my friend "Joe" wrote this email today, I though it was a good little rant:
(some minor editing for publication... you can figure it out)

...well, you know how the Republicans are being stubborn, then turning around and accusing Obama of not being bipartisan, like he promised, when Obama has bent over backwards to be bipartisan, but if the Republicans actually acknowledge this it means Obama looks good, and they don't want that.

This is an example of what I call "failure management," which means that failure is an acceptable result of an undertaking, because failure would mean that your preconceived notions, whether fair or unfair, are correct. This usually manifests itself in subtle ways, and rarely is an entirely cognizant act by the parties involved, largely because people are unaware of the dissonance of their actions, wether this is due to biases, demagoguery, or lack of intellect.

"Failure Management" is how I would describe [redacted] upper management and their approach to tech upgrades, and specifically Fieldbooks/Civil 3D. Remember, these guys are hard-core traditionalists, and they want nothing more than to cling to their plumbbobs and have it proven that all this new-fangled techno-crap and the paradigm shift that comes with it is not a panacea. Unfortunately, the group-think of an organization like [redacted], where dissent is discouraged, causes a philosophical/organizational trickle-down effect to mid and lower-level managers like [redacted] and [redacted].

I was told, when [redacted] laid me off, that I "wasn't 'buying in' to the technology," which stunned me like a right hook, and I sharply rebuked. This idea was floated by someone, somewhere... I was open and abrupt in my criticism and dissatisfaction of the fieldbook system as I was working on it, and for the management of [redacted] to lack the wisdom to understand what I was attempting to accomplish is troubling. I know people in the tech industry, who's job it is to tear a system apart, expose all the warts and flaws, so it can be built into something better. I had only started down the long road towards this with fieldbooks, and I had many miles to travel.

Let me say that in my limited communication with him, I have deduced that [redacted] could be an invaluable asset to this Civil 3D issue. I think that [redacted] is desperately in need of "outside influence" and their own denial of this serves as proof to me.

so, good luck around there... feel free to call on me anytime...