Tales from the Mortgage Monster: the intranet



  • Oh, where to start with this one. It wasn't even on my list of WTFs that I was writing up, until I got thinking about the Citrix fun.

    At some point after I'd been there a short while, someone upstairs had realised I knew which end of a website was the > pointy one and drafted me in, along with the senior department manager, to represent the Loan Development Cave in their new shiny spangly intranet.

    There are some interesting things about this intranet. The first thing is how utterly unnecessary it seemed to me to actually be.

    Each department knew what it did. Documents that the department used were in the shared drive for that department, or via email of course. In theory, it would have been the ideal repository for master documents but it never got used that way.

    Instead, they pitched it that the intranet would be useful for intra-departmental communication and raising awareness of what departments do.

    Yes, I know what IT does. I know what HR does. I know what Facilities does. I know what <insert department> does. I don't need them having their own intranet pages telling me what they do because I already know.

    But that was what we were tasked with preparing for the intranet people: what does the Loan Development Cavern do? What would be useful for other departments to know? The 'lifecycle of a mortgage application', apparently. Because other departments need to know or care what we do or how we do it, obviously. They wouldn't just, say, phone someone up and ask them. Or even email the seniors to get someone to go talk about it.

    No, we had to prepare this. And the senior manager thought it was a fantastic idea that since our department was mostly younger staff (early 20s was the primary demographic), that we would be represented with a house painted in the company colours and all shiny and animated in Flash to take people through the mortgage cycle.

    By the end of the first half an hour of the meeting, I was sitting there hoping the ground would swallow me whole.

    But so it came to pass that this pile of turd was launched. Every other department had a page or so of nice well-written, well presented text. HR had pages and pages. And we had a fucking animated house.

    I could have lived that down - since I disavowed any responsibility for that! - if it weren't for intranet launch day.

    On said day, all the departmental reps got to wear horribly coloured t-shirts with "Ask Me About The Intranet" on them. The only amusement there was that the IT guys all found it funny to squeeze into the ladies' fitted t-shirts because they had too many of the ladies' t-shirts and not enough of the mens' t-shirts.

    That wasn't just it though. A few weeks beforehand, they'd run a competition, company wide, to name the intranet. £50 gift voucher I think was the prize. And the best entry they got was '<brandname> Intranet Portal'. Not, say, the semi-joking 'Oracle' from me (knowing full well that we used Oracle in the database) or even variations on that idea.

    But that wasn't the icing on the cake. You see, they baked a cake "in the shape of the intranet". Someone made this rather tasty sponge cake, in roughly 5:4 proportions and decorated it with the front page of the intranet page. And at the opening ceremony, they got the chef to write on the name on the cake at the last minute as the 'big reveal'.

    So if ever you want a cake in the shape of an intranet, I know who to call.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Arantor said:

    You see, they baked a cake "in the shape of the intranet".

    😆 🍭 👍 🍰


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Arantor said:

    So if ever you want a cake in the shape of an intranet, I know who to call.

    Have you got any pictures? I want to know what an intranet looks like...


    Filed under: Who ya gonna call?


  • I hope it looks like a topographical map. Preferably one of the old token-ring ones.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @DoctorJones said:

    Have you got any pictures? I want to know what an intranet looks like...

    20786 probably gets close.


    Filed under: 8 years last Saturday



  • Sadly no pictures. But it was a cake that was rectangular in shape. I do not know if this is bad intranetwork topology or not.



  • It looks [url=http://boingboing.net/2013/06/21/the-internet-prop-from-the-it.html]a lot like this[/url]. Just don't drop it.



  • @Arantor said:

    So if ever you want a cake in the shape of an intranet, I know who to call.

    I am the cake decorator in our house, a role which came into being when we had children. I am dreading the day when they ask for an intranet- or, worst of all, an internet-shaped cake.


    Filed under: [Should probably make the internet-shaped one 18+ birthdays only][1]

  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @RTapeLoadingError said:

    an internet-shaped cake



  • I should have known.... Or at least searched first.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    Well it's not, technically, an XKCD cartoon... so I think I get away with it.



  • @PJH said:

    Well it's not, technically, an XKCD cartoon... so I think I get away with it.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    Hmm. I wouldn't eat it...



  • @PJH said:

    Hmm. I wouldn't eat it...

    I'm assuming that it's too large to eat by yourself.



  • That and the fact I don't want diabetes.



  • @Arantor said:

    That and the fact I don't want diabetes.

    The irony of that comment: I've been a T1D for nearly 23 years.



  • I've been a type 1 Discourse user for a lot less time than you.



  • @ben_lubar said:

    I've been a type 1 Discourse user for a lot less time than you.

    No, I have a condition. You have a plague.


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