I was thinking about my current work predicament and comparing it to all my other past work experiences, specifically with respect to change... since, after all, change is basically the core of what I do.

Each place has been somewhat unique, so I was thinking I would try to articulate change in terms of certain video game challenge mechanics, since for no other reason that games are also something that I do.

Since I have little else to do right now, since this place is change averse, I figured I would try to write it up in a journal that no one reads, since that is also something I occasionally do.

I have ordered these from most effective long term/least entertaining/most likely to allow you to keep your job, to most effective short term/most entertaining/most likely to get you fired very quickly.  Obviously as a professional I'd have to recommend the first of these, but I have to say I desperately miss my Quake days.



Tenchu Assassin

This is a very frustrating method of change because the primary concern here is to move slow and do your best not to be caught.  Like the ninja stalking her pray, you must creep slowly through the darkness, with nothing but perhaps a shuriken or two to quel the occasional wiseguy, and a packet of poisoned rice to quiet the stupid dog. 

If the guards happen to catch even a wisp of your presence, an alarm is raised.  Several guards may come to investigate you and ferret out your changes before you are able to implement them.  They may even tell their other guard friends about what it looks like you are doing.  If they actually see you implementing change, it is totally over.  You are outnumbered, and you and your change will be instantly crushed.

Honestly, you probably should have just stayed in the shadows, which is ultimately what most change ninjas wind up doing... browsing the web and writing stupid game-linked analogies to change procedures in real life.

Black and White

In this model, you have followers that you should, in theory be able to control and have them implement your change.  However, you really only have a few options available to you.  You can leash a cow (some manager you hired to deal with something you don't want to deal with) to their village and hope that somehow makes them decide to do your bidding, or you can pick them up and whip them as hard as possible into the mountainous regions several miles off in the distance.

It's important to note that if you are not paying attention or it is not properly trained, your cow may either step on or eat your villagers.  This is immensely entertaining, but of course results in instant death for a village.  However, deliberately picking up and hucking your villages into the mountain ranges only seems to wound them, and they invariably come back more annoyed and less likely to implement your change then pre-toss.

As an added bonus, instead of implementing your change or doing other strategic things, you're inexplicably forced to use your divine powers to build houses for the little retards, who evidently will die of exposure before picking up a hammer.  Lazy fucks.

Starcraft Nuclear Launch Model

In this model, you control a large army and resources at your disposal.  Generally speaking, you can control your forces adequately enough to dictate their movements, despite occasional pathing issues where a squad of your troops die because they walked into a fight single file instead of a pack, or walked in a circle around a fortified bunker and died without taking a single shot.  Aside from these occasional issues, however, you have quite a bit of power at your disposal.

The enemies of change, however, are pretty well entrenched.  They know you are out there trying to implement change and have setup walls of siege tanks and wave after wave of zerglings to distract you.  (wave after wave after wave...)

The only way through is to wipe out their entire front lines through a reorg, or perhaps getting someone on their side fired... maybe beating someone up in the parking lot.  This is when you have released your nukes and they all hear "Nuclear launch detected"... and dive under their desks to await the inevitible strike.  Duck and cover.  Works every time.

Once most of the countryside has been decimated by four or five nukes, you can run in your stimpacked space marines and clear out enough space for your change.

Team Fortress

In Team Fortress, your entire group is aligned to the same thing.  Everyone is in agreement.  The goal is clear.  You didn't even have to specify it.  It's literally the point of existance.  It's a change you all want to accomplish, it just needs to get done. 

You all pick a role and repeatedly run across the field trying to achieve the goal.  The death toll is extremely high and the ammunition spent is staggering.  You don't have direct control of the masses so the idea of grouping and coordinating together to meet the goal is a hysterically funny impossibility.

Eventually someone quick enough, nimble enough, or lucky enough manages to touch the goal, but they die within seconds after making it halfway back to home... eventually the goal times out on the bridge and you have to start over.  This continues ad nauseum. 

While you are doing this, there is someone constantly piping up whining about the other side not playing fair or using a wallhack to defend themselves against your change.  Tragically, you later learn that the opposing team is made up entirely of bots.

Quake

The Quake model is pure joy.  You load up your rocket launcher with as many changes as you can before someone spots you and snipes you with a rail gun, plunge into combat and release change hell fury upon your coworkers, implementing explosive changes with wild abandon for about... 36 seconds.  Then you get killed by the BFG from the executive staff and you respawn... in another company.