I have to say - there are a LOT of people in CSCO that don't add value. I've run into three (yes, three) separate groups in the last 2 weeks that are full of these people. They are the sort of people that:
1) Launch big, new, impressive sounding projects (with no budget and headcount)
2) Assign all the deliverables to people already doing 120% (that would be me and my colleagues)
3) Sign you up for outbound marketing activities (presentations, conferences, etc) without even asking you. First you hear of it is a calendar entry from somebody you don't know to present to 200 people on this date.
4) Although this is "their project" they give NO INPUT. No direction. No riding instructions. If you ask them what message do they want to put out there, they call a meeting with 5 alpha-type directors who all talk over the top of each other about nothing. You get no written feedback from reviews (no tracks, see!)
5) You have to struggle through mindless bureaucracy to get something push/approved, because nobody will approve anything, but they will (verbally) tell you "what's needed" in flowery language that nobody can understand "we need to make this content more relevant to the innovation strategy, defining the use cases in ways that the account teams can leverage for execution" WTF?
6) You finally get ready to ship this monstrosity - which you've had to create for yourself in spite of:
a) expensive Corp Marketing having a fleet of directors and BDMs that are supposed to be defining the strategy for their day job, but leave you to decide and write it; and
b) they have extensive budget to have people write THEIR slides for themselves, but leave us poor peons to struggle designing our own (words are out, pictures in - and we aren't graphic designers)
7) at the LAST MINUTE, as the envelope is leaving the building, about 5 directors will stand up and point to "issues" with what you've done. Strategy isn't aligned with corporate messaging. Too much technical content. Not enough technical content (from the same guy at the same time). Not relevant to account teams. etc etc etc. So that if ANY criticism comes back, they can say "yeah, we highlighted that, but..."
8) and when it hits the ground, and the field teams love it, the customers lap it up, you'll get a blog entry from some VP saying what a great job the director did on their recently completed "project"
The company is full of people like that, and we wouldn't miss any of them. I can give you a list of names for the next culling.