Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Dr. Micromanagement strikes again

You may remember him from a previous post.

We're doing another round of proposals, and on one of them, a revision came back from Dr. M with a certain catch phrase (not really related to the work we're doing) inserted in the title. That was news to me and to my colleague Kenneth, the original author of this proposal.

So, I sent an email to Dr. M and Kenneth asking about this new addition and noting how I didn't see anything about said catch phrase mentioned in the proposal, so it seemed kind of out of place to me.

Dr. M responded, "I was a little unclear on this connection myself. See what you and Kenneth can come up with to make the proposal more balanced in this regard."

Huh.

The thing is, as I said in the previous post, it's not a big deal. And actually, I'm trying to learn a few appropriate lessons from Dr. M about how to sell things and get the right buzz for projects (but am trying to not absorb his strategy of treating colleagues like students).

But, you know, at the same time . . . in light of this week's events at VT, I am not in the mood for his hijinks right now.

Turns out, neither is Kenneth. As I composed my diplomatic email reverting the change while he sat in my office after our discussion about it, he said,

"Also say, PS. Kenneth says 'buzz off'".

(I did not.)