Question 2 of your FAQs:

Question 2 of your FAQs: Why would I work on a project that my VP cancelled?
First off I hadn't been officially told of the cancellation. The VP thought someone in another division was participating not me. The other group got the cancellation memo and let me know. They gave me the option of receiving an email of the memo (paper trail) or picking up a copy. I choose to pick one up, meaning I never officially got the memo. I wasn't being obstinate; I was buying time.

HR had picked up 5% of my headcount for the project and in a land where a lay-off was never that far off, you make it harder for them to lay you off if you're working for three groups (not for any reason that I was so unreplaceable that three groups had dibs on me, but because it made for a lot of paperwork of the kind that made the people doing the lay-offs move on). Also the fact that one of your three groups was HR was a big bonus. HR never lays-off.

I need to explain the other two groups: one a marketing division and the other an R&D division. I would've loved to worked entirely for the R&D division but they weren't suppose to have marketing people working for them, plus their offices were near the expensive Jersey shore. I would've never been able to afford a house there.

For almost twenty years I worked for one R&D VP who always had the lead on new products and services. Much more exciting to work a launch on workflow automation, web site hosting, application programs, etc. than to work a new T1 line that has exciting asymetrical data push (vs symmetrical, trust me that was exciting for the T1 crowd). T1 is a big thick cable that is used from a business to the local central office. Chances are your office uses T1s for phones and data.

The R&D VP picked up between 40-49% of my headcount, never more than 49%. If the percent went greater than 49 then he would have to claim one whole marketing headcount when he wasn't suppose to have a marketing headcount.

So the other percent was picked up over time by various and asundry marketing VPs. In R&D when funding issues came up, you discussed dollars. In marketing, you discussed headcount. And the talk wasn't about, heah Sam you have 30 headcount and you only need 29. It was more, Sam you're a VP what are you doing if you only have 30 headcounts. Such a small group can be merged into another VP's division. We don't need you.

So the reason why the marketing VP got so mad at the HR VP was that HR took their 5% headcount off of marketing books. In effect the marketing VP lost a headcount. Never good. By ignoring the cancellation, it bought HR time to do the paperwork to move the 5% onto the R&D books. Everybody gets happy.

Woody Allen was wrong. Just showing up for work isn't 80% of the job.

Who said it had to make sense?