in the military view. The happy outcome of all this political bs is I've taken on hobbies outside of computers for the first time since high school. I used to think about work related topic all of the time. My office hours were simply hours when I was available to work with others. Now I try to actively not think about work. My gain, their loss, I guess. Fears * Career Suicide - maybe too late. what happens if after going to ND, they eliminate the position because it really should just be in engnieering? * The ND definitely seems a little more knee-jerk. * If Bob is a friend now, how long can that last? * I could become a tool for outsourcing everything. Without very careful analysis, it always seems cheaper to outsource anything. My recent impression is that they are going to try to pull me into the development group. I think this a mistake - development doesnt represent the type of development I do. That what the systems goup is for. That's why we moved feeds into the systems group. HEaven forbid someone in the systems group understand the web tier, though.