A Real Life Milton Waddams: Bearing Witness

Milton Waddams-ed.  v.  to have one’s job responsibilities and job slowly and systematically taken away from you without one noticing or acting.  

We’ve all seen Office Space.  This is a true story of a very real Milton Waddams-ing, but without the happy ending.  Hold on to your staplers, kids.

At one of my former places of employment, we had a Director.  We’ll call her Melinda. She was in charge of different events that were put on throughout the year, namely two large events, one really big and one suburban.

The organization at the company was such that there was the Big Boss, then a few directors, then associate directors and so forth and so on.  She was, given that structure, considerably senior in the organization.

As I mentioned, her main duties were two large events throughout the year.  Nice woman, Melinda.  Sweet and dumb as a stump, but a bit of a worker and knew how to get people to do a lot for her.  Other than one event failure in three years, she generally met and exceeded the requirements of her job.  She wasn’t, as was the office culture, embroiled in any of the nonsense and avoided gossip.  She was generally innocuous.  Until it was time to throw someone under the bus.

The Big Boss, who will surely be the topic of columns in the future, had made a habit of throwing people under the bus to avoid too many glances in her direction.  She couldn’t lead a fish to water, but she was in charge of our company and whenever it became evident that under her leadership we were failing MISERABLY, she predictably found a charge to go after, build a case against and fire. 

NBC Drama: The Blame Game

Seen on Twitter earlier: 

zuck (v): To rise to power despite utter ineptitude at every turn; to fail upwards

First off, let me state that I "stand with Coco" on this issue.  I think NBC mucked everything up by even thinking of putting Leno on at 10.  It reeked of frugality and lacked all creativity and vision; why pay for a quality new television show (that you could potentially syndicate into the ether a la Law & Orders 1, 2, 3, & 4) when you can throw up an incredibly cheap talk show?  (Sidebar: Jeff Goldblum needs to be banned from acting under the threat of death.)  Most important?  Conan's funnier.  The End. 


That being said, I think it warrants mentioning that Leno?  Was never into any of this.  He was perfectly content helming The Tonight Show, regularly beating Letterman in the ratings. Unfortunately for him, NBC didn't want to lose Conan.  But the fact remains that Leno was never behind any of the moves that were made, and, in light of all that, the requisite anger and frustration should be directed where it belongs.  To the top.  Namely, NBC Universal Chief Executive, Jeff Zucker.


I understand he was promoted based on his work on The Today Show.  The Today Show that now runs from 6am to 3pm.  Daily.  The same show that features an hour with Hoda Kotb and Kathie Lee Gifford, otherwise known as the most painful hour on television (not counting Fox News).  And what exactly did Jeff bring to The Today Show?  Concerts?  My god, that's revolutionary!  Musicians?  Playing music?  On MORNING TELEVISION.  Zucker transformed The Today Show from a topical morning show to one where Balloon Guy gets six feature segments an hour.  Now, while there, he certainly brought the ratings, so we'll give him that.  But since taking over NBC, other than expanding many of their cable Networks, what has Zucker done other than drive NBC to last in the ratings?  The Leno/Conan Debacle of 2010 seems to me just a final straw in a long list of failures that will likely ensure he reamain at the top for ten to fifteen more years.  Clearly.