In the Afternoon

Well, I feel better. I got to yell at someone about our security environment, and how we manage it. Well, okay, it wasn't actually yelling so much as speaking firmly and emphatically and at length, and there was more than a little 'It isn't (all) my FAULT, darn it!' mixed in there, but I did get to do it. I boogied out of work as quickly as I could, lest they call back with some more angst-inducing 'grams. I'm sure it'll be there, waiting for me, tomorrow, and I'm sure I'll feel guilty and get pissed off and all, but as for right now: I feel better.

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I was listening to an NPR article yesterday about why Daimler Benz and Chrysler are about to go their separate ways (too bad: I'm not, and likely never will be, a Benz buyer, but I did like the ads where they tried to make Herr Doktor Z seem like the quizzical prototype for the doctor in Back to the Future, instead of the hard driving, hard-nosed technocrat that he probably is). One of the points that they made was quite good, in that they said that the systems of one company couldn't be integrated into those of the other because Benz didn't 'want to dilute the DNA of the parent company'. I liked that image a lot. I've heard it before, in roughly the same circumstances, though about twenty years ago, but its potent. You can talk all you want about synergies and 'we're a car company, they're a car company, we should mesh just fine', but if you don't take the culture into account, which means not just the nuts and bolts (do you really want to pop the hood on your new Benz and find the same engine as in your Chrysler 300?) but the way that they work, the way that they 'see themselves' (a car guy in Detroit is not necessarily the same as a car guy in Stuttgart), then you're in danger city. Its not a guaranteed show-stopper, but a warning flag? Oh yeah. Too bad this kind of 'well of COURSE this marriage was doomed' analysis wasn't done before the wedding, of course.