Organizational Behavior – The Talkative Man

The Walmart Cheer

In building Walmart as the world’s greatest retailer, founder Sam Walton borrowed every good idea he’d come across. And one of those ideas is the famous Walmart Cheer:

Give Me a W!
Give Me an A!
Give Me an L!
Give Me a Squiggly!
(Here, everybody sort of does the twist.)
Give Me an M!
Give Me an A!
Give Me an R!
Give Me a T!
What’s that spell?
Wal-Mart!
What’s that spell?
Wal-Mart!
Who’s number one?
THE CUSTOMER!

From Walton’s autobiography, “Made In America”:

Helen (Walton’s wife) and I picked up several ideas on a trip we took to Korea and Japan in 1975. A lot of the things they do over there are very easy to apply to doing business over here. Culturally, things seem so different—like sitting on the floor eating eels and snails—but people are people, and what motivates one group generally will motivate another.

And Helen Walton is quoted,

Sam took me out to see this tennis ball factory, somewhere east of Seoul. The company sold balls to Wal-Mart, I guess, and they treated us very well. It was the dirtiest place I ever saw in my life, but Sam was very impressed. It was the first place he ever saw a group of workers have a company cheer. And he liked the idea of everybody doing calisthenics together at the beginning of the day. He couldn’t wait to get home and try those ideas out in the stores and at the Saturday morning meeting.

All training activities include the Walmart cheer. Every morning, store associates participate in the cheer. A few people stand up to read the daily numbers, then break out into a chant—“Give me a W-A-L-M-A-R-T,” with the rest of the people in the room shouting back the same letter. Back then, Wal-Mart still had a hyphen, so between the L and the M they would yell, “Give me a squiggly!” and everyone would do a butt wiggle.

All across America, Walmart convenes nearly 60,000 regularly scheduled meetings each week, all of them starting and ending with the Walmart cheer. Also, each store has a 15-minute shift-change meeting three times a day, when a new wave of cashiers, stockers, and supervisors arrives. Their meetings start with a Walmart Cheer.

Sam Walton Saw No Need for Unions at Walmart

Pro-Union Activists Protest Against Walmart's Anti-Union Policies

Walmart has always been criticized for its policies against labor unions. Supporters of unionization efforts blame workers’ reluctance to join the labor union on Walmart’s anti-union tactics such as managerial surveillance and pre-emptive closures of stores or departments that choose to unionize. Leaked internal documents show that Walmart’s strategy for fighting to keep its workers from forming unions includes instructing managers to report suspicious activity and warning workers that joining unionizing efforts could hurt them.

Walmart’s management has contended that it’s employees do not need to pay third parties to discuss problems with management as the company’s open-door policy enables employees to lodge complaints and submit suggestions all the way up the corporate ladder. Sam Walton, founder of Walmart wrote in his autobiography:

I have always believed strongly that we don’t need unions at Wal-Mart. Theoretically, I understand the argument that unions try to make, that the associates need someone to represent them and so on. But historically, as unions have developed in this country, they have mostly just been divisive. They have put management on one side of the fence, employees on the other, and themselves in the middle as almost a separate business, one that depends on division between the other two camps. And divisiveness, by breaking down direct communication makes it harder to take care of customers, to be competitive, and to gain market share. The partnership we have at Wal-Mart—which includes profit sharing, incentive bonuses, discount stock purchase plans, and a genuine effort to involve the associates in the business so we can all pull together—works better for both sides than any situation I know of involving unions. I’m not saying we pay better than anybody, though we’re certainly competitive in our industry and in the regions where we’re operating; we have to be if we want to attract and keep good people. But over the long haul, our associates build value for themselves—financially and otherwise—by believing in the company and keeping it headed in the right direction. Together, we have ridden this thing pretty darned far.

Source: Sam Walton’s autobiography, Made In America

When Larry Page Wasn’t Talking to Google Co-founder Sergey Brin

When Larry Page Wasn't Talking to Google Co-founder Sergey Brin

The story of Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s liaison with Google Glass marketing manager Amanda Rosenberg, and his subsequent split from his wife Anne Wojcicki are well known in Silicon Valley. Wojcicki and Brin, who had been married for six years and have two children together, are said to be living separately but that they were not legally separated.

Evidently, in the early days of the Google Glass Project, Amanda Rosenberg had spent time with Anne Wojcicki trying to understand how to target mothers with the gadget. They had thus became friends: Wojcicki had given Rosenberg a Christmas present, and Brin and Wojcicki went out to dinners with Rosenberg and Hugo Barra, her now ex-boyfriend and then an executive in Google’s Android team. But in late 2012 Wojcicki “came across messages between Rosenberg and Brin that caused her to feel alarm,” reported an exposing article in Vanity Fair.

What is less known is that Google CEO Larry Page apparently stopped talking to co-founder and long-time friend Sergey Brin after his affair with Amanda Rosenberg emerged. Larry Page, who has been friends with Brin since they first met during a welcome event for graduate students of Stanford’s computer science department, refused to speak to him after news of the affair emerged. According to an unnamed source quoted in the Vanity Fair article, “Larry is so ethically strict. … I heard Larry was insanely upset by this whole situation and wasn’t talking to Sergey” for a time.

Many employers have written or verbal polices on office romances. Employers implemented policies because they realize they aren’t going to stop people from having romantic relationships. They want to best protect the company from a claim of sexual harassment and ensure there’s no favoritism or conflict, which could hurt productivity and impact morale. In fact, Google’s code of conduct does not forbid dating and romantic relationships between employees,

“Romantic relationships between co-workers can, depending on the work roles and respective positions of the co-workers involved, create an actual or apparent conflict of interest. If a romantic relationship does create an actual or apparent conflict, it may require changes to work arrangements or even the termination of employment of either or both individuals involved. Consult Google’s Employee Handbook for additional guidance on this issue.”

Anne Wojcicki, who got a degree in biology from Yale, is one of the founders of 23andMe, personal genomics and biotechnology company that provides rapid genetic testing. She was even featured on the cover of Fast Company magazine as “The Most Daring CEO in America.”

Anne’s sister, Susan Wojcicki, continues to be one of the top executives at Google, where she is currently CEO of YouTube. In its formative days, Google’s first headquarters was located in her garage, and she was one of the first hires by Brin and Page.

Incidentally, Sergey and Anne met in 1998 when he moved off campus with his Stanford computer-science classmate Larry Page to set up a search-engine company in Susan Wojcicki garage.

Koch Industries’ Market-Based Management

Koch Industries

Koch Industries employs a rigorous approach called the Market-Based Management philosophy to run the business. CEO Charles Koch has perfected his management playbook over the decades, and in 2007, published a book called “The Science of Success”, explaining how the system works at Koch.

MBM, as Koch employees call it, lies at the heart of how Koch operates every day. MBM is significant for the reason that it unites Koch’s employees, giving them a common language and a common goal. There is not a lot of art on the walls in Koch’s headquarters, but everywhere you turn, there is a copy of MBM’s 10 guiding principles hanging from the wall. When employees get a free cup of Starbucks coffee in the break room, the principles are printed on the disposable cup.

Five Dimensions of Koch Industries’ Market-Based Management

Companies owned by Koch Industries strive to bring the productive power of the free market into their operations by systematically applying Koch’s market based management philosophy through these five dimensions:

Vision: Determining where and how the organization can create the greatest long-term value.
Virtue and Talents: Helping ensure that people with the right values, skills and capabilities are hired, retained and developed.
Knowledge Processes: Creating, acquiring, sharing and applying relevant knowledge, and measuring and tracking profitability. (Read, “Knowledge sharing in action,” from Discovery newsletter.)
Decision Rights: Ensuring the right people are in the right roles with the right authority to make decisions and holding them accountable.
Incentives: Rewarding people according to the value they create for the organization.

The Kochs Brothers consists of Charles Koch and David Koch. Two other brothers, William and Frederick, cashed out in 1983 and no longer have a stake in the company. The Koch brothers became heir to their father’s company in Kansas, and Koch Industries into the second-largest privately held company in the nation. The conglomerate makes a gamut of products including Dixie cups, chemicals, jet fuel, fertilizer, electronics, toilet paper and much more.

Kochs Brothers: Charles Koch and David Koch

Guiding Principles of Koch Industries’ Market-Based Management

Market-Based Management has ten guiding principles that set the standards for evaluating policies, practices and conduct, establishing norms of behavior and building the shared values that guide individual actions. These guiding principles also serve as rules of just conduct along with shared values and beliefs. Koch’s focus and hard nosed thinking combined with his application of economics to management decision making, have enabled his firm to grow into a nimble, large company that keeps performing excellently.

Integrity: Conduct all affairs with integrity, for which courage is the foundation.
Compliance: Strive for 10,000% compliance with all laws and regulations, which requires 100% of employees fully complying 100% of the time. Stop, think and ask.
Value Creation: Create long-term value by the economic means for customers, the company and society. Apply MBM to achieve superior results by making better decisions, pursuing safety and environmental excellence, eliminating waste, optimizing and innovating.
Principled Entrepreneurship: Apply the judgment, responsibility, initiative, economic and critical thinking skills, and sense of urgency necessary to generate the greatest contribution, consistent with the company’s risk philosophy.
Customer Focus: Understand and develop relationships with customers to profitably anticipate and satisfy their needs.
Knowledge: Seek and use the best knowledge and proactively share your knowledge while embracing a challenge process. Develop measures that lead to profitable action.
Change: Anticipate and embrace change. Envision what could be, challenge the status quo and drive creative destruction through experimental discovery.
Humility: Exemplify humility and intellectual honesty. Constantly seek to understand and constructively deal with reality to create value and achieve personal improvement. Hold yourself and others accountable.
Respect: Treat others with honesty, dignity, respect and sensitivity. Appreciate the value of diversity. Encourage and practice teamwork.
Fulfillment: Find fulfillment and meaning in your work by fully developing your capabilities to produce results that create the greatest value.

Nine Elements of Organizational Performance

Motivation: Inspiring and encouraging employees to perform and stay
Coordination and Control: Measuring and evaluating business performance and risk
Innovation: Generating a flow of ideas so that the organization is able to adapt
Leadership Team: Ensuring leaders shape and inspire the actions of others to drive better performance
Direction: Articulating where the organization is heading and how to get there, and aligning people
External Orientation: Engaging in constant two-way interactions with customers, suppliers, or other partners
Work Environment and Values: Shaping employee interactions and fostering a shared understanding of values
Capabilities: Ensuring internal skills and talent to support strategy and create competitive advantage
Accountability: Designing structures/reporting relationships and evaluating individual performance to ensure accountability and responsibility for business results

Consequences of Organizational Commitment Level for Individual Employees and an Organization

Consequences of Organizational Commitment Level

Like various social groups at different times throughout history, organizations and corporations developed distinctive cultures.

Organizational culture is the entirety of socially transmitted behavior patterns that are typical of a particular organization or a company. Organizational culture encompasses the structure of the organization and the roles within it, the leadership style, the prevailing values, norms, sanctions, and support mechanisms, and the past traditions and folklore, methods of enculturation, and characteristic ways of interacting with people and institutions outside of the culture (such as customers, suppliers, the competition, government agencies, and the general public).

Consequences of Organizational Commitment Level for Individual Employees

Low Organizational Commitment: Potentially positive consequences for opportunity for expression of originality and innovation, but an overall negative effect on career advancement opportunities
Moderate Organizational Commitment: Enhanced feeling of belongingness and security, along with doubts about the opportunity for advancement
High Organizational Commitment: Greater opportunity for advancement and compensation for efforts, along with less opportunity for personal growth and potential for stress in family relationships

Consequences of Organizational Commitment Level for the Organization

Low Organizational Commitment: Absenteeism, tardiness, workforce turnover, and poor quality of work
Moderate Organizational Commitment: As compared with low commitment, less absenteeism, tardiness, turnover, and better quality of work, as well as increased level of job satisfaction
High Organizational Commitment: Potential for high productivity, but sometimes accompanied by lack of critical/ethical review of employee behavior and by reduced organizational flexibility

Companies need to engage their employees to capitalize on emotional energy and consistently achieve higher levels of performance than their competition. It’s critical for leaders to do their best to gain effective commitment, and reduce their teams’ reliance on continuance and normative commitment, so that they lead teams of employees who feel passionate for their roles in the organization.

Ten Quotes from Bill Hewlett and David Packard that Every Manager and Leader Must Read and Follow

Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard

On 23-Aug-1937, two electrical engineers who had recently graduated from Stanford University met to consider the idea of founding a new company. During the course of their studies at Stanford, they had developed a strong friendship and respect for each other. Bill Hewlett and David Packard put their ideas to paper, starting with a broad declaration about design and manufacture of products in the electrical engineering field. Initially, Hewlett and Packard any engineering product would be fair game to move the company forward, and expand beyond their Palo Alto garage. Therefore, they were unfocused and worked on a wide range of electronic products for industry and agriculture. Through hard work, perseverance, and forethought, Bill Hewlett and David Packard developed Hewlett Packard into an instrumentation and computing powerhouse before retiring and handing over management to a new crop of business leaders.

“The greatest success goes to the person who is not afraid to fail in front of even the largest audience.”
“Set out to build a company and make a contribution, not an empire, and a fortune.”
“The best possible company management is one that combines a sense of corporate greatness and destiny, with empathy for, and fidelity to, the average employee.”
“The biggest competitive advantage is to do the right thing at the worst time.”
“A company that focuses solely on profits ultimately betrays both itself and society.”
“Corporate reorganizations should be made for cultural reasons more than financial ones.”
“A frustrated employee is a greater threat than a merely unhappy one.”
“The job of a manager is to support his or her staff, not vice versa and that begins by being among them.”
“The best business decisions are the most humane decisions. And, all other talents being even, the greatest managers are also the most human managers.”
“Investing in new product development and expanding the product catalog are the most difficult things to do in hard times, and among the most important.

Source: “Beyond The Obvious: Killer Questions That Spark Game Changing Innovation” by Phil McKinney. Phil McKinney was an innovation manager at Hewlett Packard. Phil’s book has great questions for managing and leading businesses.

For Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard’s legendary management style and the history of Hewlett Packard, read ‘Bill & Dave: How Hewlett and Packard Built the World’s Greatest Company’ by Michael S. Malone and ‘The HP Way: How Bill Hewlett and I Built Our Company’ by David Packard.

MicroSpeak—A Guide to Microsoft Corporate Lingo and Community Jargon

Microsoft Logo

There are many examples of jargon in the workplace. An absolute censure of corporate jargon is simply off the mark as is undue reliance on the use of such jargon. When used correctly and where used fittingly, corporate jargon can truly be a way to talk concisely about complex topics in the right context with the right people.

Here is an informal manual of Microsoft Corporate Jargon. It was compiled by the staff of the Micro News, Microsoft’s weekly internal corporate newsletter. This list is intended to give the readers a glimpse into the minds of Microsoft employees worldwide.

404: Someone who’s clueless. From the World Wide Web message “404, URL Not Found,” meaning that the document you’ve tried to access can’t be located.
ADK: Acronym once used to describe Microsoft’s hiring strategy. Stands for Attract, Develop, and Keep employees.
Adminisphere: The rarified organizational layers beginning just above the rank and file. Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.
Air Jornada: An HP Jornada Pocket PC with a wireless card.
Alias: E-mail name for individual or group. E-mail names for Microsoft employees generally combine their given name with the first letter of their last name and are often used in conversation to save time.
Alpha Geek: The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group. “Ask Larry, he’s the alpha geek around here.”
Ambimousetrous: Able to use the mouse well with either hand.
BENOFTMUE (ben-ofta-moo): Big Event No One Foresaw That Messes Up Everything (Usage: Due to the recent BENOFTMUE, our group had to reorg again.)
Bandwidth: Amount of time or brain cells available for handling a task.
Beepilepsy: The brief seizure people sometimes suffer when their beepers or cell phones go off, especially in vibrator mode. Characterized by physical spasms, goofy facial expressions, and stopping speech in mid-sentence.
Big R/Little r: This is a legacy from the days of Xenix Mail, where the letter R was used to reply to e-mail. An upper-case R represented a reply all, while a lower-case r sent a reply just to the sender. To this day, you’ll see many old-timers still include this reference in e-mail, e.g., “Get back to me on this issue by COB tomorrow—little r please.”
Binary Problem: A method of paring down an often-complex issue to a two possible solutions scenario (yes or no, 1 or 0, stop or go, etc.).
Bio Break: Recess in a meeting for biological purposes such as restroom or smokes.
Blamestorming: Sitting around in a group discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who was responsible.
Blibbet: The name of the O-like symbol in the original Microsoft logo. Memorialised in the “Save the Blibbet” campaign and honoured by the “Blibbet Burger.”
Blowing a Buffer: Losing one’s train of thought. Occurs when the person you are speaking with won’t let you get a word in edgewise or has just said something so astonishing that your train gets derailed. “Damn, I just blew my buffer!”
Boat Anchor: Unused, obsolete CPU kept around to leverage acquisition of a new machine at the beginning of the fiscal year. “Fred’s office floor was cluttered with boat anchors.”
Brain Fart: A by-product of a bloated mind producing information effortlessly. A burst of useful information.
Burning Cycles: Wasting time and effort.
Buttoned Down: Tight, clean, well thought through. A high compliment.
CGI Joe: A hard-core CGI script programmer with all the social skills and charisma of a plastic action figure.
COM-plicate: To simplify code design by heavy use of COM (Common Object Model).
Canfusion: The bewilderment that results from staring too long at the free drinks in the kitchen cooler, trying to decide whether to have a Coke, Pepsi, Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, Caffeine-Free Diet Coke … or grapefruit juice.
Career-Limiting Move (CLM): Any action taken that would most likely get you fired or seriously demoted. Trashing your boss while he or she is within earshot is a serious CLM.
Catering Vultures: People who flock to an unattended catering site to pick through the remains of meeting food. These vultures are quite benevolent and reduce the amount of waste we produce.
Chair Trap: When you trap yourself in your office chair by accidentally hitting the pneumatic seat adjustment, causing it to drop suddenly, thereby locking your legs under your chair.
Chip Jewellery: A euphemism for old computers destined to be scrapped or turned into decorative ornaments. “I paid three grand for that Mac SE, and now it’s nothing but chip jewellery.”
Chips and Salsa: Chips = hardware, salsa = software. “Well, first we’ve got to figure out if the problem’s in your chips or your salsa.”
Cobweb Site: A Web site that hasn’t been updated for a long time. A dead Web page.
Code Bloat: The resultant growth of systems resource requirements such as processor speed and disk and memory space, caused by the addition of features and functionality in software.
Code Warrior: A developer; a writer of code; the building block of traditional Microsoft success.
Context Switch: As in a meeting. “Let’s context switch to the next issue.”
Copy Protection: Spaying or neutering, such as, “Janet just had her cat copyprotected.”
Cost Beast: Coined by former COO Bob Herbold in 1996, refers to a Microsoft costcutting strategy. For example, “taming the cost beast.”
Cranking against deliverables: Busting hump to keep up with the schedule that the manager promised. “For the next month, we’ll really be cranking against deliverables.”
Crapplet: A badly written or profoundly useless applet. “I just wasted 30 minutes downloading this stinkin’ crapplet!”
Cube Farm: An office filled with cubicles.
Cubs: Playful, smart young Microsofties who are somewhat bashful with the opposite sex and haven’t quite grown into their paws
Dancing Baloney: Little animated GIFs and other Web F/X that are useless and serve simply to impress clients. “This page is kinda dull. Maybe a little dancing baloney will help.”
Dead Tree Edition: The paper version of a publication available in both paper and electronic forms, as in: “The dead tree edition of the Micro News…”
Death March: The final phase of product development in which people commit long days and weekends, sleep on couches, and eat catered meals (for example, Windows 95 had a six-month death march).
Dogfood: Microsoft concept for internal testing of software that’s not fit for public consumption, but good enough for internal purposes. Very unrefined and buggy, but containing basic nutrients. Coined by former senior VP Paul Maritz, but made famous by now senior VP Brian Valentine in 1988.
Door Dorks: People who stand in your doorway to talk with you, rather than entering your office. Perhaps they are too shy to come in, or they know the doorway is the safest place in the event of an earthquake.
Doortag Browsing: The act of browsing nametags on doors while in a different building, in the hopes of spotting someone famous (or maybe just somebody you’ve conversed with frequently via e-mail, but never met).
Dorito Syndrome: Feelings of emptiness and dissatisfaction triggered by addictive substances that lack nutritional content. “I just spent six hours surfing the Web, and now I’ve got a bad case of Dorito Syndrome.”
Drill Down: To delve deeply into the core of an issue, rather than deal with it in a superficial manner; to analyse the details. To learn more about a subject.
Drinking from a Fire Hose: To get overwhelmed with the amount of information being presented.
Drop Point: The share to which the release files are copied when completed.
Drop: A release of a product or documentation set. “We will roll out a beta drop of the authoring tool next month.”
Eat Your Own Dogfood: Use the product you’re developing in your day-to-day operations.
Egosurfing: Scanning the Net, databases, print media, or research papers looking for the mention of your name.
Elvis Year: The peak year of something’s popularity. “Barney the dinosaur’s Elvis year was 1993.”
Facemail: Technologically backward means of communication, clearly inferior to voicemail or e-mail. Involves actually walking to someone’s office and speaking to him or her face-to-face.
Fibre Media: Material printed on archaic paper. Used disparagingly. “Yeah, I used to be a writer in fibre media, but now I’m a content provider in cybermedia.”
Fire Drill: A crisis (usually imagined) that requires immediate and sustained attention. “Sorry I’m late, honey, but we had another one of Pat’s fire drills.”
Fish Bowl: Unused, obsolete monitor kept around to leverage acquisition of a new monitor at the beginning of the fiscal year
Flat Forehead Phenomenon (FFP): Something every developer has from smacking himself on the forehead after wasting a disproportionate amount of time on stupid mistakes. (e.g.: “I just spent two hours debugging because I had a comma instead of a semi-colon, what an FFP!”)
Glazing: Corporate-speak for sleeping with your eyes open. A popular pastime at conferences and early-morning meetings. “Didn’t he notice that half the room was glazing by the second session?”
Golden: Describes a state of perfection, especially of software. When software is ready to be shipped, you frequently hear Microsoft people say, “Everything is golden!” From this usage, we started to call the master disks for a product that is ready to go to manufacturing the “Golden Masters.” We call the process of approval for sending disks to manufacturing “going golden.”
Grandmanager: My manager’s manager.
Granular: Generally, and rather peculiarly, used in tandem with the verb “to get,” as in “We need to get granular on this issue,” meaning to examine the fine details. To get granular, one needs, it goes without saying, to drill down.
Gray Matter: Older, experienced business people hired by young entrepreneurial firms looking to appear more reputable and established
Great-grandmanager: My grandmanager’s manager.
Great-great-great-great-grandmanager: Bill Gates.
Hall Hogs: A congregated herd of people blocking a hallway, usually after a meeting or conference, loudly discussing things too important to be discussed at the meeting and being totally impervious to anyone trying to pass through their gauntlet while also disturbing people in nearby offices trying to get some work done.
Heads-down: A person or team that is totally engrossed in their project, causing them often to be oblivious to the world around them. “The test team is totally heads-down right now.”
IAYF: Acronym for Information at Your Fingertips, a famous phrase first spoken by Bill Gates at Comdex.
Idea Hamsters: People who always seem to have their idea generators running.
Irritainment: Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying, but you find yourself unable to stop watching them
Keyboard Plaque: The disgusting buildup of dirt and crud found on computer keyboards. “Are there any other terminals I can use? This one has a bad case of keyboard plaque.”
Keyboard Vittles: The food particles that are in the crevasses of your keyboard. A little snack to save for later.
Kludge: A hardware solution that has been improvised from various mismatched parts. A slang word meaning makeshift, inefficient, inelegant. A kludge can also be in software. It may not be elegant and is probably only a temporary fix. As in, “That patch to the software is a real kludge.”
Lake Bill: The majestic body of water between Buildings 1, 2, 3, and 4. A noted snow geese, goldfish, and rooster habitat, this is also the site of boss-dunkings, Ballmer swims, and juggling practice.
Let’s Take This Offline: Let’s talk about this later, after the meeting.
Link Rot: The process by which links on a Web page became as obsolete as the sites they’re connected to change location or die.
Liveware: Slang for people. Also called wetware or jellyware, as opposed to hardware, software, and firmware.
MSFTomania: A persistent neurotic impulse to check the current Microsoft stock price.
Meeting Seconds: Compressed minutes, such as, 1. Bob is going to Taiwan. 2. No new showstopper bugs. 3. Pizza was late.
Mickey: Smallest measurable unit of mouse movement.
MicroSnooze: Annual April Fool’s Day edition of Microsoft’s internal company newsletter, Micro News.
Milkhenge: The collection of half-used milk cartons sitting on the kitchenette counter.
Monkey Testing: Giving a product to a novice without any intro/docs. From the old American Tourister ads, where they “monkey-tested” their luggage by giving it to a gorilla to play with.
Mouse Potato: The online, wired generation’s answer to the couch potato.
Muffin Eaters: People that come to a Microsoft event, but have no reason to be there other than to eat the free food. Particularly relatable to prospects that have no intention of buying a thing.
Multi-threaded: Able to do more than one thing at a time. This term is a compliment and is the opposite of single-threaded.
NRO: Next Release of Office. Used for a feature that can’t be put into the current shipping version, but which is flagged to go into NRO.
Net It Out: Give me the bottom line, or, get to the point. As in “Net it out for me.”
Net Storm: Unexplainable multiple network failures in a specific building or region.Usually transient, but rarely fixed through human intervention. “No one was able to get onto corpnet due to the net storm.”
Net: To summarize. “I was really impressed by Jon’s ability to net the entire meeting down to four key points.”
Nonlinear: Inappropriately intense negative response. “I told him we didn’t have any Starbucks Gazebo Blend and he went totally nonlinear.”
OGF: Overall Good Feelings or Overall Goodness Factor. Used to describe the minimum consensus required in order to move forward on a project or to a new feature
OOF: An acronym that’s turned into a word of its own. Often thought to stand for “Out of Office,” leading many to believe it really should be OOO. Actually stands for “Out of Facility”. Also refers to an automated e-mail response in indicating that the sender will be out of the office for a period of time.
ObFun: Obligatory Fun—Team-building exercises that are not optional, usually scheduled on top of the normal team meetings.
Offline: Outside the confines of a mass meeting, so as not to take up the time of attendees not directly concerned with an issue. “Let’s take this conversation offline.” By extension, a synonym for “in private” or “confidentially”; “Let’s take this offline” equals “Let’s talk about this in private.”
Ohnosecond: That minuscule fraction of time in which you realize that you’ve just made a big mistake.
Open-Collar Workers: People who work at home or telecommute.
Pan-Galactic: Larger than worldwide in strategic context. “Microsoft’s Office has a truly pan-galactic market.”
Parallel Processing: To do two things at once.
Party: Kicking out the managers and adding new features to a program, especially after the deadline for adding new features has passed. Also used to refer to what software does to memory and hard disks. “This new code parties on the hard disk for a while and then locks up the system.”
Percussive Maintenance: The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.
Ping: To send a brief e-mail. “I’ll ping Jim about revising the schedule.” Derives from Internet jargon, where one computer can ping, or send a message to, another computer, asking it to respond, to verify the connection.
Plug-and-Play: A new hire who doesn’t need any training. “The new guy, John, is great. He’s totally plug-and-play.”
Prairie-Dogging: When someone yells or drops something loudly in a cube farm and people’s heads pop up over the walls to see what’s going on.
Push Back: Respond more forcefully to an unfavourable answer. If your request for three new headcount for your project is denied by upper management, you must push back with stronger reasons why you cannot possibly accomplish the project without those three headcount.
RAS: To connect remotely to the corporate network, ostensibly to work. “I’m heading home, but I’ll RAS in later.”
Ramp Up: Technical term appropriated for general usage, meaning to gear up, to reinforce and, in a sense, to gird oneself for greater effort. Can be applied externally, as in ramping up resources for a new project, or internally, as in “I’ve got to ramp up to deal with these Web issues.”
Random: Epithet describing an idea that is poorly thought out or an action that is ill considered. Most commonly used in the exclamation “That’s so random!” which Bill Gates uses frequently.
Randomise: To divert someone from their goal with tertiary tasks or niggling details. “Marketing has totally randomised me by constantly changing their minds about the artwork.”
Reality Distortion Field: In the MS product development process, it is defined as follows: when a team, engrossed in its own magnificence, convinces itself that impossible dates can be met, that enormously complex technical problems are nothing to worry about, and the naysayers just “don’t have the religion.” (From “Is Your Project Out of Control,” by Chris Williams).
Release Candidate or RC: The final release build and potential candidate for RTM. Also known as “golden” code.
Repro: Short for reproducible. “Is that bug repro?” or “How repro is it?”
Salmon Day: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed in the end.
Schedule Chicken: Setting an unattainable schedule in the hopes that another team will slip first and buy you more time. From the teenage game “chicken,” where two cars drive toward each other in a test of nerves to see who will chicken out and swerve away.
Scrow: To work 70-hour weeks to meet some unrealistic deadline.
Server: Fictional central computer designed to provide employees with a sure-fire excuse for failing to meet deadlines. “I would have finished but the damn server’s been down all morning.”
Shatner Moment: When a program has behaviour characterized by abnormally long pauses, alternated with rapid-fire delivery of some of what you typed—when……….. your typ……..ing comes…………… in…….. bursts, because……. your email program………. is………dying………………… network…………… slow…..can’t……………….. contin……[crash]. Example: “My e-mail is having a Shatner Moment.”
Shoot in the Head: Remove a feature from a program. “Sure, we can ship on time, as long as we can shoot the TCP/IP connectivity module in the head.”
Show Stopper: A really big bug. A function, object, or issue important enough to jeopardize a ship date or schedule in order to correct or include. “They’re offering Dove bars to anyone who finds a showstopper in the latest beta.”
Shrimp & Weenies: Refers to cost-cutting strategy. For example, getting rid of expenses such as lavish parties in favour of smaller-scale events, coined by Mike Murray, former VP of Human Resources in 1993-94.
Single-threaded: Not able to do two things at once. “He’s single-threaded; he can’t chew gum and walk at the same time.” The opposite is multithreaded.
Slack: Used by devs to refer to a group of three or more program managers. (“Look! A slack of PMs grazing at the Espresso Bar.”)
Slip: Used by PMs to refer to a group of three or more developers. (“I was caught in an elevator with a slip of devs. Fortunately, they were mesmerized by the flashing floor numbers.”)
Slipping: Euphemism for abjectly failing to hit a deadline
Smart Guy: The ultimate compliment. “He doesn’t shower often, but he’s a real smart guy…OK, let’s hire him.”
Sniff Test: Also smoke test—refers to testing the daily build of a product during development; stolen from the electronics industry where people would plug in a board and see what smoked. (Source: “Is Your Project Out of Control,” by Chris Williams).
Spacordi: The mass of cords strewn underneath your desk (just add sauce).
Stress Puppy: A person who seems to thrive on being stressed out and whiny.
Swag: Used to describe any object or article of clothing that has a Microsoft company or product logo on it. Because such items are frequently handed out as rewards, every Microsoft employee has a collection. In this sense, it stands for “Stuff We All Get.”
Swiped Out: An ATM or credit card that has been rendered useless because the magnetic strip is worn away after extensive use
Take-away: Not, as might be suspected, food to go, but impressions gleaned from a meeting or message. “My take-away from his e-mail was that he wasn’t ready to drill down yet.”
Thrashing: Never getting anything done because you are trying to do too much. Thrashing happens when you do too much context switching. “I went to that meeting but there was so much context switching that all we accomplished was a lot of thrashing.”
Three-Finger Salute: Process of simultaneously striking Ctrl, Alt, Delete in order to restart your computer after it freezes up
Total Disconnect: An extremely low-bandwidth human interaction. “It was a total disconnect. I spent half an hour explaining how this stuff worked, and he just didn’t get it.”
Tourists: People who are taking training classes just to get a vacation from their jobs. “We had about three serious students in the class; the rest were tourists.”
Trash-sitters: People who come into a meeting late and then sit on the trash receptacles instead of at the table. Usually done in an attempt to remain aloof from the rest of the participants.
Treeware: Hacker slang for documentation or other printed material.
Under Mouse Arrest: Getting busted for violating an online service’s rule of conduct. “Sorry I couldn’t get back to you. AOL put me under mouse arrest.”
Uninstalled: Euphemism for being fired.
Vulcan Nerve Pinch: The taxing hand position required to reach all of the appropriate keys for certain commands. For instance, the warm reboot for a Mac II computer involves simultaneously pressing the Control key, the Command key, the Return key, and the Power On key.
WIM: Any sort of party or employee morale builder, usually held during business hours. Taken from the Windows NT group’s “Weekly Integration Meetings” held every Friday as a way to let off steam during the early days of NT development
Wallcrawlers: Shy Microsofties who walk down the hallways with a shoulder pressed against the wall and their eyes cast downward.
Wide Distribution: A process in which someone seeking crucial information (“Has anyone seen my Gumby poster?”) sends e-mail to thousands of Microsoft employees and contractors in hopes of finding one individual with the answer. In anticipation of the inevitable flame mail and death threats that will follow, such e-mail often begins, “Sorry for the wide distribution, but…”

The Very Best of GS Elevator Gossip’s Tweets

If you think twitter is just a waste of time, think again. One could argue that twitter is first and foremost just noise and clutter—merely, one more time drain. Twitter can actually be good for something beyond revealing, in less than 140 characters, your whereabouts, posting unintelligent commentary, or which of your friends needs to get out more.

Consider @GSElevator, GS Elevator Gossip, a twitter account. Obscuring the thin line between the hysterically preposterous and extremely realistic, this twitter claims to dish the dirt on the happenings in the elevators at Goldman Sachs’s offices. “The first few were either conversations that I have overheard directly, or that have been told to me by colleagues,” he claims in this interview with NYT’s Deal Book column.

Here’s a sampling of some of the very best of GS Elevator Gossip’s tweets:

The most and least successful people all share the same trait: thinking they’re never wrong.
Don’t worry, some people are their own punishment in life.
#1: A lot of people who start their own business do it because they’re unemployable.
#2: Yup. Look at Meredith Whitney.
Most people don’t understand that God cast them as extras in this movie.
You’ll never feel special if 100% of your friends are in the top 1%.
Handshakes and tie knots. I don’t have time for someone who can’t master those basic skills.
Relationships are like a seesaw. If one of you gets too bored or too fat, the fun is over.
The difference between us and everybody else is that, even in a bad year, we still make the playoffs.
Listening is part waiting for your turn to speak and part reminding yourself to change facial expressions every 10 seconds.
Only idiots get bored when we’ve all got handheld devices containing infinite knowledge at our fingertips.
Before people are allowed to opine about Syria, they should have to locate it on a map.
Too many people are smart enough to be angry, but not smart enough to be successful.
Let’s be honest. There’s no way your guess is as good as mine.
Don’t apologize for being late with a Starbucks latte in your hand.
Most celebrities barely have high school diplomas so who gives a shit what they think on substantive issues.
And sometimes, people who don’t say much, don’t say much for a reason.
It’s okay to trade the possibility of your 80s and 90s for more guaranteed fun in your 20s and 30s.
98% of people making comments about Nelson Mandela on social media would fail a history quiz on Nelson Mandela.
I never said I was better than anyone, just more successful.
When I hear, “Got a minute?” I know I’m about to lose a half hour of my life that I can never get back.
I never give money to homeless people. I can’t reward failure in good conscience.
I don’t even remember how I managed to ignore my wife at dinner before the Blackberry era.
Checking your phone after someone else pulls out their phone is the yawn of our generation.
Date women outside your social set. You’ll be surprised.
In life, as in sports, the boos always come from the cheap seats.
It’s not the lie that bothers me. It’s the insult to my intelligence that I find offensive.
Do 50 push-ups, sit-ups, and dips before you shower each morning.
Some of the best moments in life are the ones you can’t tell anyone about.
Being spotted in economy class must be like having your parents visit you at boarding school in a shitty rental car.
Pretty women who are unaccompanied want you to talk to them.
For people who believe everything happens for a reason, that reason is that they’re idiots who make shitty decisions.
Act like you’ve been there before. It doesn’t matter if it’s in the end zone at the Super Bowl or on a private plane.
You shouldn’t retire until your money starts making more money than you made in your best year.
Money might not buy happiness, but I’ll take my chances!
I start every cell conversation with “my phone’s about to die” so they don’t waste my time.
I doubt alcohol kills more people than it creates.
There are only 2 paths to happiness in life. Stupidity or exceptional wealth.
If life’s a game, money is how you keep score.
Clearly the NSA doesn’t monitor Facebook. That’s where all the experts are solving this Government standoff.
Black Friday is the Special Olympics of Capitalism.
People who always fly business class don’t post photos of themselves flying business class.
Skirt #1: I can always tell a banker within the first 2 minutes of meeting him in a bar… because he tells me.
Feminists are just ugly underachievers who need an excuse for their failures.
It’s too bad stupidity isn’t painful.
Flowers and an apology are a lot easier than actually changing.
If she expects the person you are 20% of the time, 100% of the time, then she doesn’t want you.
There are no feminists when the ship hits an iceberg.
You can never awaken a man who Is pretending to be asleep.
Bribery, corruption… It’s the cost of doing business in emerging markets. As Mao said, “no fish can live in pure water.”
Stop talking about where you went to college.
I don’t care if any one comes to my funeral. It’s not like I’ll be there.
Too many people still answer the phone like they don’t know who’s calling.
If you abstain from smoking, drinking, and using drugs, you don’t actually live longer. It just seems longer.
#1: “The only reason I have a home phone is so I can find my cell phone.”
#2: “Our maid does that.”
If you brag about starting at the bottom and making it to the top, you are probably still closer to the bottom.
The fact that most people are too stupid to know how dumb they really are is the fabric holding our society together.
The difference between petting and hitting a dog is it’s tolerance for pain. Same goes for 1st year analysts.
The Cheesecake Factory looks like a restaurant poor people think rich people might eat at.
I’d rather be me now, than have been the quarterback in high school.
If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it tried to do better, but decided to just settle with you.
Don’t confuse friends, work friends, and friends of convenience.
Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see.
Getting an idea around is as important as getting an idea.
If riding the bus doesn’t incentivize you to improve your station in life, nothing will.
The lottery is just a way of taxing poor people who don’t know math.
In sensitivity training, they say we should avoid sports analogies bc they’re sexist… Which seems even more sexist.
It’s sweet how my wife thinks the silent treatment is a punishment for me.
Getting rich isn’t hard. Any hot girl with questionable morals can do it.
Work hard. Eat right. Exercise. Don’t drink too much. And only buy what you can afford. It’s not rocket science.
Guys who mime golf swings in the office never break 100 on the course.
One of the biggest problems with todays society is that we’ve run out of colonies to send our undesirables to.
I wish I loved anything as much as I hate almost everything.
Truly intelligent people don’t feel compelled to talk about their IQ. In fact, I don’t even know what mine is.
#1: “A year from now, he’ll be the guy that starts off every sentence with “When I was at Goldman Sachs …””
#2: “I hate those people.”
“Just be yourself” is good advice to probably 5% of people.
Blacking out is just your brain clearing it’s browser history.
If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit.
Remember, “rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men.”
Skirt #1: “It really hurts my feelings when an ugly guy hits on me.”
When you tell a story, all I can think about is how much shorter it should be.
Right now is the oldest you’ve ever been & the youngest you’ll ever be again.
If you can only be good at one thing, be good at lying… because if you’re good at lying, you’re good at everything.
Most people wouldn’t even be the main character in a movie about their own lives.
My favorite part of dinner with my fiance is when she goes to the bathroom and I can check my Blackberry.
I say “keep the change” purely for my own convenience.

Sam Walton and Frugality at Wal-Mart

Sam Walton Homespun Frugality

Sam Walton, the iconic founder of Wal-Mart, loved retailing and pursued it with boundless energy. He was famously frugal and devoted to the concept of beating merchandise prices down as part of the trademark “everyday lower prices” promise to customers. Walton once wrote, “A lot of what goes on these days with high-flying companies and these overpaid CEOs, who’re really just looting from the top and aren’t watching out for anybody but themselves, really upsets me. It’s one of the main things wrong with American business today.”

Despite being America’s richest man, Sam Walton flew first class only once in his life on a flight from South America to Africa. Wal-Mart did not have a corporate jet until the retailing giant was approaching $40 billion in sales. Walton’s “corporate car” consisted of a red pick-up truck. Bernie Marcus, the co-founder of Home Depot, once recalled having lunch with Sam Walton, “I hopped into Sam’s red pick-up truck. No air-conditioning. Seats stained by coffee. And by the time I go to the restaurant, my shirt was soaked through and through. And that was Sam Walton—no airs, no pomposity.”

Wal-Mart's Small-town Roots

Under the leadership of Sam Walton, Wal-Mart stuck to its small-town roots. “Every time Wal-Mart spends one dollar foolishly, it comes out of our customers’ pockets,” Walton preached wherever he went. Some particulars on how Sam Walton’s homespun frugality is still ingrained in Wal-Mart’s culture:

As part of corporate policy, Wal-Mart employees are required to be thrifty as well. They were required to sleep two to a room in properties of Holiday Inn, Ramada Inn, Days Inn, and other economy hotel brands. They are encouraged to eat in family restaurants.
At a 2007 convention of 250 CEOs of suppliers, Wal-Mart’s third CEO Lee Scott famously raised a pen he had picked up from the Embassy Suites hosting the conference. He declared that Wal-Mart asked its business travelers to bring pens and notepads from their hotel rooms (yes, with the hotels’ logos) back to their offices and use them as office supplies. With thousands of business trips, the Wal-Mart home office in Bentonville probably accumulated thousands of dozens of pens.
On business or purchasing trips to New York City, Wal-Mart employees would avoid taking cabs, and instead walk or take subway wherever possible.

Such corporate-instilled policies to drive frugality across the Wal-Mart organization were more about instilling in its employees the miserly, no-waste, keep-costs-down attitude than about saving, for instance, $10,000 or more on the cost of office pens every year. Wal-Mart aimed to limit purchasing overhead expenses to 1 percent of their purchases.

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