You’re packin’ a mean piece o’ steel, Mister.
I know when you read the title of this post, you thought, “Oh here he goes again!”
And on a normal day you’d be right.
I would absolutely be talking about me.
Heaping mounds upon mounds of praise on myself, crowing about how great I am at everything I do, and how the world hangs on my every word.
But today, not so much.
You see, today I’m going to heap praise on someone whom I consider a professional gangsta.
Who, I might add, bullied me into even writing this post.
Listen to me when I talk, y’all.
G.A.N.G.S.T.A.
Her name is Dianne Ramlochan.
And she’s not to be trifled with.
In the almost two years that I’ve known her, she has impressed me as one singularly bent on getting her way.
It’s her way or the highway.
Perhaps it’s the only child thing.
Who knows.
But whatever Dianne wants, Dianne gets.
Case in point, I don’t usually “friend” co-workers and professional colleagues on Facebook.
I like to keep my virtual personal world separated from my real professional one. Ya’ dig?
We can be LinkedIn, and you may get a trickle of the virtual real me from the incomprehensibly-difficult-to-disconnect Facebook/LinkedIn nexus.
Can someone pleeeeaaassssseee tell me how to decouple this bullshit?
But by and large, you’re not peepin’ my personal shit online unless you’re digging.
Somehow, though, Ms. Ramlochan managed to Jedi mind trick me into waiving that work-professional life separation.
Don’t you know I friended this heifer?
And she’s following me on Twitter.
She famously quips about how if ever she can’t reach me at my desk via landline, email, mobile phone or text, she’ll “tweet” me.
Tweet me?
How are you going to be tweeting your project manager?
Have you ever heard of anything so ludicrous?
But that’s this chick.
To her credit, when I met her, she had just been hired to the team of one of the illest executive dudes I’ve come across to date.
No nonsense Anthony McLoughlin.
This dude was like Miles Finch from Elf – except a lil’ taller.
Point was, you didn’t eff with Anthony.
If you did, it was your ass.
And D worked for this dude.
Trial by fire is all I can say.
But then Anthony left for the West Coast, and Ms. Ramlochan inherited his fiefdom of projects, vendors and responsibilities.
And turned us all into her vassals.
What it felt like to work for Dianne.
Overnight, we went from watching Dianne do all Anthony’s dirty work, to having to do Dianne’s dirty work.
I still get cold chills thinking about the day Dianne took over…
Homegirl is relentless.
RELENTLESS.
She had one word you never wanted to see come across your email.
“Unacceptable.”
That’s all she’d say.
Unacceptable this.
Unacceptable that.
Unacceptable the other.
Unacceptable, and cats would gets to steppin’!
Chills.
But we worked it out.
And in the process, she pushed through a few apps, next gen mobile web, iPad kiosk update, a couple of mobile web and app-specific pilots, and a tablet web project.
She had help, of course (=your’s truly), but it all went down under her watchful eye.
And now, she’s leaving the nest – where she truly learned to abuse fly – to new shores.
Those of Saks Fifth Avenue – heaven protect you (said in a whisper).
To leave a wake of psychologically traumatized victims forge new trails.
Anywho, on the last day of our professional lives together, I bid her adieu in the best way I know how.
Memorialized in my blog.
There, D. I’ve made you famous.
PS Congratulations on your new job!
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Stephen Chukumba 