A new career in a new town

Well, I say "new career" but really it's the same thing: Oracle development. I'm working on some complex data matching routines for a data warehouse. But it is new, because I'm a contractor.

Going freelance has been a big step, as I was with Logica for over seventeen years. Actually, the company I joined was CMG, which through a chain of mergers, acquisitions and re-brandings became CMG Admiral, LogicaCMG, Logica and is now part of CGI. Contracting is something I have been considering for a while years but the actual decision almost took me by surprise. It's two weeks now, and I'm still enjoying it.

The "new town" part of the title is not quite accurate either, as Croydon is a town with a long and venerable history. But it's not a place I had been to before, although I have driven through it. This is not a crack at Croydon, it's just that sort of place; Wikipedia describes it as "a natural transport corridor between London and England's south coast".

Croydon is a bit odd, comprising zones of office blocks, shopping malls, car parks and entertainment complexes delineated by dual carriage ways and fly-overs. For me its chief virtue is a shortish commute. My last engagement for Logica entailed working away from home. After several months of living in a hotel room it's just nice to come back the family every evening.

Openness: CMG's unsecret sauce

The CMG Wake last Friday was a lot of fun. Estimates have placed attendance at around the 700 mark, which made the pub extremely crowded and rather noisy.

Whilst queuing at the bar I got talking to someone who left the company in 1987. He put his finger on the unique thing about CMG. He now lectures in Business Studies and cites CMG to his students as an example of openness in business. In CMG everything was open: the personal files hung in open cabinets in the office. You could read anyone's file - from their job application form to their latest staff appraisal. Yes, including salary.

That's the bit which gets people. When Brian Behlendorf talked about introducing open source principles in general working practices at OOW2K6 one of the questions afterwards was whether such openness, if taken to its logical extreme, would result in everybody knowing how much everybody else earns.

Well, why not? Partly it's just embarrassment - many people would rather discuss their medical conditions or their bedroom fantasies than their pay-packet. But the main objection seems to be "I wouldn't want my colleagues to know how much I earn". The objectors are presuming that they earn more than their co-workers. I think some of those people would be very interested to discover that all their colleagues get paid more than them. And they'd want to know why.

The accepted wisdom in CMG was that open salaries promoted fairness: the management couldn't play favourites because anybody could ask them "How come Joe Soap gets paid 10K more than me?" and have to provide an answer. In practice there were probably all sorts of anomalies - especially in pay rates across different divisions - but it felt fair. I know people who work in law firms and finances houses where discussing your salary with co-workers is a disciplinary offence. Most companies aren't that fierce but very few companies are as open as CMG was.

I don't think openness was the only thing which made CMG special, but it was one of the reasons why so many people feel affection for the company, even if they did stop working for it over twenty years ago. Although I'm sure the promise of a free bar helped too.

Update: 06-MAR-2008

Currently Dilbert has an amusing take on payroll secrecy. I think this link will eventually break, so get it whilst it's hot :D

Farewell to CMG

Thirteen years ago tomorrow I joined a consultancy company called CMG. When I went for the interview I'd never heard of it but the interview process impressed me. Fortunately things worked out well and I've been with the company ever since. In 2003 we merged with another consultancy, Logica, to become LogicaCMG. Until Wednesday, when the name was reverted back to Logica.

This makes sense in many ways. More people had heard of Logica than had heard of CMG, although the separate companies had been of equivalent size. And it was a bit of a mouthful - even I had taken to calling us plain Logica. But it is a sad moment. CMG was a special sort of company; people define themselves by the fact that they worked for CMG, even if they left the company years ago. And that's why several hundred ex-CMGers - because we are all ex-CMGers now - are descending on a pub in London to mark the passing of the name in the traditional CMG style. Cheers!