I sat in the inner sanctum yesterday. For the first time since I’ve been at this company, I was in the big boss’ office. He wanted to tell me face-to-face that the business plan I wrote was great and the big bosses at the other companies in the group liked it a lot. But the numbers didn’t work.
I got a consolation prize: A free dinner out with my spouse and a $75 shopping spree at the company store. Much more than I’d hoped for.
I understand that the economy is in the crapper and that we didn’t want to shell out a good bit of money on a project that, even with the ’90s economy, would not have made huge amounts of money.
But it would have been right to fund the proposal. It would have at the very least unlocked the past for the people at the company and at best given everyone in the county the ability to read about its history from before the Civil War.
We spend millions of dollars on technology that MIGHT work. We’ve spent millions on technology that didn’t. We’ve spent millions on growth, only to retrench just a few years later.
Oh, well. The door was left open to try to pitch the proposal again later, when the technology for the project has improved and the economy has gotten back on track.
And I got noticed. Which is not a bad thing.
Or is it?