He's too friendly

Ok, this is a true story which just happened today. The Program Management department in my company now has 1 SVP (my asshole ex-boss), 1 AVP and 1 Associate. They are assisted by 4 secondees from external consultancy company to assist on internal PM works. And they also have 2-3 consultants (from different consultant company) to do shared track initiatives.

The Management has given a directive to the ASSHOLE to take over the shared track PM from the 2-3 consultants by mid this year. This is partly to save costs as we have been paying millions to them (as compared to the puny salary that we get) and also to develop internal capabilities.

So, this afternoon the ASSHOLE had a chat with one of the consultants. The ASSHOLE requested the consultant to come up with transition and handover plan. The ASSHOLE also requested the consultant's help to assist, groom and guide the AVP (named F*za) and the Associate (named A*har) with anticipation that these two chaps will take over the consultants' roles in shared track.

The consultant is OK with the idea and willing to offer his assistance on the transition. But, before the consultant can say much further, came an advice from the ASSHOLE... "But be careful with A*har. He's too friendly with other people..."

Yupp! In the ASSHOLE dictionary, a Program Manager should not be friendly to others!

Amber, yellow and green

As a Program Manager (or a Project or Portfolio Manager), the three most important colors in your work are amber (or red), yellow and green. These colors are used to measure actual performance against target for which amber represents not meeting target, yellow means slightly off from the target while green means you're safe or within target.

This is a true story which just happened yesterday to one of my friends, a Program Manager, in my workplace.

She was asked by the Head of Program Management (who is an asshole) to report department spendings for January against budget. So, she duly prepared the report and obviously, as a Program Manager, she colored the cell (the report is in Excel) in accordance to the variance between actual spending against the budget. Amber being overspent, yellow being slightly over the budget and green for within the budget.

She sent the report via email to the Head of Program Management (who is an asshole).

To her surprise, the Head of Program Management (who is an asshole) replied the email within minutes. She thought that was efficient! And to her surprise also, the first line of the reply from the Head of Program Manager (who is an asshole) was...

"Hi F*za, there are too many colors in the report."

Can you believe that comes from the Head of Program Management?!! Owh... he's not just a Head of Program Management, he is an asshole! And you can figure out why I left Program Management and transfer to other department.