This book was conceived in one of thousands of anonymous cubicles on an HP campus in Singapore. It is chiefly satire, wry humor, whimsy, with a twist of true fact all rolled into a delightful yarn about the revered HP way vs the Carly Way, a reference to Carly Fiorina, HP's CEO from 1999 to 2005.Some found those years challenging. Others rolled with the punches and thrived well. Some fell along the wayside. Whatever the dynamic, it was about change, and not always in a good way. Inherently, the HP Way was incompatible with the Carly Way. Hence, the parting of ways in 2005! But, during the marriage of Ways, there is room for the comic, and the bizarre. And the writer has seized the moment to translate this into a memoir of sorts. As with all satire, the characters are purely fictitious, and all associations to real life are purely coincidental. This is a unique story in the voice of the HP employee. The grunt. One of many widgets on the motherboard.. It is the twist in the tale and delightful yarn, from the freshest point of view, that from the bottom up.Many know of Carly Fiorina. Many know of HP and some know of the revered "HP Way". Some know and few are able or desire or wish to tell of what it was like working under Carly during her short five year run of Hewlett Packard Company. The business world has dissected her effectiveness, ridiculed her decisions and white papers have been written about what one should NOT do when managing a Fortune 20 company. None have expounded on what life was like at the grassroots level at HP between 1999 and 2005.It was chaotic. It was highly political. Nuts and bolts appeared to fly as HP employees muttered under their breath that they were being asked to reassemble the HP plane in mid-air, an apt analogy used by many to describe the plight they felt they were in. For some, it was cataclysmic especially if one was a child of the HP Way. For the newbie to the HP Way, like the author, it was like having a whiff of something good and then having it snuffed out so quickly before it all settled into the hard reality of the Carly Way.With a dash of fiction, some facts, an exciting flair for observation, and some creative license, this book relives and recreates the corporate realities of the Carly Way as it translated and floated down to the employees at all levels at HP over those years. A satire of corporate life which threatens to be a satire on the world at large as Carly Fiorina, while deactivated at HP in 2005, has reactivated to be a force to be reckoned with at the highest levels of government in the United States.What was originally a humorous satire is now over-cast with dire predictions of what it would be like to have California, which were inches away from electing Carly as Senator in November 2010, run in the Carly-fornia Way?The insights into what life was like at HP circa 2000 gives compelling insight into what life could be like if Carly should once again take reins over some part of the government of the United States.While largely pure satire, some elements of truth in this book might bristle with those of us who dare to imagine the sheer numbers of people affected by the pure force of chaos, drama, glamor, slickness, malevolence and sadness which was HP during the years 1999 to 2005.California, U.S.A, here she comes!
About the Author: BRIEF BIOGRAPHY B.A (Honors) English, University of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 1980 News Journalist, The Straits Times, Singapore's national daily newspaper, 1980 - 1982 Features Contributor, Her World, Singapore's #1 women's magazine, and The Sunday Times, Singapore. Public Relations Executive, Burson Marsteller, Asia Pacific Senior Consultant, Gibson Public Relations, Asia Pacific Executive Director, LK&YCommunications, Singapore Group Manager/Account Director, Shandwick plc Regional Marcom Manager, Digital Equipment Asia Pacific Marketing Section Manager, Hewlett Packard Asia Pacific 1998 -2001 Director, Worldwide Marketing, Hewlett Packard Company, 2002 - 2005