A Matching Catastrophe

1. We’re going to spend 45 minutes or so now to discuss all the things I need you to do to cover up for my incompetence.
2. In addition to providing you some insight into the job I should be doing that you will now have to…
3. I will also be explaining the things you will have to play catch-up with because I wasn’t doing my job to help you keep up to date this year.
4. Guess what? There are lots of things that will be harder this time because I wasn’t smart enough to advocate for the easy way.
5. The one thing I did get done is to stick my nose in your business so I can point out ways that you have let me down.
6. There are lots of new rules for me to focus your attention on to distract you from how I wasn’t even able to follow the old rules.
7. I am really good at presenting the new rules as if they are an imposition on me instead of just basic procedure that I never bothered to familiarize myself with.
8. Guess what? I have no idea what you really do, day to day, so I have no reason to consider how this mess will impact your regular work.
9. The good news is, this will all probably cause you to do a lot of unpaid overtime, and we can capture that as match funds!
10. Last year we did really well in this area, so we don’t have to reinvent the wheel…
11. Of course, I failed to capture any of our best practices from last year, so we just have to start over from scratch to figure out what would work best.
12. I’m not sure how you could see that as my fault, since we did so well last year.
13. “I don’t want to do this 30 times wrong before we get it right!”
14. We have to make mistakes a lot before we get it all right. What?
15. By the way, can I mention what other things I’m going to put on to you to make time for what I haven’t gotten done yet?
16. And I’m really proud of this other totally trivial thing that I’ve spend time on which took away time I should have been spending on all this other stuff I should have gotten done.
17. Do you like how I can shift smoothly from a cackle to a frown depending on whether I’m laughing at the problems I’m causing or dismissing your questions about why it’s not my fault?
18. Also, I’d like to take a moment and criticize your staff for not being responsive to the requests for assistance that I never sent.
19. Hey, let me just extend that point for a moment to suggest that your staff is actually insubordinate.
20. Why, yes, that would be a veiled accusation that you are an ineffectual manager…
21. Wrapping up, I just want to thank you all for your patience.
22. And no, I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to reciprocate your generous support for my incompetence.
23. This was great! Let’s do this over and over and over again.