The war room is something that I don't have and actually miss. War room, team room, consultant dungeon -- we all have a name for the one area where brilliance, flashes of brilliance, and an occasional off-color comment (or many) are made among co-workers and friends.
When I transitioned off of the road into a different role I first ended up in a cube. Then I got kicked out of that cube and put into a conference room with a nice view of a subdivision and Stone Mountain. This week I'm back in a cube on the floor of an IT support group that takes in calls from the field. (Believe it or not, the drama that can happen at the support desk can be quite entertaining).
I've always wondered what it would be like to get the corner office with the view, the adjoining conference room, and the mahogany desk. There's a point where meetings are scheduled for you and you are not forced to twists people's arm to schedule a meeting and spend 1/4 of your day finding a conference room and manipulating schedules. That must be nice. I wish that I could measure the actual actionable output from meetings vs. meeting time. The results probably wouldn't be suprising-- but I digress.
For me, the war room has been replaced by a cube. There's Revis Island and there's Perry's Cube. Perry's Cube turns into Perry's Corner which is basically the same except my Corner has a view. And unfortunately not many people get to enter either place. It's almost like being in solitary confinement- but since my only point of reference is movies that potray what that's like - I won't go so far as saying that it's exactly like solitary confinement.
So before I forget, there are key characteristics of a war room that make consulting what it is and it's what I miss. They are:
When I transitioned off of the road into a different role I first ended up in a cube. Then I got kicked out of that cube and put into a conference room with a nice view of a subdivision and Stone Mountain. This week I'm back in a cube on the floor of an IT support group that takes in calls from the field. (Believe it or not, the drama that can happen at the support desk can be quite entertaining).
I've always wondered what it would be like to get the corner office with the view, the adjoining conference room, and the mahogany desk. There's a point where meetings are scheduled for you and you are not forced to twists people's arm to schedule a meeting and spend 1/4 of your day finding a conference room and manipulating schedules. That must be nice. I wish that I could measure the actual actionable output from meetings vs. meeting time. The results probably wouldn't be suprising-- but I digress.
For me, the war room has been replaced by a cube. There's Revis Island and there's Perry's Cube. Perry's Cube turns into Perry's Corner which is basically the same except my Corner has a view. And unfortunately not many people get to enter either place. It's almost like being in solitary confinement- but since my only point of reference is movies that potray what that's like - I won't go so far as saying that it's exactly like solitary confinement.
So before I forget, there are key characteristics of a war room that make consulting what it is and it's what I miss. They are:
- Snacks - There are the 100 calorie ones to fool you into thinking that you are maintaing a healthy lifestyle and there are just the really fattening ones
- Bottled water -- In cases. If you could bring them on a pallet you would.
- The white board with the one "do not erase" area that's had writing up there so long that it's permanent.
- The team member that never cleans up his mess. So you end up with forks, napkins, plastic bottles, and occasional crumb here and there
- The overflowing trash can - Because somehow and someway, the team has managed to eat all of those snacks and create enough trash to warrant a 2nd or 3rd trash can daily.
Comments
Post a Comment