Too long for a tweet, to short for proper blog. Here goes:
On Gillespie
Yes, you woke up the next day, and Billy Clyde Gillespie is really gone. He’s trying to “win” the breakup, showing the world his smiling public face, but make no mistake–you hurt him. You took him right off the turnip truck, threw him in front of the most rabid fan base this side of Notre Dame football, and now he’ll be laughing all the way to the bank as he deposits $6 million. I’m no lawyer, but I think that’s what that “Memorandum of Understanding” implies.
I hate this state sometimes. We generate illiterate sheeple via our public education system, we’re closing down higher education programs left and right, and we have to pay someone $6 million TO LEAVE. Brilliant!
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On Corporate Jargon
My wife hates corporate jargon. And general wordiness. And fuzzy-logical things. I laid this gem on her last night:
Plans are useless, planning is essential – Dwight D. Eisenhower
Which she rejected as corporate junk intuitively (a paradox, basically). I told her it was a military axiom (though I improperly attributed it to Napoleon, who said something similar: “Screw the plan, march toward the sound of the battle!”)
She took this as an assertion that I found plans pointless. We discussed further, and agreed that plans aren’t pointless, but if something occurs that keeps plans from working you have to re-plan. I restated it this way: If something impacts the critical-path, you must adjust the schedule.
I thought she was going to retch. She HATES when we corporate a-holes take simple enough concepts and put buzzwords around them. “Critical Path?!” she exclaimed, “A 4 year old could figure out that concept. Why give it some nonsense name?”
Because it sounds sexy in a meeting, love. Another, particularly phallic one: “Long pole”
Ah, Project Management, how I love/hate you so.