introspectiveH

It's a late day at the office and it's your turn to pick up dinner tonight for the family. Damn, it's already 6pm and you can hear your kid's stomachs growling 15 miles away. You were supposed to be at home with dinner on the table no later than 6:30pm. You are now having second thoughts about staying at the office to finish up those last few emails. With no time to go to the grocery, you stop by the first nice restaurant you see. Ahhh, this looks like a good one…a nice fine dining facility that you read about last week in the neighborhood section of your local newspaper. You don't cook much yourself, but you sure do know how to enjoy a nice meal.

Being in a hurry, you run into the restaurant and tell the hostess that you need the best meatloaf dinner that they have. Despite your rushed and somewhat rude tone, she politely tells you that the restaurant is usually dine-in only, but she will go get the manager.

As the manager approaches, you again tell him in the same demanding tone, "Hey, I am in a hurry here and it is imperative for me to get some kind of dinner for my family as soon as possible." "Well sir, I'm sorry but this is a 4 star, dine-in only restaurant", he replies. After much pleading and haggling, he agrees that he will make an exception and get the meal for you. You are ecstatic, until you hear him say that it should be ready in about 30 minutes. You look down at your watch and it now reads 6:30. Oh no! You are supposed to be home at this very moment, and here is this stubborn manager telling you that it is going to be 30 minutes more just to get your food. It's still a 25 minute drive from the house. What a fine predicament you have gotten yourself into. If only the manager could understand how important this is to you.

"That's unacceptable!", you exclaim to the manager as he is walking back to the kitchen. After arguing back and forth, you both realize that another 10 minutes has passed and he hasn't even put the order in yet. "OK, OK", he admits, "I'm not really a chef and the 30 minutes was just an estimate based on my best guess. I now see how important this is to you so I will tell the chef to have this ready for you in the next 5 minutes." Now that's more like it; you had to push your weight around a little and convince the manager how much of a big shot you were in the community, but in the end you will be the hero. You call your wife and tell her that you got caught up in the office, but you will be there absolutely no later than 30 minutes. That gives you 5 minutes to get your meal, 20 minutes to get home if you speed, and a 5 minute cushion to pay for your meal, get to the car, etc. Everything is going to be great. Yes, you will be 40 minutes late, but in the end the family will praise you because of your fine bargaining skills that led to their fantastic meal.

In the meantime, the manager walks back to the head chef and tells him that he needs the finest meatloaf dinner that they offer. The chef tells him no problem, and asks him to put the order in the queue with the rest of the orders. The manager proceeds to tell the chef that this is of utmost priority and all the other orders will have to wait. "But what about the people who have been waiting for their food?", the chef asks. The manager answers impatiently, "just don't worry about them for now, this order is for a very important customer." The now disgruntled chef just murmurs under his breath as he turns and walks towards the refrigerator to get the meatloaf. "Oh yeah by the way," says the manager, "this needs to be done in 10 minutes." The manager knows that he agreed to 5 minutes, but he knows that is totally unreasonable but 10 should give the chef plenty of time. The chef is in total shock. "What!?! I have to cook this meat at 400 degrees for 25 minutes at the very least", he says. The manager responds with the obvious solution, "well, then cook it at 800 degrees for 10 minutes!" The red faced chef is now getting very impatient, "Look dude, first of all the oven only goes to 600 degrees, and second that will taste like pure crap. It will be burnt to a crisp on the outside and raw in the middle." Now the chef is starting to cross the line; who is he to tell the manager how to run this operation? "Look, I don't care what it tastes like, all I know is that it needs to be done in 10 minutes, so just DO IT!", exclaims the manager as he storms out the door.

The disgruntled chef pegs the oven temperature all the way to the max, throws the meatloaf in, and sets the timer for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, the chef wraps up the burnt remnants of what may have been a fine meal under different circumstances. "This is despicable and embarrassing", he thinks to himself as he hand over the food to the manager. The manager runs it out to you, and you are on your way. Even though you gave yourself a 5 minute cushion, somehow you have lost an extra 10 minutes that are unaccounted for. Oh well, at least the food is on the way; better late than never.
You rush into the house as you pass by the sunken in faces of your little ones and the "you aren't getting any tonight" face of your wife. You know it will be OK though, as soon as they get a glance at the feast that you have for them. You put it down on the table and begin to unwrap it. The anticipation in the air is thick. The family has been sitting at the table waiting for this moment for an hour. As you unwrap the meal, the stench of burnt meat immediately fills the air. "What the heck is that supposed to be?", your wife shrieks. "It's dinner", you reply. As you try to carve the meat, your attempts are futile. It's as useless as trying to cut down a redwood tree with a spork. You see the disappointment in your wife's eyes as she begins making P&B sandwiches for the kids. She quietly tells you, "I'm not sure what is worse, the burnt meatloaf or the fact that I asked you to bring home chicken."
Man what a disaster. This was a terrible night; life just isn't fair sometimes. All you know is that you tried your best, but it seems like nobody understands. First thing in the morning, you are determined to call the restaurant and complain about the obviously incompetent chef. You vow that from now on you will just go to McDonald's. Yeah, the food is sub par at best and is very unhealthy, but dammit at least they are fast and you know what you are getting. Oh well, bedtime for now; maybe tomorrow will be better.

When you get back into the office the next day, you start your daily routine with a nice cup of coffee while reading your email. Hopefully today will be better than yesterday. You jot down a reminder on a sticky note to remember to call the restaurant and have this stupid chef's head on a platter. The thought of yelling at him brings you a little joy. Oh well, time to get back to the grind…

As you are reading your email, you are abruptly interrupted with an instant message marked urgent. It is from your manager. The IM goes down like this:

PHB: "John, our deadline for project newshinyobject has been moved up."

JDoe: "What?!? We haven't even finalized requirements yet! Not to mention, we are still trying to finish up with project nolongeruseful."

PHB: "I don't care! Don't worry about any other projects. You don't understand how important this is. Just do it!"

JDoe: "Fine, you are the boss. How much time do I have?"

PHB: "I told the users that we would have a working prototype for them no later than next week. This is a great opportunity and I know I can count on you. Good luck!"

WTF! Is this guy out of his freakin' mind? He doesn't even understand what it is that you do, yet he has the audacity to tell you how long it's going to take? Has everyone in this cruel world gone insane? What an ignorant, arrogant prick! Oh well, that's life in corporate America, so the project must go on. "Hmmm, now where did I put the email addresses of those stupid developers?"

-ewH

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 16th, 2007 at 12:39 am and is filed under office space. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.