Thursday, October 12, 2006

Talk with their mouth full

Our campus has 40+ buildings within a 3 mile stretch. We have recently started recuiting directly from selected college campuses and suddenly there are a bunch of new folks at work. They are generally young and ready to do a good job, and I feel good about our company trying to rejuvenate our workforce making the environment more progressive and Google-like. But one thing I can't stand is they like to 'talk with their mouth full". I can say I've never made that mistake since I was lucky enough to have the training early on when I was at Apple some 12 years back. The training was called "What we know is our business." Apple was very adamant (and still is) about their projects, even the project code name is a hush-hush. But of course there were numerous sites that are always trying to post insider information they gathered by talking to "a close source within Apple". The trainings organized within Apple were always good and entertaining and I guess that's why we really take it to heart. I think I miss that a lot since most other companies either outsourced these trainings or use less creative ways doing it themselves like setting up e-training.
Anyway, I notice people who just started working LOVE to share with other newbies what they are working on and talk in details during lunch at a restaurant when a lot of our direct competitors are just sitting right across at the next table obviously wearing a different badge. I would love to ask them to keep those conversations with only employees, inside our company buildings, and within conference rooms and not in the open public. But I usually just stare and frown. They just don't get it. Reciting the project spec. during lunch with your buddy who is working in another group and trying to show off what cool project you are working on is just NOT COOL!! Use your head and look around!! Scenes like these just bug the hell out of me.

Photo: A mug I got from the training many years ago.