Re: What's with the shunting around? HR made you do it?
I once worked for a company where one of my responsibilities was to make sure that in any outgoing electronic communication nothing was routed using To: but only Bcc: so that recipients (tens of thousands of merchants) would not see each other's identities (this was at the request of the Board of Directors who'd had complaints in the past from those same merchants).
A senior manager told me one day that "sometimes he needed pencils and sometimes he needed people" - this was his budget management philosophy. It struck me as somewhat Hubbardesque - LRon's "management tech" defines employees as "terminals" and whatever they produce or exchange as "particles", as good a way of dehumanising the workplace as any.
A week later the senior manager circulated an email praising my contribution to the team. A week after that, I was laid off due to budget considerations; my immediate boss and the director of HR were obviously embarrassed and uncomfortable during the exit interview.
A week after that, someone in Level 2 Support, who had been given my responsibilities, sent out an email to thousands of merchants using the To: line, and stirred up a stitshorm; he was let go immediately. At least I felt a little vindicated.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
