HUMOR: Documentation and MMM

[Andrew Plato <intrepid_es -at- YAHOO -dot- COM>]

Recently my company implemented a new strategy for their business
processes.  I am sure you are all familiar with it, it is called the
Moronic Maturity Mastication or MMM.  Basically, everything,
everywhere must be documented completely and must be totally accounted
for.  This system stresses extensive examination of minutiae to ensure
nobody does anything remotely useful.

I am truly excited about this model since it affords me the luxury to
mentally masticate on the most ridiculously mundane aspects of
organizational relationships.  For example, when our development
liaison to the coordinating assistant regional administrative
documentation coordinators regional manager assistant specialist IV
needs to change the point size of a letter, he or she simply submits
form XCT-28829-093839 to
http://www.eorkid.jsje.siiendhhd/hotosels/kfpoir.cgi and then waits
for the Ensrap Justification Methodology System to return a TRUE or
FALSE statement.  When that statement is compared to the Manual of
Excessive Insurmountable Minutiae the manager is then required to
submit a Point Size Enlargement Proposal for English Alpha-Numeric
Characters in a Second Tier, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix 0.1.020
Documentation.  From there we insert Module A02-93 and if approved by
the general administrative unit for proposal approval systems, the
point size enlargement is granted the go ahead, subject to weekly
assessment and review by the Committee of Substantialisation of Alpha
Numeric Spatial Increase.

I can't tell you how wonderful it is to work in a place that really
values the process of making processes.  It raises the professional
bar to a new level.

Next week we get our new Interplexing Beacon!  I can't wait for my new
cube to arrive.

I am wondering how some other technical communicators deal with
business processes. What does your hive, I mean company do to handle
the complex interrelationships between each colony, er, department.

I worked at a company last year that *gasp* did not have a processes
for anything.  The boss would round us up once a week and ask us how
we were doing.  From there we were, can you believe this, on our own
to write documents.  Some days, I would be sitting in my work space
and my boss would poke his head in and say "hey, something's come up.
We need to jump on this other project right away."  Oh, I was just
livid.  It was time for my mid-afternoon cortical implant stimulation
and this guy wanted me to DO something OTHER than what I was
programmed to do.  Pure insanity.

I was expected to write a support manual bulletin in a WEEK!  Without
a spec, any approval, audience assessment, wood pulp analysis, or
tacheon scan.  It was just atrocious.  The company kept making money
and winning awards.  I just can't understand these places.  It is
almost like they never have used a process before in their lives!

Well, I have to get back to my alcove.  It is time to regenerate. Have
a good one.

Dan "Six of Eleven" Gorshup
Futile Inc.

--------------------------------------------------
Every year some management twit dreams up a new way to catch mice and
we get stuck with a pile of dead rats.


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