Team Unity, Or Lack Thereof

While my team struggled, Il Duce was actively championing the Business Intelligence cause with upper management, telling them how important it was, and convincing them to let him hire more people to supplement the four he had. (And, I found out later, he had designs on another of my staff - in more ways than one - but more on that later.) He began to hire more people for that team.

This past May (2007) I lost my first North American employee in 5 years. Someone quit. Our numbers dwindled to 16.

We were increasingly overworked. The management above Il Duce wanted to take my two losses and replace them with cheaper staff in India. True, they are cheaper. The salaries paid to these two would pay for six contractors in India. But it takes months to screen agencies, negotiate contracts, and start bringing employees on board. And months on top of that to train the new staff. I needed new staff then, not six to twelve months down the line.

Il Duce was content to let this happen, all the while focusing on doing whatever he could to build up his new team while my team struggled with longer hours and more work per person. The best I could do for my staff was to try to find efficiencies where I could and pare down on the extra work Il Duce expected of them (us) with the customer coddling that he found so valuable.

Luckily, he was so busy with his new team that he didn't notice much.