Post #99 is our final post.
"Rumblings in ITA" has run it's course and we have accomplished much of what we set out to do. The onus is now on Executive Management to keep the channels of communication within ITA open and improve on that each and every day.
Please post your comments on anything about the City, ITA, your job, this blog, or anything you see fit.
Thank you,
ITA Rumblers
"Rumblings in ITA" has run it's course and we have accomplished much of what we set out to do. The onus is now on Executive Management to keep the channels of communication within ITA open and improve on that each and every day.
Please post your comments on anything about the City, ITA, your job, this blog, or anything you see fit.
Thank you,
ITA Rumblers
25 comments:
Why?
This is weird indeed.
What has happened all of a sudden?
I have a feeling the true identity of this blog have been found out by management or close to it.
They are runny scared. Therefore deleting all previous posts and comments. I looked forward to the blog daily for information.
How are we suppose to know what is really going on now?
Rumblings,
I want to take this opportunity to commend you (all?) for your blog, as you have single-handedly brought to light Ken Simmons' misdeeds to the extent that he is now gone. I'm only sorry that so many good people had to leave ITA before him to make management see him for who he was...wait, I mean IS not WAS.
And this to the ITA Executive Team...this blog should have been a wake-up call for you. Your "team" is not behind you 100%. Randi, why have you disbanded your lunch meetings? What's wrong with getting to know your staff, the grunts that actually do the work. Show up at different locations and see what's going on. By now, you should know everyone's name on the 14th floor. I bet you don't. I bet you don't even know what the NorthEast quadrant staff are responsible for. How about the staff along the south wall on the 13th floor...what do they do?
Your all hands meetings are too large. Have smaller meetings at each ITA facility. Get to know your staff. You'll be stronger for it.
I see that the previous Rumblings post thanking folks for a great six months as foreshadowing of Post #99. In my opinion, All Hands meeting #3 was an interesting mixture.
* First, we all get B- grades on about EVERYTHING.
* Economic doom and gloom is mixed in with efficiency moves.
* It is said that in order to accomplish these that sometimes IT has to say no to projects requested by other departments!
* A nice inspirational talk is given by a Councilman. It does include the comment that ITA has had such "wonderful" department heads. So they were wonderful for the two years that each of them lasted?
* The main message on "temporary layoff"/ 6 day mandatory furlough is "No decision has been made".
* The statement that unions are in negotiations with the city on ways to save money only applies to coalition unions, not Engineers and Architects Association.
* An employee from elected official support practically walks on water and supports the mission of "making customers happy". Using that for a "mission statement" sounds like this organization is in retailing.
* In Q & A, it is revealed that some body finally got some common sense about the need for large scale computing and mainframe elimination is no longer a goal!
* It is hoped that the brain drain can be addressed by the results of another IT classification study and involving "the unions" from the beginning.
* In closing remarks, Randy emphasizes not criticizing and teamwork (with plenty of sports analogies that leave me cold) to improve the organization, even quoting Theodore Roosevelt on how it is more important to do something than to criticize. In a way it sounded like she was calling out the bloggers, but not saying so directly.
Remember everyone, that TR said other stuff, too. This one ought to apply to ALL levels of government, since I'm NOT trying to introduce presidential politics into this blog:
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
--Theodore Roosevelt
It's easy to talk about how the IT organization needs to be a "team", RAH! RAH! RAH! But, people who do things like redesign or debug code, troubleshoot system problems, reconfigure systems for better performance for a living need critical thinking skills. It's part of the package. It sounds like Ms. L. wants us to compartmentalize the very attitudes that get the job done in order to show a false face of harmony and high morale. Easy to say when she got the 7% and we got 3%.
I'll miss this blog,
a contributing bucaneer
Sorry you are leaving. Like Charlton Heston screamed in Planet of the Apes (Pun intended) "It's a Mad House! A Mad House!". I encourage young people to go work for private industry where individual effort is rewarded and not this quasi socialist organization that promotes on the basis of "political correctness" which is more like "political corruption". Randi, you must have been replaced at Universal Studios with someone who focuses on the business and not on their egos and would project their religion or their stupid kids on a wide screen in one of their pep rally mandatory ego fests. Sorry to see you go blogger...From the depths of ITA, from a grunt who had Randi walk into his work area while he was doing his job and tell a visitor: you see this...this is a big waste of time! Even the visitor felt embarassed for me, and replied meekly "well it keeps a person busy Randi" From that honest worker, who has been paying his rent from working in that big waste of time and playing by the rules, and who does not hustle his race for a promotion, a heartfelt thank you and goodbye.
This is not the time to quit. Your mere presence was forcing accountability.
Randi, quit calling us a "team". We're your "staff" and we don't feel like a team. When we do, you'll know it and then you can go back to calling us "team".
Sorry to see this shut down. It has made for some interesting reading and even provided a laugh or two over the past few months!
All the team talk is nice, but many of us don't feel that we are equal members of this team.
We don't have a sense of ownership of what we do. True teams take ownership and will go to the next level to accomplish the goals of the team. Teams or team members get rewarded for their efforts.
But the very people that want you to be a team player are also the first ones in line to take your cola's, or try to change the Civil Service code so they can "selectively" screw the people that actually do the work, and reward those that are better at kissing butts than meeting the requirements of their classification.
YES!
Talk is cheap, But Deeds...DEEDS are the true measure of a persons intent! Let's see what deeds come forth...from all of us!
So long blogger!
Thank you for your time and dedication. The blog provided much insight into the happenings of ITA. We wish you would continue with the blog. Please use that same energy to continue to do more good for ITA and the city.
THIS SUCKS!! Doesn't anyone realize how much this was needed by the folks in EOC?
There appears to be no real reason to remove all of the posts on this blog.
Keeping the posts would have beneficial just for historical reasons even if the blogger stopped posting.
Maybe, as someone suggested, someone in ITA Management asked the blogger to take posts off.
I would call that chicken s**t of the blogger. Even if someone was keeping copies of the posts, losing them from the blog means this blog never existed.
Remove and destroy the evidence, typically used by governments to rewrite history. Now everything is wonderful in a team like way.
Maybe Zuma Dog can chime in.
This team talk is a bunch of BS. I hate when not just Randi, but other managers use "team" to address their STAFF.
Managers use the "team" excuse to manage by consensus. Decision by consensus is NOT leadership. Think about it.... most, not all,ITA managers are like this: "what do you guys think, what should we do...", etc. WHY? because they don't know what they're doing. If you know what the heck you're doing as a manager, then your staff will buy-in to "teamwork", otherwise you get NO respect from your staff and NO teamwork. Here's a hint: hire managers that have some kind of technical ability to start with, not some politically correct kissasses. We work in information TECHNOLOGY for crying out loud!!! at some point SOMEONE needs to make the tough decisions AND have the technical background to make a sound decision. And don't hire consultants for every little project either!! I gotta give Randi some slack here because it would be nearly impossible be familiar with all the different systems we support. I'm referring to all the middle managers here. you know who you are!! AND, I bet if Randi sat in on your meetings you had with your staff or with vendors, she would not like it.
Instead of having lunches with Randi, she should instead come unannounced to some of our staff meetings or vendor presentations to see how managers really handle things around here.
Here's a quote Teddy Roosevelt would have loved... ""teamork" is a bunch of people running around doing what I say."
-- some hollywood director
If you can be successful at doing the above, with excellent outcomes, THEN you can start calling your staff a team.
You managers need to stop NOW with this team nonsense until you can step up as a manager.
No more reason to rumble now that the "All Hands" infusion of team spirit has done it's work.
Repeat after me, "Yeah team!" "Go ITA!". Don't you feel better? Now stop your rumbling and get back to work.
Hmmmm, it might just be that Rumblings has been outed. Too bad.
Anyone want to take up the gauntlet? Randi is an idiot, and needs excessive hand holding to function in this department. The AGM's are all "yes" men, which makes them redundant. Many ISM II's have adopted the "give them what they want" attitude that makes the City's IT portfolio the poster child for how not to manage a large enterprise.
Yeah, there's a lot of griping on these pages. It was here long before this blog was created, and will only subside when there is true leadership and empowerment to effect change.
Indeed, the emperor has no clothes, and apparently refuses to believe information to the contrary.
Chicken.
Inquiring public wants to know..
1) were you outed?
2) are you no longer with ITA?
3) do you no longer have access to the same sources that fueled this blog?
4) is ITA beyond hope and therefore why bother saying anything more about it?
5) did Randi's inspirational words of non-criticism move you?
There's a lot more to be said about what is or isn't going on in the Executive Offices. I like your blog because it provided a view (albeit sometimes bias) but nonetheless a view.
C'mon - just one more post letting us know what happen. The curiosity is killing me!
Some of the timing of posts and management responses seems too pat in a way.
After All Hands 3, Post #99 is up, and all of the others are gone. Later that weekend, the rest of the posts re-appear, which is hard to explain away as a technical difficulty. Soon after the Post #99 on Randi's halting of the "lunch meetings", an e-mail goes out to all ITA saying staff are encouraged to sign up for these meetings from a list of times. I could understand getting burned out on this project, but the timing looks odd.
As a reasonable person, I'd agree to disagree with Rumbler #99 that management has really turned around. In corners of 14 the same old petty sick leave report harassment goes on. The "team" talk and sports analogies leave me cold.
If management is retaliating or threatening Rumblings, then maybe some outside legal help is needed. Retaliation for concerted activity or for using your freedom of speech is against the law!
Chicken? Chicken are all four AGMS who don't have the balls to stand up for the best interest of the ITA because they are afraid to get demoted to ISM2! this is very weak persons. i look at them and shakes my head. stand up for something please! be proud to come to work every day! We will support you if you start doing the right things for the dept and the benefit of th city.
Everyone needs to stop speculating.
No one was "outed".
No one is running scared.
No one is being punished.
As the post states, this blog ran it's course. A decision was made that had nothing to do with the timing of the All Hands Meeting.
The core group of Rumblers decided leave the blog as it was with all 99 posts intact.
End of story.
Every organization should have a communication outlet that is free from management oversight to provide forum to discuss topics that interests the employees. Although Rumblings was sometimes mean spirited in some of the comments, it was a well done and valuable service. It is sad to see it end. It provided something that management could not accomplish and would not attempt, bringing to light any and all rumors affecting the work place. Time became the seperator of truth versus fiction in regards to the rumors.
Please someone, bring rumblings back. Report the rumors sans insults. Not all mid level managers will share watercooler gossip, which business tells us is usually 90% plus true.
Randi, encourage employees to use sources like this blog to express their real concerns, as many employee's will never trust "ITA.AskRandi@lacity.org" as a source to commicate without the threat of retaliation for holding an opinion different then the "approved" way to view situations.
I've let out my frustrations on this blog and blamed a lot of it on management. Even though some of my anger was misplaced, I'm glad I did it and I'm over it. Our executive management is under a lot of pressure to do things that may seem foolish and I hope it's just a case of employees not getting the "real big picture"... I hope. I believe lower level managers are not telling upper management what is really going on, or not telling them what they really think when they have the opportunity to do so. Our upper manageers bases many of their decisions on what their employees urge them to do. Lets start communicating better with our managers. What do you folks think??
Come back ITA blog, come back. What will I do without you?...create my own blog?...maybe...just maybe.
One grateful reader bids adieu to you. Gracias.
It was funny how we had a not so little earthquake last week and yet we heard absolutely zero from executive management. Do they even care that they have a staff?
Please bring this blog back. The staff of ITA all need a place to vent.
Somebody started a new blog at http://www.lacitywatch.blogspot.com/
This blogger says it'll covered anything "city."
But it seems that the happenin's in ITA (mismanagement, ignoring of workplace violence complaints, harassment, hostile work environment) would be enough for any blog.
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