I minored in theater in college. One of those "On Ice" skating extravaganzas used the city where I went as the dress rehearsal for their big tour for the year. One year they were doing a co-branded show with a well known toy company and my professor got to design the makeup for the lead.* He'd do the makeup and then bring the skater out and show it to representatives from the show and the toy company and they'd critique it. This went on for hours and finally they got to a point where they were almost there. Both sides wanted minor tweaks. So they went back into the makeup room. "What do we do now?" The skater asked. "Now, we wait," said my prof. They went outside, had a smoke. Watched some TV, and went back out. "How does it look now?" He asked the suits. "Perfect!" *At least that's what he told us. Believe it or don't, it's still a good story.
Ya know, just when you think the world isn't absurd enough, you take a week's vacation, and when you come back - the fucking short plan is STILL being tweaked! The meeting isn't until next week, apparently, and every manager and his parakeet have had a go at adding to this thing. I got yet another set of changes today. Ya wouldn't think there was anything left to fiddle with after a whole fucking MONTH. These people astound me.
^ Maybe you should just send Scott Adams a link to this thread, so you don't have to bother writing it all up again. This is the kind of stuff he loves to deride just as fully as it deserves (and that's pretty fully).
I just saw the "long plan" - at least the names fit now. The short plan has been trimmed down to 80 charts, and the long plan is... 465 charts. I NEVER want to be a guy who needs to sit thru a meeting with 465 financial charts.
Okayyyy, six weeks later, and it was all finally printed and shipped out to HQ today, after, yes, one more last-minute update today. WHEW!! (Maybe I shouldn't get too comfortable. The meeting still isn't till Wednesday)
of course, this also means that they can start coming up with a NEW project with the short plan and long plan for you to do
Yeah, they redid it over the weekend, necessitating a full reprint (108 pages, 40 copies) first thing this morning, for a 10AM pickup. And even AFTER the driver left with the books, they bigwigs were still making changes. I guess we'll have to FedEx them to the meeting! Then the big "dry run" meeting tomorrow, which, I'm told, will generate MORE changes for the - dare I say it - final. If ya'll don't hear from me again, it's either because of an anuerism, or I'm in jail.
