Mr. Orange (April 21, 2013)

I sifted through some old posts and found this one.  There is no rhyme or reason why I lead with it, it was merely the first one I ran across that I liked.  Some editing has been done for quality assurance.  

Mr. Orange (from the Perils of IT Blog on Tumblr)

We all have had managers we really liked, managers we really could not stand, and then we had those managers that we question how in the hell they got into the position they held.  This goes for everyone, but in our IT world, the managers can make or break a job.

My anecdote tonight is about “Mr. Orange.”

 No, he was not in on the heist in Reservoir Dogs, he was literally the color orange.  A little background is that a previous gig, I was a manager with a director and a vice president, and we all got along quite swimmingly.  Then a Chief Technical Officer (CTO) was suddenly brought in and he busted up the happy family.  This guy was taking kickbacks and started hiring his buddies, but he is a story for another day.

The History

As it happens, this CTO genius comes in and fires the top levels of IT, my director and vice president for starters, and also the vice president and his key people in our development department.  He said we were phasing out the positions and let all these people go within two months after he was given his job.  The truth was, he was removing the people that would make him look bad and prove that he was poorly chosen for the position that was created for him.  

Lo and behold, a couple of months later he is hiring a director.  Now, I had just endured those couple of months of dealing with a consultant that second guessed everything about our infrastructure, but I will save the frustration of that guy for the story of the CTO at a later date (if that ever happens).  As dirty as it was to phase out the last director and bring another in, the bright side was that the consultant was going to leave.  He was an absolute annoyance, but I had no idea that the new director would be much, much worse.

Day one, this new director comes in dressed for his senior prom.  It was not a tuxedo, but pretty damn close.  His clothes were perfectly pressed, his shoes glistened in the corporate fluorescent, his teeth sparkled from some serious whitening, his hair was perfectly moussed, and his skin was a nice hue of orange.  First impression: douche canoe.  Then he opened his mouth to tell about all the places he worked before, the car he drove (BMW), how he was now our director to change how we do things (save us), and set us all right.  Ergo, my first impression was off by just a smidgen - he was an absolute and complete douche canoe with top honors.

I think it would have been easy to deal with this Mr. Orange that thought he was god in the IT world, but no, he had to be an officious, micromanaging prick, too.  The level of depth he went to in his management style I could feel tickling me somewhere at the base of my lower intestines.  I am rather certain a common colonoscopy never ventured as far as Mr. Orange did.  He was arrogant, condescending and immediately disliked by many, except the CTO that had hired him.  It was no surprise when we all learned that they had worked together at a former company together.

Let the Fun Begin

Needless to say, Mr. Orange was not warming up to the group and we were not warming up to him.  His ego required tremendous stroking and constant ass kissing  That is just not how I operate: I can play nice with management and follow orders, but the whole kiss ass thing is just not within my purview.  

One day we are all in a meeting with a vendor and someone from the vendor team remarks about his wonderful tan.  Mr. Orange then starts boasting about some tanning place he frequents and yada yada yada.  At some point during his opening bragging with us, he had mentioned that one of the places he had worked was in Europe.  That little factoid was about to become useful.

“Oh!  Tanning!  That’s it!” I interjected with a lot of surprise in my voice as everyone looked at me with a strange look.  "See, when you said you did some work in Europe, I presumed it was Eastern Europe because of the orange pigment of your skin.“

The blank looks I got were exactly what I wanted as I waited for someone to throw the final pitch and Mr. Orange kindly delivered.

"Excuse me?  What does my being in Europe and my tan possibly have in common?”

“I just figured you were doing consulting work in Chernobyl.”

The look of disgust I got and the laughter of everyone else in the room, was priceless.  He took me into his office later and started to give me some talk about respecting authority, and I just shrugged and said, “well, as you should know, respect is something that is earned,” and walked out.  

As you can well imagine, Mr. Sigmoidoscopic went to greater depths the next few days.  He was at my desk and asking me about different things, leaning over me, and getting way too close for my comfort.  I figured I had it coming, it was my penance for the Chernobyl bit and I accepted it.  But then the constant visits, his condescending manner, and his cologne were getting to me.  

On the third day of him sliding a chair next to me and micromanaging me to death, my resolve folded like a cheap beach chair.  I decided I needed to get him away from me, but I knew I had to do it in a way that would make him not want to come back.  It had to be subtle and it had to be effective.  

Sometime after lunch, he was leaning a little to close to me and in the middle of a sentence I paused.  

“You know, with this configuration we… hey!”

“Hey, what?” Mr. Orange replied.

“I just noticed how good you smell today,” I said with a lascivious smile.

He then rushed me through the rest of the configuration I was showing him and hurriedly walked away and never returned.  It worked. It actually worked!

What is funnier is that if that plan did not work, Plan B was going to be a lot more effective.  I would have waited until he leaned over me again and then delivered the following:

“Ummm… dude?”

“What? And for the hundredth time, stop calling me dude!”

“Please tell me that those are your keys, dude!”

Thankfully it never got that far, but I would have played it in desperation to get rid of his entirely too close presence.  

I did leave that gig within another month or less.  I could not take Mr. Orange anymore, and I am sure he was insulted by my lack of ass kissing.  By the way, his technical skills were rather lackluster and his ability to lead was nonexistent.  He would be the kind of sergeant that would lead his troops into battle and be the first one killed… and all of the entry wounds would be in his back.