I haven’t blogged about this in a while, mainly because life has been so busy. I’m participating in a fairly large blogging book. It’s by bloggers, about anything but blogging. My proposal was to be a short story featuring a couple of guys who work in an IT shop and who have some issues.

I’ve decided to write the story as a series of “dear reader” memoirs by the manager. Each will be 1000-2000 words long, which’ll give me no more than my 10,000 word cap. The intent is to confront some typical IT shop issues, some typical management issues, some typical “young pup” issues and to have everyone learn some things in the process.

Here’s my working outline. Let me know your thoughts :)

Letter 1: Intro to company, Jonas Luck (manager), Davis Stewart (free thinker). Intros Jonas’ biases, some of his history (blustery old man that he is), etc. Pass judgement on Davis as a “free thinking lunatic”.

Letter 2: Davis once again came in suggesting some new ideas, advised him to “consider the ramifications of change”. Spent time with Davis going through the idea in order for him to “feel like he was heard” (after he came in the second time).

Letter 3: Meeting with senior management, where they ask about ways to cut IT spending. Mention young Davis and his innovative ideas (“Money is as money does” and “Projects without money are as good as a penguin without his beak”). (ps: company is doing poorly, need to be seen to be doing SOMETHING).

Letter 4: Launching several new projects, in spite of personal objections, due to a lack of options (better than being fired). Bit of excitement over the future. Several colossal failures, in which Jonas considers firing Davis for ever having the idea.

Letter 5: In spite of everything, the projects end up well. Not saving the company money, not losing any money, merely bringing back “more of the same”. Jonas, however, appreciates that Davis wasn’t completely insane and offers him a token pay raise in the hopes he’ll stick around.